Assistance program
7(a) Loan Guarantees
$1.5 Billion committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Small Business Administration, Small Business Administration
- Assistance
- Guaranteed/Insured Loans
- CFDA number
- 59.012
- What it does
- To provide guaranteed loans from lenders to eligible for profit small businesses which are unable to obtain financing in the private credit marketplace but can demonstrate an ability to repay loans if granted, in a timely manner. The SBA guarantees 7(a) Program Loans through various loan processing methods including: (1) Standard 7(a) Loans; (2) 7(a) Small Loans; (3) SBAExpress loans; (4) CAPLine Loans; (5) the Qualified Employee Trust (ESOP); (6) International Trade; (7) Export Express; (8) Export Working Capital loan programs; and (9) Pilot (temporary) Programs.
- Who benefits
- Small Business is based the size standard on either number of employees or annual receipts based on the North American Industry Classification system (NAICS)
- Who applies
- Small Business is based the size standard on either number of employees or annual receipts based on the North American Industry Classification system (NAICS)
- Authorized by
- Small Business Act, Section 7(a) (15 U.S.C. 636(a))
- Program site
- http://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/loans ↗
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments