# SBSS score

A small-business credit score SBA lenders once screened small loans with.

It blended the business credit file with the owner's personal credit, which is the part that surprised people: a company with no borrowing history of its own was scored largely on the buyer, before anybody had read the deal. The shortcut it opened closed in January 2026 and the rulebook dropped the score entirely on October 1, 2026, so a lender now uses its own credit analysis on every file. Personal credit still feeds that analysis, which is why cleaning it up is worth doing months before you have a business under contract, not after.

In numbers: [SOP 50 10](https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/sop-50-10) 8 set the minimum acceptable SBSS at 165 for a [7(a)](https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/sba-7a) Small Loan, and a 164 did not end the application: it went to the Standard 7(a) procedures and a full credit write-up instead. Edition 8.1 deletes the screen outright, so a lender quoting a score floor today is quoting its own policy rather than the program's.

Source: https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/sbss-score
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