Which US Industries Receive the Most SBA Financing?

What the SBA figures measure

We analysed the SBA's loan-level files dated 30 June 2026, selecting approvals made in fiscal years 2024 and 2025. FY2025 runs from 1 October 2024 to 30 September 2025. The source files include part of FY2026, but comparing that partial year with a full year would distort the result.

Our rankings exclude records marked cancelled at the snapshot date. They retain other statuses, including undisbursed commitments. Every dollar figure below is an approved amount, rather than cash confirmed as received by a borrower. All amounts are US dollars.

The two programmes need separate tables. In the SBA data dictionary, 7(a) GrossApproval means the total loan amount. For 504 it means the SBA/Certified Development Company loan amount. The latter excludes the third-party lender's financing and the borrower's contribution, so it does not measure the whole project budget.

These are loan-record counts, not unique businesses. One business can appear more than once, and the files do not provide rejected applications. A sector with many SBA loans has substantial recorded activity; that alone tells you nothing about an applicant's probability of approval.

Which industries lead 7(a) financing?

Accommodation and food services led by retained approved dollars in FY2025. Construction led by record count. That difference survives using the same period and cancellation filter.

The following seven sectors had the largest 7(a) approved amounts in our filtered data.

Source: our analysis of the SBA 7(a) FOIA file. FY2025 approvals, status observed on 30 June 2026, cancelled records excluded. Shares use all 64,096 retained 7(a) records and $32.066bn as the denominator, including sectors outside this table. Values are rounded; medians use individual approved amounts.

Construction's 8,845 records represented 13.80% of the retained count, but only 10.54% of approved dollars. Its $150,000 median was less than half the $320,000 accommodation-and-food-services median.

A count ranking therefore answers a different question from a dollar ranking. It can tell you where many recorded loans sit, while a value ranking also reflects their size. Neither is a list of industries that lenders automatically favour.

The median is the middle recorded amount after sorting loans by size. Half the amounts lie at or below it and half at or above it. It avoids treating a small number of very large loans as typical, but it remains a description of this portfolio, rather than a suggested borrowing amount for your business.

How does the 504 industry ranking differ?

Accommodation and food services also led 504 by approved dollars and record count. Manufacturing ranked third by dollars, compared with seventh in 7(a).

These are the seven largest 504 sectors by the SBA/CDC approved amount.

Source: our analysis of the SBA 504 FOIA file, with the same FY2025 period and cancellation filter. Shares use all 6,530 retained records and $7.557bn of SBA/CDC approved amounts. Third-party loans and borrower contributions are excluded.

The all-sector 504 median was $748,000, compared with $180,000 for 7(a). Those are medians of differently defined amounts and portfolios, so they should not be read as alternative quotes for the same project.

The programmes also fund different purposes. SBA's 7(a) guidance includes working capital, equipment, property and changes of ownership. Its 504 guidance focuses on major fixed assets and excludes working capital and inventory. That gives you a reason to choose the appropriate programme before looking at sector rankings.

Manufacturing's stronger position in the 504 table is consistent with that fixed-asset purpose. We have not tested whether programme design caused the difference, or whether manufacturers have easier access once applicant characteristics are held constant.

Which states have the largest recorded amounts?

California led both programmes by the project-state field. The next positions differed: Texas ranked second in 7(a), while Florida ranked second in 504.

Source and filters match the industry tables. Each programme's five largest project states are shown separately. A 504 amount covers the SBA/CDC portion only.

We used project state rather than the lender's address. A bank based in one state can finance a project elsewhere, so grouping by bank location would answer a different question.

These totals are not adjusted for the number of businesses, economic output, eligible applicants or demand in each state. California's larger amount does not establish that a comparable applicant has better odds there. Moving a business to chase a portfolio ranking would be an expensive interpretation of a table.

Cancellations change the headline total

The FY2025 source files contain 78,078 7(a) approval records and 6,762 504 records before the cancellation filter. Those counts and their gross amounts reconcile exactly with the SBA's separate year-end activity workbook.

By the 30 June 2026 snapshot, 13,982 of those 7(a) records and 232 of those 504 records were marked cancelled. We removed them from every industry and state ranking.

Cross-check: SBA FY2025 year-end activity reports, published 13 November 2025, and the later FOIA snapshot. Cancelled amounts totalled $5.222bn for 7(a) and $246.749m for 504. The 504 columns remain SBA/CDC amounts.

The retained group still includes 3,806 7(a) records labelled COMMIT and 2,398 504 records labelled NOT FUNDED. The dictionary defines both as undisbursed. Removing cancellations does not make an approval dataset a disbursement dataset.

First-disbursement dates were present for 60,290 retained 7(a) records and 4,110 retained 504 records. A missing date is not enough to classify every case as unfunded, particularly because the dictionary says this field is supplied “if available”. A first date also does not reveal the total amount ultimately paid out.

We retained paid-in-full and charged-off records because this analysis follows an approval cohort. Excluding them would select loans partly on what happened after approval. EXEMPT is a disclosure status for disbursed loans outside the other specified outcomes, rather than an allegation about the borrower.

What changed from FY2024 to FY2025?

Using the same snapshot and cancellation filter, retained 7(a) approved amounts rose 16.53%, from $27.518bn to $32.066bn. Record count rose much less, by 2.36%, from 62,618 to 64,096. The programme-wide median rose from $150,000 to $180,000.

Retained 504 SBA/CDC amounts rose 17.80%, from $6.415bn to $7.557bn. Counts rose 13.17%, from 5,770 to 6,530, and the median rose from $717,000 to $748,000.

Manufacturing illustrates why amount growth and portfolio share can diverge. Its retained 7(a) amount rose from $2.118bn to $2.346bn, while its share fell from 7.70% to 7.32%. Other sectors grew enough to reduce its slice of the total. Its 504 share moved from 10.60% to 10.73%.

These comparisons describe two approval cohorts as recorded at one later date. FY2024 loans have had longer to be cancelled, repaid or charged off than FY2025 loans. Treat the changes as snapshot comparisons, rather than a clean measure of annual cash delivered or a forecast for FY2026.

Method and downloadable results

We read both loan-level CSV files and the programme-specific dictionary, then selected ApprovalFY 2024 and 2025 and checked every selected approval date against its fiscal-year boundaries. Status labels were uppercased and internal spaces removed, so P I F and PIF are treated alike. Only CANCLD was excluded.

We grouped reported six-digit NAICS codes into broad sectors using the Census Bureau's sector structure. Manufacturing combines 31–33, retail 44–45, and transport and warehousing 48–49. We did not recode the original industry vintage or rank detailed six-digit industries.

All selected records had usable broad-sector codes and positive approved amounts. The source is an administrative record set, not a survey sample. We counted each row once without trying to merge borrowers by similar names. No weighting or business-population denominator was added.

For each programme, year and group, we calculated count, sum, median, share of approved dollars and share of records. Sector and project-state subtotals reconcile to each programme-year total. A separate parser independently reproduced all group counts, sums and medians.

Download all 293 industry and project-state results for FY2024 and FY2025. The clean file includes exact dollars, periods, filters, amount definitions and source URLs. It contains no borrower names or addresses. Read the table definitions and filters.

Use the ranking to ask better financing questions

Start with what you need the money to fund. Then ask a participating lender or CDC about the appropriate programme, your eligibility, the amount you would receive and the repayment obligation. These historical sector medians do not price your application.

For evidence about reported applicant outcomes, our US bank and online-lender approval comparison answers a separate question. It uses Federal Reserve survey evidence and keeps full and partial offers apart.

Once you have a conventional fixed-rate monthly-payment offer, use the business loan repayment calculator to test a disclosed scenario. Check fees and payment timing separately. Our cash-buffer stress test also shows how collection delays affect a forecast; its pound-denominated examples are simulations, not US reserve recommendations.

Write down the minimum net funding your project needs and the lowest cash balance your repayment forecast permits. That is a more useful starting point than borrowing the median amount because other businesses did.

Frequently asked questions

Does a high SBA financing total mean an industry is easy to finance?

The files contain approved loan records, without a rejected-application denominator. A large total can reflect more applicants, larger loans or a larger industry. It cannot supply a sector approval rate.

Does a $748,000 median 504 amount mean a typical project costs $748,000?

The median covers the retained FY2025 SBA/CDC portion. The project's third-party financing and borrower contribution sit outside that amount. You need the full financing structure to assess the project budget.