Methodology

Source

The SBA publishes loan-level FOIA data for its 7(a) and 504 programs on data.sba.gov. This site uses the 7(a) file (FY2020 to present) and the 504 file (FY2010 to present). Current data is as of September 30, 2026. The SBA fiscal year runs October 1 to September 30.

What is included

• Acquisitions: 7(a) loans whose business-age field is "Change of Ownership", approved in the three most recent fiscal years (FY2024 to FY2026), with a gross approval of $500,000 or more.
• Expansions: 504 loans approved in the same window with an SBA portion of $1,000,000 or more, excluding startups.

Loans are grouped into one company page by borrower name, state and ZIP code. Names and text are shown as the SBA reports them, with HTML entities decoded and capitalization normalized. Cancelled loans are excluded. 504 loans that are approved but not yet funded are shown with that status, since 504 loans fund after closing or construction.

What a change of ownership covers

The SBA's "Change of Ownership" category covers complete changes of ownership, partner buyouts and partial changes. Loan size is not the purchase price: a loan may fund only part of a purchase, and owners often add their own cash or other financing.

How 504 loans work

A 504 loan finances real estate and long-life equipment, typically owner-occupied. A bank usually provides about 50 percent, a Certified Development Company (CDC) backed by the SBA about 40 percent, and the owner about 10 percent. The SBA data reports the SBA portion and the bank portion. Estimated project size on this site is (SBA portion + bank portion) divided by 0.9, and is labeled as an estimate.

Limits

Approval does not mean full disbursement, and status values reflect what the SBA reports. "Status not reported" means the SBA exempts the loan from reporting a status. Summaries on company pages are generated from the SBA fields only and may be reviewed or corrected on request.