How to Buy a Business With No Money

Start With the Floor

SBA 7(a) financing requires an equity injection of at least 10% of the total project cost, and lenders verify where it came from. Deal costs (diligence, legal, lender fees) ride on top, and you need runway to live on. The realistic floor is covered in how much it costs to buy a business; this page is about the structures that lower it.

What Genuinely Reduces Cash to Close

A seller note on full standby. Under current SBA rules a seller notethat takes no payments for the loan's life can count toward part of the injection; the full standby entry explains the mechanics and the SBA calculator models it.

Investor equity. Raising the injection from investors trades ownership for cash: the search fund model formalizes this, and platforms in the capital tier exist for exactly this gap.

Retirement funds via ROBS. A ROBS structure deploys your own 401(k) into the purchase without early-withdrawal penalties; it is legal, IRS-recognized, heavily compliance-bound, and it concentrates your retirement into one small business.

Buying where you work. A management buyout is the nearest thing to a real low-money path: sellers finance more for a successor they trust, and you already know the business.

Equity rollover and earnouts. A seller keeping a stake (rollover) or taking part of the price contingent on results (earnout) shrinks the check at close in exchange for shared upside or future obligations.

The Myths to Skip

One hundred percent seller financing on a good business is rare for a reason: owners with clean books and real earnings have better options. Deals that arrive with no-money-down structures attached usually price the risk in somewhere else, through an inflated price, a distressed business, or terms you will regret in a down quarter. Run any such deal through the Deal Screener before falling for the structure, and read what key-person risk and customer concentration do to a cheap-looking deal.

The Practical Path

If your capital is genuinely near zero, the highest-probability route is not a clever structure; it is time: earn and save toward the floor while building industry knowledge, or work inside a business you might one day buy. The Runway Calculator turns the target into a number, the Path Quiz maps your situation to a lane, and the 90-Day Syllabus makes the waiting productive.