Small business lending statistics
What small businesses actually borrow, what they actually pay, and how often they actually get approved. Every figure on this page is traced to a primary dataset and dated, and the underlying aggregates are downloadable.
Federal Reserve figures are from the 2025 Small Business Credit Survey, published 3 March 2026. SBA figures are computed from SBA’s 7(a) FOIA loan-level file, snapshot 30 June 2026. Last reviewed 3 September 2026.
How many small businesses look for financing
The Federal Reserve’s Small Business Credit Survey is the largest recurring survey of US small employer firms. The 2025 wave drew 6,525 responses from firms with 1–499 employees across all 50 states and DC, fielded 3 September to 14 November 2025.
How often applicants actually get approved
Approval is not binary. The most common outcome for a small business applicant is partial funding — getting some of what was asked for, but not all.
What SBA 7(a) borrowers actually paid
Most published SBA rate figures are the regulatory maximums, not what borrowers received. These are computed from SBA’s own loan-level FOIA file: 302,513 non-cancelled 7(a) approvals, FY2020–FY2025.
| Fiscal year | Approvals | 25th pct | Median | 75th pct |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2020 | 36,483 | 5.25% | 6.00% | 7.50% |
| FY2021 | 45,329 | 4.75% | 5.50% | 6.00% |
| FY2022 | 42,246 | 5.35% | 6.00% | 7.50% |
| FY2023 | 51,747 | 9.00% | 10.25% | 11.25% |
| FY2024 | 62,617 | 10.25% | 11.25% | 11.50% |
| FY2025 | 64,091 | 9.49% | 10.25% | 10.75% |
Smaller SBA loans carry higher rates
Within a single fiscal year, the smallest 7(a) size band consistently carries a higher median rate than the largest. SBA’s own regulations permit it: the maximum spread over the base rate is 6.5 points on loans of $50,000 or less and 3.0 points above $350,000.
| Size band | Approvals | Median rate | Max spread over base |
|---|---|---|---|
| $50,000 or less | 15,255 | 10.99% | 6.5 pts |
| $50,001–$250,000 | 22,325 | 10.50% | 6.0 pts |
| $250,001–$350,000 | 5,471 | 10.25% | 4.5 pts |
| Over $350,000 | 21,040 | 9.50% | 3.0 pts |
The FY2025 spread between the smallest and largest bands is 1.49 points. Measured within each fiscal year separately, the gap runs between 0.75 and 1.5 points, and the direction holds in all six years and in 24 of 24 quarters.
A widely quoted figure puts the penalty at over two points. That version pools several years together, and pooling mixes rate environments — FY2021 medians were around 5.5% and FY2024 around 11.25%. The pooled FY2020–FY2025 gradient is about 2.75 points, roughly double the within-year figure. If you need one number, use the within-year one.
The average SBA loan is not the typical SBA loan
Published SBA loan-size figures are almost always means. The distribution is right-skewed and capped at the $5 million programme limit, so the mean sits well above the typical approval.
| Fiscal year | Approvals | Median | Mean | Mean ÷ median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2020 | 36,483 | $200,000 | $534,689 | 2.67× |
| FY2021 | 45,329 | $330,000 | $710,282 | 2.15× |
| FY2022 | 42,246 | $200,000 | $550,167 | 2.75× |
| FY2023 | 51,747 | $150,000 | $476,454 | 3.18× |
| FY2024 | 62,617 | $150,000 | $439,456 | 2.93× |
| FY2025 | 64,091 | $180,000 | $500,273 | 2.78× |
In FY2025 the median 7(a) approval was $180,000 against a mean of $500,273 — a ratio of 2.78×. The ratio has sat between 2.15× and 3.18× in every year since FY2020.
Both numbers are correct; they answer different questions. If the question is what does a typical SBA borrower get, the median is the right figure. In FY2025, 15,255 approvals — nearly a quarter of the programme by count — were for $50,000 or less.
12.9% of approved SBA 7(a) loans were never funded
Across FY2020–FY2025, 44,908 7(a) approvals — 12.9% of all approvals in the file — are recorded as cancelled and never disbursed. Analyses that count approvals rather than fundings overstate the programme by roughly that margin. Every figure on this page excludes them.
To be precise about what this is: it is a cancellation rate for approvals. It is not a decline rate, not a default rate and not a business failure rate.
How these numbers were produced
Federal Reserve figures are quoted directly from the 2026 Report on Employer Firms, which reports the 2025 Small Business Credit Survey. That survey was fielded 3 September to 14 November 2025 and yielded 6,525 responses from a nationwide convenience sample of firms with 1–499 employees. Denominators differ by question and are stated with each figure in the source report; the application-outcome figures are based on 3,654 applicants and the credit-denial figures on 1,189. It is a convenience sample, not a probability sample, and the Federal Reserve weights it to the national employer-firm population.
SBA figures are computed by Fundur from SBA’s 7(a) & 504 FOIA loan-level file, 7(a) extract, snapshot dated 30 June 2026. From 388,338 parsed rows we exclude records with a null rate, rates outside (0, 25], the partial FY2026 cohort, and cancelled approvals — leaving an analytic population of 302,513 approvals across FY2020–FY2025. Rates are the InitialInterestRate field, which is the note rate at approval. Size bands are SBA’s regulatory bands. Medians are reported rather than means because the distributions are right-skewed.
The full method, robustness checks and downloadable aggregates sit on our SBA rates and fees analysis. SBA does not retain prior snapshots of this file, so the version used here is archived.
Reuse and citation
You are welcome to reproduce any figure, chart or table on this page in noncommercial reporting, research or educational material, with attribution and a link back to this page. No permission request is needed. If you would like the underlying aggregates, the CSVs are linked in each figure caption and on the SBA analysis page.
If a figure here contradicts one you have published, we would rather you check our method than take it on trust — it is set out in full above.
Every source on this page
- Federal Reserve Banks — 2026 Report on Employer Firms: Findings from the 2025 Small Business Credit Survey · published 3 March 2026 · doi:10.55350/sbcs-20260303
- US Small Business Administration — 7(a) & 504 FOIA loan-level data · 7(a) extract, snapshot 30 June 2026
- SBA — 7(a) terms, conditions and eligibility · maximum allowable spreads by loan size
- SBA Franchise & Technical Assistance — Maximum Allowable Fixed Rate for 7(a) Loans · published monthly
- Federal Reserve Board — H.15 Selected Interest Rates · base-rate reference
- Fundur aggregate downloads — rate by fiscal year, rate by loan size, approval size by year, fixed vs variable · CSV
Fundur is a financing marketplace, not a lender. If you are trying to work out what your own business would actually be offered, the business loan rates guide explains how pricing is set, and business loan requirements covers what lenders weigh. For how SBA lending volume varies across the country, see SBA lending by state; for what a typical borrower in each industry was approved for, see SBA lending by industry. For the state-run side of federal support, the 56 SSBCI jurisdictions had reported $3.86 billion of their $8.38 billion allocation deployed at March 31, 2026 — the jurisdiction-level table is on SSBCI deployment by state.
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