Understanding The Top Ways to Get an SBA Loan

Key Factors: SBSS score, profitability, tax/SBA history, time in business, and industry impact approval.

Tax & SBA History: Unpaid taxes or past SBA loan issues can disqualify you.

Industry Matters: Trucking faces more scrutiny, but FastwaySBA has funding options.

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Here are the factors that determine the likelihood of your business getting approved for an SBA loan. FastWaySBA knows the ins and outs of SBA lending. This is why 90% of our applicants who receive a FastWaySBA pre-approval end up receiving an SBA loan.

These are the top things that most of our bank partners consider to be important when approving an SBA loan.

SBSS Score: This is a business credit score created by FICO. The Small Business Scoring Service (SBSS) score is accessed through the ETRAN SBA system to assess the credit risk of small businesses. The score ranges from 0 to 300 and the higher score indicates a lower credit risk. This is a blended score of business and owner personal credit, with underlying historical scoring based on industry loan performance averages.

Business Profitability: Generally, depending on the SBSS score, an SBA bank will consider the profitability of the business when determining a loan approval. If the business is consistently losing money, then the bank will consider the business unable to successfully repay the loan.

Past SBA History and Tax History: Since the US government guarantees SBA loans, any personal or business tax liabilities mean that the business is not qualified to receive an SBA loan. If there is a structured repayment plan on outstanding tax debt, this is allowable.

Secondarily, if the business has poor payment history with the SBA, including EIDL, they will be denied further funding.

Time in Business: The minimum time in business for approval is 2 years. This minimum is held as a standard for the large majority of SBA Banks.

Industry: Each bank has different precedents when it comes to industry types. Although most industries are widely acceptable for SBA Banks, recently the Trucking industry has become the most highly scrutinized industry. FastWaySBA does work with some banks that can fund Trucking/Transportation businesses.

When exploring options for SBA loans, there is endless information available online, but it’s important to consider that much of this information is false or misleading. For example, On the actual SBA website, there is reference to loan interest rates. These maximum allowable interest rates are definitely higher than the rates that our SBA Bank Partners issue for our clients.