If you searched for the “Hardship Accommodation Plan,” you are searching for a program that no longer exists under that name or those terms. SBA ended HAP on March 19, 2025, per the Congressional Research Service. Something replaced it, and it is genuinely useful for the right borrower, but it is narrower, and a lot of advice still circulating online describes the old program. Here are the current terms, verified against SBA’s live servicing page (last updated April 1, 2026), plus the history, since knowing what changed tells you what to stop expecting.
What HAP was, briefly
SBA introduced the Hardship Accommodation Plan in November 2022, as the first big wave of COVID EIDL payments came due after the 30-month deferment. Under HAP, eligible borrowers paid at least 10% of their regular monthly payment for six months, with payments as low as $25 per month per SBA’s January 2024 announcement, and payments then stepped back up over a multi-year period. Borrowers could renew, and in February 2024 SBA expanded eligibility to borrowers who were not current, including those in default but not yet referred to Treasury, and prior HAP participants. Enrollment ran through the MySBA loan portal.
That generosity is gone. If you were enrolled in an accommodation when the rules changed, SBA’s page says you continue for the duration of your current enrollment period, and full payments are required after it ends.
What exists now: 50% for six months, once every five years
Per SBA’s current servicing page, the live program works like this:
- The relief: payments reduced by 50% for six months.
- The limit: once every five years.
- How to request it: through the SBA loan portal.
Eligibility is five conditions, all of them SBA’s own wording, lightly compressed:
- The loan is less than 90 days past due at the time of the request.
- The loan is not in charged-off or uncollectible status.
- The business is actively open and operating.
- The borrower and all owners are not in active bankruptcy proceedings.
- The request is due to a temporary financial difficulty or cash flow issue, not a long-term challenge.
Notice what those five lines exclude: closed businesses, loans already deep in delinquency, and loans already charged off. The population that most often lands on this page, borrowers whose business did not survive, is largely outside this program. If that is you, the path runs through how COVID EIDL default actually works instead, and, for loans of $200,000 or less, through the personal-guarantee line.
What the plan fixes
One thing, and it fixes it well: a temporary cash crunch in an operating business. Six months at half payment is real breathing room on a loan whose payments were sized against 2021 assumptions. Used before the loan hits 90 days past due, it also keeps you out of the delinquency machinery, which matters because federal law requires referral to the Treasury Offset Program after 120 days of delinquency, and eligible loans then transfer to Treasury cross-servicing, where SBA is no longer your counterparty at all. Our guide to Treasury collection of SBA debt explains why you want to avoid that stage while options still exist.
What the plan does not fix
The debt itself. SBA is explicit on all three points, so we will be too:
- Interest is not waived. It continues to accrue on the outstanding balance during the reduced-payment period.
- The deferred amount lands at the end. Accrued interest results in an increased balloon payment at the end of the loan term. COVID EIDL notes run 30 years at 3.75% fixed for businesses (2.75% for private nonprofits), so the end of the term is far away, but the balloon is real and growing whenever you pay less than the accruing interest.
- Nothing is cancelled. As CRS puts it, neither HAP nor the current 50% policy cancels the borrower’s debt, and full payments resume after the deferral.
In plain terms: this program converts a payment problem today into a slightly larger debt tomorrow. That is a reasonable trade for a business with a genuine temporary dip and a recovery in sight. It is not a solution for a business that cannot support the full payment in month seven, and SBA’s own eligibility language (temporary difficulty, not a long-term challenge) says the same thing.
How to decide, and what to do either way
If the hardship is temporary and the business is viable, request the assistance through the portal before you reach 90 days past due; the eligibility window closes at exactly the moment desperate borrowers tend to act. If the hardship is not temporary, do not burn the once-every-five-years relief to delay an inevitable conversation. Contact the COVID EIDL Servicing Center (CESC@sba.gov) about your actual situation, including SBA’s closure and liquidation guidance if the business is winding down, and read about what settlement realistically looks like before assuming one is available; SBA’s own guidance states COVID EIDLs are not able to be forgiven.
This is not legal advice
Free help exists and is worth using: your local Small Business Development Center (SBDC), SCORE, and SBA’s resource-partner network can review your numbers at no cost, and SBA’s page points borrowers to them for exactly this decision. For anything touching default, closure, or bankruptcy, talk to a business or bankruptcy attorney. This page explains the current program; it does not substitute for advice on your loan.