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: 302,404 non-cancelled 7(a) approvals with a recorded note rate, FY2020–FY2025.
| Fiscal year | Approvals | 25th pct | Median | 75th pct |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2020 | 36,462 | 5.25% | 6.00% | 7.50% |
| FY2021 | 45,304 | 4.75% | 5.50% | 6.00% |
| FY2022 | 42,235 | 5.35% | 6.00% | 7.50% |
| FY2023 | 51,740 | 9.00% | 10.25% | 11.25% |
| FY2024 | 62,598 | 10.25% | 11.25% | 11.50% |
| FY2025 | 64,065 | 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 | 15,243 | 10.99% | 6.5 pts |
| $50,001–$250,000 | 22,313 | 10.50% | 6.0 pts |
| $250,001–$350,000 | 5,471 | 10.25% | 4.5 pts |
| Over $350,000 | 21,038 | 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 | 36,469 | $200,000 | $534,870 | 2.67× |
| FY2021 | 45,335 | $330,000 | $710,309 | 2.15× |
| FY2022 | 42,271 | $200,000 | $550,460 | 2.75× |
| FY2023 | 51,740 | $150,000 | $476,493 | 3.18× |
| FY2024 | 62,599 | $150,000 | $439,565 | 2.93× |
| FY2025 | 64,070 | $180,000 | $500,442 | 2.78× |
In FY2025 the median 7(a) approval was $180,000 against a mean of $500,442 — 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, 15,243 approvals — nearly a quarter of the programme by count — were for $50,000 or less.
Those FY2025 figures cover 64,070 approvals worth $32.06 billion. SBA’s year-end count of about 77,600 FY2025 7(a) loans includes approvals that were later cancelled; Fundur excludes the 13,955 cancelled approvals (and 53 duplicate records) in SBA’s loan-level file, leaving 64,070.
12.9% of approved SBA 7(a) loans were never funded
Across FY2020–FY2025, 44,661 7(a) approvals — 12.9% of the unique 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.
22.9% of U.S. employer firms were women-owned in 2023
Two correct percentages exist for this question and they differ by about a point, because the Census Bureau reports more employer firms in total than it can classify by owner sex. Both are below, with the gap between them explained.
The Census Bureau's 2023 Annual Business Survey counts 5,934,950 employer firms in the United States. Of those, 1,356,990 were female-owned, 3,638,693 male-owned and 707,385 equally male- and female-owned.
Divide the female-owned count by every employer firm and the answer is 22.9% (22.8644%). Divide it by only those firms the survey places in one of the three ownership categories — 5,703,068 of them — and the answer is 23.8% (23.7940%).
The 231,882 firms that separate the two figures are counted in the total but carry no ownership category: publicly held companies and others the survey cannot classify by owner sex. That is a definition of the universe, not a gap in the data. Which percentage is right depends only on the question. Share of every employer firm in the country: 22.9%. Share of firms whose ownership the survey could classify: 23.8%. The figures on this page lead with the first, because the denominator is the one most readers assume.
| Rank | State | Women-owned employer firms | Share of all employer firms | Share of classifiable firms | Margin (RSE) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alaska | 4,406 | 27.2% | 29.9% | ±7.9% |
| 2 | Virginia | 37,471 | 25.3% | 26.8% | ±3.1% |
| 3 | Colorado | 35,397 | 25.2% | 26.5% | ±1.8% |
| 4 | Georgia | 46,374 | 24.6% | 25.8% | ±3.4% |
| 5 | Florida | 120,751 | 24.1% | 24.9% | ±1.4% |
| 6 | North Carolina | 43,704 | 24.1% | 25.4% | ±3.1% |
| 7 | Maryland | 25,129 | 24.0% | 25.6% | ±2.8% |
| 8 | Oregon | 21,907 | 24.0% | 25.6% | ±3.6% |
| 9 | New Mexico | 7,760 | 23.9% | 26.3% | ±8.8% |
| 10 | California | 189,543 | 23.9% | 24.8% | ±0.5% |
| 46 | North Dakota | 3,332 | 18.0% | 20.2% | ±8.4% |
| 47 | Utah | 13,705 | 17.9% | 18.9% | ±5.4% |
| 48 | Delaware | 3,989 | 17.8% | 19.8% | ±7.0% |
| 49 | New Hampshire | 4,943 | 16.8% | 18.5% | ±10.9% |
| 50 | South Dakota | 3,586 | 15.9% | 17.5% | ±7.1% |
Ranking is on the share of all employer firms. The spread across the 50 states is 11.2 percentage points, from Alaska at 27.2% to South Dakota at 15.9%, and 16 of the 50 sit above the national 22.9%. The median state is 20.8% — below the national figure, because the national share is weighted by firm count and the largest states happen to sit above the middle.
The last column is why the top of the table should be read carefully. These are survey estimates, and the relative standard error on a state's female-owned count runs from 0.5% in California to 10.9% in New Hampshire; 18 of the 50 states carry an error of 5% or more. Alaska leads the table on 4,406 firms with a ±7.9% margin, so its lead over Virginia is not a real separation. The high shares that survive the uncertainty are Colorado (±1.8%), Florida (±1.4%), Maryland (±2.8%), Virginia and North Carolina (both ±3.1%). Treat gaps of a point or two between neighbours as noise.
Two further cautions for anyone reusing the table. The state figures do not add up to the national one — the 50 states and the District of Columbia sum to 6,123,987 employer firms against a national estimate of 5,934,950, a 3.2% overshoot, because a firm operating in several states is counted in each state file but once nationally. And Kentucky is not ranked: the 2023 release returns 0 female-owned employer firms with a 0.0% margin against a state total of 62,546, which is a masked value rather than a measurement, so it is left blank in the CSV rather than published as a zero.
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 keep 7(a) approvals from FY2020–FY2025 (the partial FY2026 cohort is left out) and remove exact duplicate records and approvals recorded as cancelled — leaving 302,484 approvals, which the loan-size figures use. Rate figures also require a recorded rate in (0, 25], leaving 302,404. 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
- U.S. Census Bureau — Annual Business Survey, 2023 Company Summary (API dataset
2023/abscs), employer firms by owner sex. The women-owned figures and the state table on this page are Fundur's own analysis of that dataset, not a Census publication; the state file is available as a CSV · 2023 - 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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