SBA Acquisition Lending by State & Lender

FY2025 at a Glance

Six Years of Acquisition Lending

FY2026 is underway: through June 30, 2026, lenders approved 4,772 acquisition loans for $5.64B, median $720k. A partial year sits outside the table so half a year never reads as a decline.

The Most Active Acquisition Lenders, FY2025

The rate column is where to start shopping, read with care. Across the 25 lenders here with a rate in the file, the average runs from 7.03% at First Financial Bank (AR) to 11.1% at Newtek Bank, National Association, a spread of 4.07 points against a median of 8.61%. Each figure is that lender's own mix of years, deal sizes and risk, not a quote anyone was given. The average across every lender ran from 5.31% in FY2021 to 10.17% in FY2024 as prime rose, so a lender whose book is mostly recent reads dear for that reason alone. Treat the column as a reason to shop the shortlist, not as a price. On a million-dollar loan, a point is real money every month for the 10 years a business-only 7(a) runs.

There is no days-to-fund column, though other sites rank lenders on one. The file dates SBA's approval and the first disbursement, and across 32,031 dated purchase loans the median gap is 18 days, which is mostly the closing after approval rather than the lender's speed. About 26% of those dates are month-end stamps, and among the 24 busiest lenders the share runs from 12% to 50%, so a ranking on it would mostly measure how each bank reports.

Linked lenders have full reviews in the directory; the Lenders tool holds the full shelf, each row with a verified review.

By State

By Industry

Lenders develop appetites. A bank that has written two hundred restaurant acquisition loans can say yes faster than one writing its first. A lender missing here may still quote your deal, so start with the active ones and compare what you are offered: Lenders carries the shelf in full, and SBA Acquisition Calculator puts the offers side by side. Each reviewed bank's own page carries the industries its acquisition loans landed in.

Industry counts cover FY2020 through FY2025, from the same loan-level file as the state figures above.

By Metro Area

The same purchase loans, by the metro area the business sits in: 87% of them fall in one. Type a city or a state code to read your own region's volume, its typical loan, the trade bought most and the banks writing the most. A metro appears once it drew 20 loans over FY2020 through FY2025, and each state's page lists the metros inside it.

Counties are placed in metro areas by the Census Bureau's delineation. A loan whose county lies outside every metro area, or that was filed under one of Connecticut's former counties, is counted in its state and not here.

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