The appeal comes as the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) holds its monthly meeting tomorrow (5 November).
A third of the 4,633 respondents in the FSB poll said they expected to close if the current credit crisis continues.
Nearly three-quarters (68%) of FSB members put their weight behind backing interest rate cuts, while more than half (54%) of businesses said they had experienced a drop in trade over the last two months.
With unemployment figures set to rise, around a fifth of respondents said they had already reduced staff levels, while 32% said they were considering doing so.
John Wright, national chairman of the FSB, said the results "show how serious things have become for small businesses owners".
He said the Bank of England’s MPC needed to send out the right message by cutting interest rates by 1%.
"We don’t want to head the way of the early 90s when 1,000 small businesses a week were collapsing. This can be prevented if the banks relent and release money and consumers start to spend a bit more. All this is reliant on that cut in interest rates," he added.
The FSB findings emerge as the UK's manufacturing sector contracted for the sixth month in a row.
Nearly 1.5m small businesses fear closure as FSB calls for rate cut
Nearly 1.5m small businesses in the UK may be forced to shut their doors if the current economic downturn continues, according to research from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), which this week has called for a 1% cut in interest rates.
