SBA 7(a) Real Estate Lending Data: Methodology, Sources & Limitations

Sources

U.S. Small Business Administration, 7(a) & 504 FOIA loan-level data, published at data.sba.gov/dataset/7a-504-foia. File used: FOIA_7a_FY2020_Present_asof_260630.csv, one record per loan, as of June 30, 2026 (SBA last modified the file July 21, 2026; retrieved October 23, 2026). SHA-256: 6c1e9132b5141a19f82bdc8ccafb86c9a01662461cad41ddb36a3cf409d8a4fe. SBA's data dictionary for the file is published on the same page. Federal government data; public domain.

Field definitions (FOIA field → what it means)

GrossApproval

The loan amount approved. Every dollar figure on the page is a sum or median of this field.

SBAGuaranteedApproval

The part of the approved amount SBA guarantees. The SBA-guaranteed share is this field's total over GrossApproval's.

ApprovalDate

The date SBA approved the loan. The trailing window is read on this field.

ApprovalFY

The SBA fiscal year of approval (October through September). The fiscal-year trend and the outcome vintages are read on this field.

TermInMonths

The loan's term in months. A term of 240 months (20 years) or more makes a loan real-estate-term.

ProjectState

The state where the project is. Each state's figures are loans for projects in that state.

ProjectCounty

The county where the project is (the county tables).

BankName

The lender's name as SBA reports it. Where one lender appears under more than one name, the name it uses most often is shown.

BankState

The lender's address state as SBA reports it: the home-office state.

BankFDICNumber

The lender's FDIC certificate number, which groups a bank's loans into one lender. A credit union is grouped by its NCUA number (BankNCUANumber), and a lender with neither by its name.

NaicsDescription

The description of the borrower's NAICS industry code (the industry tables).

FixedorVariableInterestInd

F for a fixed rate, V for a variable rate. The page publishes only the share marked V; no rate figure from the file is used.

LoanStatus

The loan's status on the file date. CANCLD (cancelled) loans are excluded; CHGOFF is charged off; P I F is paid in full. Loans still outstanding carry a status that does not separate current loans from delinquent ones.

Method

• Universe: every SBA 7(a) loan in the file, excluding loans SBA lists as cancelled (LoanStatus = CANCLD).
• Real-estate-term loans: TermInMonths of 240 or more (20 years or longer). SBA caps real estate at 25 years and equipment or working capital at 10 to 15, so a term of 20 years or more means the loan includes real estate.
• Geography: ProjectState and ProjectCounty: where the project is, not where the borrower or the lender is.
• Window: the trailing 12 months ending on the file's as-of date (July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026 in this edition). The fiscal-year trend uses SBA fiscal years, which run October through September; FY2026 is partial.
• Lenders: grouped by FDIC certificate number, else NCUA number, else name. "Home-office state" is the lender address state SBA reports, so national banks with New Jersey and Florida branches count as out of state. Each state's table shows the 15 most active lenders by number of loans, ties ordered by dollar volume; the CSV lists every lender. The concentration figure is the share of loans made by the 10 most active.
• Industries: the ten NAICS descriptions with the most real-estate-term loans in each state.
• Outcomes: loan status as of the file date. "Charged off to date" counts CHGOFF. Recent vintages haven't had time to fail, so the comparison uses loans approved in FY2020 through FY2022, real-estate-term against every shorter-term 7(a) loan from the same years in the same state.
• Privacy: aggregates only. No borrower names or addresses are published. County and industry cells with fewer than three loans are suppressed.
• Reproduce: python3 scripts/sba_7a_real_estate.py <FOIA csv> data/sba-7a <retrieved-date>

Known limitations

1. SBA's data has no use-of-proceeds field. The 20-year test captures purchases, refinances, construction, and business acquisitions that include the building, and it misses real estate loans written for less than 20 years.
2. Home-office state is the address SBA reports for the lender. A national bank with branches in the state counts as out of state, and an SBA specialist that operates nationally counts where its home office is.
3. Loans still outstanding may be current or delinquent; SBA's file doesn't separate them. Only charge-offs and payoffs are visible, and recent vintages haven't had time to fail.
4. Dollar figures are approved amounts, not amounts disbursed or outstanding.
5. FY2026 is partial: it runs through June 30, 2026, and the page compares it with the same months of the prior fiscal year.
6. A lender reported under different names without an FDIC or NCUA number is counted once per name.

Update cadence

SBA posts a new 7(a) loan-level file each quarter, about three weeks after the quarter ends, and this page refreshes when it does. Every figure is read from the data file, so a refresh changes the numbers and not the page. Next expected file: as of September 30, 2026, the first with all of FY2026.

Methodology FAQ