How the figures are built

Every calculator calls one engine of pure functions, fed by one parameter file of fees, rules and rates. No amount is typed into a page. Each rule was read by hand in the official text named in the file, on November 8, 2026. Updates are made by hand when SBA publishes a new notice or loan file, or when prime changes; nothing is fetched automatically and no schedule is promised.

Guaranty fee

The guaranteed portion is 85% of loans up to $150,000, 75% above, 50% for SBA Express, capped at $3,750,000. The FY 2027 rate is applied to it by loan size, with 3.75% on the part of the guaranteed amount above $1,000,000; 0.25% for terms of 12 months or less; zero for the relief groups up to $700,000 and for veteran-owned Express loans. Checked against the two examples of the SOP fee chart: $1,700 on $100,000 and $138,125 on $5,000,000. SBA Information Notice 5000-881797: 7(a) Fees Effective October 1, 2026 for Fiscal Year 2027 (published September 3, 2026).

Rate caps and payments

Variable cap = prime of the first business day of the month plus 6.5, 6.0, 4.5, 3.0 points by size step; fixed cap = prime plus 8, 7, 6, 5 points (87 FR 46883). Prime: 7.00% on November 2, 2026, H.15. Payments are level monthly installments at the rate typed, held for the whole term, with the guaranty fee added to the principal. The effective rate is the rate that equates the amount received with the payments, so fees paid or financed are counted.

504 and microloans

The 504 debenture is 40% of the project (15% or 20% contribution cases lower it), plus SBA, funding and processing fees, closing costs and the underwriters’ fee, grossed up and rounded to the next thousand as in the SOP example: net $350,000 gives a gross debenture of $362,000. Microloan ceilings follow 13 CFR 120.707 and 120.706, from the 5-year Treasury of November 2, 2026, 4.70%.

The loan file

<a href="https://data.sba.gov/dataset/7a-504-foia" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">SBA’s 7(a) and 504 FOIA file</a> as of September 30, 2026 lists every loan SBA has guaranteed, a U.S. Government Work with no copyright. We keep the 56,130 7(a) and 6,075 504 loans approved in FY 2026 (October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026), cancelled ones included (7,602), since the rate was set at approval. Each loan is counted in the state of its project. A loan’s margin is its initial rate less the prime of the first business day of its approval month (November 2025: 7.00%; December 2025: 7.00%; January 2026: 6.75%; February 2026: 6.75%; March 2026: 6.75%; April 2026: 6.75%; May 2026: 6.75%; June 2026: 6.75%; July 2026: 6.75%; August 2026: 6.75%; September 2026: 6.75%; source: DPRIME). A loan is “at the cap” when its margin is within half a hundredth of a point of SBA’s maximum for its amount. Medians and shares are shown only for cells of 10 loans or more. A lender’s home state is the state of its address in the file. The counting script is kept with the site and can be run again on each quarterly file.

Limits

The file has no rate for 504 debentures and does not cover microloans, so those pages show the rules, not what borrowers paid. It records approvals, not applications, and the rate at approval, not later changes. Lender fees within SBA’s limits and third-party closing costs are not included anywhere. No borrower is named; only counts and medians are published.

See the editorial policy for corrections and the calculator to apply all this to a loan.