The 2026 Annual Report
State of SBA Lending2026
Executive summary
Five findings from the 2026 edition
- 01
Approval became a weaker signal of funding.
Roughly 1 in 5 approved SBA 7(a) loans in FY2025 never closed, up from 1 in 10 in FY2018. Lender choice had a measurable effect on both pricing and closing odds.
- 02
There is no single SBA rate.
Lender-level pricing differences remained material in FY2025, even within comparable deal size, industry, and geography.
- 03
Acquisition lending sits at the center of the SBA 7(a) market.
Business-transfer loans were a minority of deals (9.2%) but an outsized share of dollars (20.4%), concentrated in a small group of specialist lenders.
- 04
Volume rankings hide meaningful lender differences.
Close rates, pricing discipline, and hold-vs-sell behavior varied widely across the top 20 lenders. The same program runs through materially different business models.
- 05
FY2025 was one of the largest SBA lending years on record.
But FY2026 opened with a shutdown-driven backlog. The 43-day gap broke the seasonal pattern and created a single-day approval spike when the agency reopened.
Scope: SBA 7(a) and 504 programs. Fiscal year 2025 (Oct 2024–Sep 2025) with FY2014–FY2024 context. All figures from SBA public lending data. Denominators, windows, and filters are labeled inline.
Read the Report
Lending Scorecard
FY2025 closed as the second-biggest 7(a) year on record at $37.22B. FY2026 opened with a 43-day federal shutdown and a backlog of 1,116 loans on the day the agency reopened.
Borrower Playbook
Approval no longer guarantees funding. Roughly 1 in 5 approved 7(a) loans in FY2025 never closed, up from 1 in 10 in FY2018. A practical guide to the patterns that push approved deals into cancellation.
Cost of Capital
Similar borrowers on otherwise comparable deals still paid materially different prices. Rate dispersion across the top 100 lenders reached 514 bps in FY2025.
Where the Money Flowed
Acquisitions were 9.2% of FY25 deal count but 20.4% of dollars. A few specialist lenders — Live Oak, Huntington, First Internet Bank of Indiana — wrote most of them.
Who Flips Your Loan
Some lenders sell nearly every loan they originate; others retain almost everything. The choice helps explain why similar SBA loans price differently.
Lender League Table
Combined, 7(a)-only, and 504 CDC league tables. Ranked by funding rate, with median spread and size mix for 151 lenders that cleared the reporting floor.
How we counted
SBA public disclosure data. Denominators, windows, and filters labelled inline.