Methodology

Source

The U.S. Small Business Administration publishes 7(a) and 504 loan data under the Freedom of Information Act at https://data.sba.gov/dataset/7a-504-foia. We use two files from that dataset:

FOIA_7a_FY2010_FY2019_asof_260930.csv
FOIA_7a_FY2020_Present_asof_260930.csv

The data dictionary is on the same dataset page. SBA data is a U.S. government work.

The change-of-ownership filter

We keep rows where the BusinessAge field equals "Change of Ownership", meaning the lender recorded that the loan was used to buy an existing business. We also keep only rows whose project state is one of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, or a U.S. territory (Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands). The file tags this category only from FY2018, so approvals run FY2018 to FY2026. The resulting set has 48,902 loans.

NAICS codes are normalized across the 2017 and 2022 editions with a crosswalk for industries that were split (for example, gas stations and liquor stores), so one business type is not divided across two codes. Each old code maps to a single new code, so a few new codes combine closely related business types; the industry name shown is the one lenders most often recorded under the code itself.

What gets a page

A page is generated only when there is enough data to say something. Thresholds, by loan count:

Franchise brand: 5 loans (347 pages). Brands are keyed by the SBA's FranchiseCode, with cleaned display names. Codes that share an identical cleaned name are combined into one page.
Industry (NAICS): 20 loans (300 pages).
Lender: 25 loans (280 pages).
State: any loans (54 pages, including territories).
State by industry: 10 loans in an industry already above its threshold, up to 20 per state (548 pages).
State pages with fewer than 25 loans are published but marked noindex.

Calculations

Loan counts and dollars. All approved loans in the filtered set, using gross approval. Cancelled loans (status CANCLD) are excluded from every count and total.
Median, mean, and band. Computed on gross approval. The band is the 25th to 75th percentile.
Disbursed. A loan counts as disbursed when its status is not CANCLD (cancelled) or COMMIT (committed, not yet disbursed). Cancelled and undisbursed loans are excluded from charge-off rates.
Seasoned cohort. Approvals FY2018 to FY2021, which is 20,546 disbursed acquisition loans. This is the oldest window available for change-of-ownership loans, and old enough for most losses to have surfaced.
Charge-off rate. Loans with status CHGOFF divided by disbursed loans in the seasoned cohort. Nationally: 723 of 20,546, or 3.5%. The dollar rate is gross charge-off amount divided by gross approval for the same loans (1.7%).
Display threshold. A rate is shown only for 20 or more seasoned loans.
Non-acquisition comparison. The comparison rate (6.2%, 160,958 loans) uses disbursed 7(a) loans with any business age other than change of ownership (every other stated purpose), approved FY2018 to FY2021, in the same states and territories. It covers the same approval years as the acquisition cohort.
Average rate and term. Averaged or medianed over loans with a recorded initial rate or term. Rates are as of approval, across years with very different rate environments.
Franchise brand names. Display names strip agreement suffixes and keep the first brand in multi-brand entries; a few were corrected by hand. Fuel, dealer, and similar supply agreements are labeled "brand or supply agreement" on their pages. The original name is shown on each franchise page.

Statistics and default-rate pages

The loan statistics page uses all 7(a) loans in the same states and territories (any business age, cancelled loans excluded) next to the acquisition loans. Lender pages also show each lender's all-7(a) loan count since FY2020 and the share of its acquisition loans processed under the Preferred Lenders Program. The default rate page applies the charge-off formula above by approval year for FY2018 to FY2021, and by industry and state where at least 50 seasoned acquisition loans exist.

Privacy

This site publishes aggregates only. Borrower names, addresses, and loan-level records are not republished. Lender names appear because lenders are the unit of analysis for the lender pages.

Known limitations

Self-reported business age. "Change of Ownership" is recorded by the lender from the application. Some acquisitions may be coded otherwise, and some loans coded as a change of ownership may include other uses.
NAICS coding by lender. Industry is the code the lender chose and can be inconsistent for similar businesses.
Franchise name inconsistencies. Names are typed by lenders and vary. Grouping by franchise code reduces this but does not remove it.
Partial latest fiscal year. The file's newest fiscal year may not be complete and is labelled partial where it appears.
Charge-off lag. Charge-offs trail default, and loans still outstanding can still fail. Rates are for older cohorts only.
No purchase price. The file has loan amounts, not what the buyer paid, and no seller financing terms.
Small samples. Pages with few loans are volatile; warnings appear under 100 seasoned loans.

Update cadence

The SBA posts new files quarterly. This site is rebuilt when a new file appears. The as-of date above shows which file the current numbers reflect.

Corrections

Found an error? Email corrections@sbaacquisitiondata.com with the page and the figure. See also About and the glossary.