SBA Loan

The cheapest money, if you can wait

An SBA loan carries a partial federal guarantee, which is why the rate is the lowest of anything on this page and the term the longest. It is also the most document-heavy product we offer and it takes 30 to 90 days from a complete application to money in the account. If your timeline is measured in days, look at one of the other five and come back to this when there is room to plan.

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$50,000 – $5,000,000Loan amount
10 years working capital, up to 25 years on real estateTerm
30 to 90 days from complete application to fundingFunding speed

A commercial building under offer, seen from the street

Terms

Every number on this product, in one place

Loan amount: $50,000 – $5,000,000
Cost: An interest rate, the lowest of any product on this site
Repayment: One fixed payment each month
Term: Up to 10 years for working capital, up to 25 years on real estate
Timeline: 30 to 90 days from a complete application to funding
Paperwork: Three years of tax returns, current financials, a business plan and a debt schedule

In practice

Where an advance earns back what it costs

Planned expansion, owner-occupied property, or refinancing expensive short-term debt into something sustainable.

Nothing about this product is fast, and anyone telling you otherwise has not run one.
The rate and the term together produce the lowest monthly payment of anything we write.
Personal guarantees are required from every owner holding 20 percent or more.
Real estate, business acquisition, working capital and debt refinance are all eligible uses.
We will tell you inside the first conversation whether your file is a realistic SBA candidate.

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Two small-business owners standing together behind their counter

Eligibility

Whether this is worth the rest of your morning

Time in business: 6 months or moreCounted from the day the business began trading, not the day the entity was filed.
Monthly revenue: $15,000 or moreGross deposits into the business account. Consistency across four months counts for more here than one unusually strong month.
Business bank account: RequiredIt must be open, active, and held in the trading entity’s own name — a personal account will not do.
Personal credit score: 550 or aboveWe review credit and we publish the floor so nobody wastes a week finding out. Above 550 it is one input among several, and deposit consistency is what carries the decision.
Location: United StatesWe fund entities formed and operating inside the United States. We fund in all fifty states from our office on Water Street.

Clearing all five is what gets the file read properly. It is not an offer — we turn business away every week, and would rather do it in an hour than in a fortnight. We do not fund gambling, adult entertainment, firearms dealing, cannabis at any point in the supply chain, or any activity unlawful under federal or state law.

Detail

Specific questions about the advance

How long does an SBA loan really take?

Between 30 and 90 days from the point your application is genuinely complete. Files move faster when the tax returns, the interim financials and the debt schedule all arrive together; they stall when documents trickle in over three weeks. Nobody funds an SBA loan in hours.

What disqualifies a business?

Recent bankruptcy, unresolved federal debt, delinquent taxes, or a use of proceeds the programme does not cover. Passive real estate holding and lending businesses are outside the programme entirely.

An advance is not a loan — so what is it?

No, and the distinction is legal rather than a matter of marketing. The transaction is a sale. A stated dollar amount of receivables you have not yet collected passes to us, we pay a discounted price for it today, and we recover the stated amount out of settlements as they land. Because nothing was lent, the agreement has no rate attached to it, no APR and no due date — those are features of debt, and this is not debt. Anyone selling an advance while calling it a loan either does not understand the product or is relying on you not to.

How does a factor rate work?

Multiply once and you are finished. An $80,000 advance at 1.28 means we buy $102,400 of your receivables, and the $22,400 sitting between those two figures is what the money costs you — all of it, with nothing else added anywhere. That gap does not respond to time. Deliver in six months or in eleven and it is still $22,400, which is precisely the opposite of how interest behaves on a balance you are carrying. You can work the total out on the back of an envelope before you sign, and the envelope will be right.

How much does my credit actually count for here?

The floor is 550, and we publish it rather than making you find out after you have sent four months of statements. Below 550 we cannot fund an advance and we will say so on the first call. Above it, credit is one factor among several and seldom the deciding one — the bank account decides it. We do pull credit during underwriting, so nobody should be surprised when it happens.

Other structures

If an advance is the wrong shape for this

A term loan, a revolving line, equipment paper, an SBA file or factoring may cost you considerably less. We fund all six, so there is nothing in it for us to push you toward the expensive one.