By Mario Bailey · Source: SBA FOIA 7(a) data, as of 2026-03-31
Published · Updated
The median 7(a) rate, by fiscal year
Cheap money bottomed in FY2021 at a median 5.5%; the peak was FY2024 at 11.25%. FY2026 is running at 9.5% so far. The band shows the middle half of loans (25th to 75th percentile).
Small loans pay more: the pricing curve
The SBA caps rates by loan size, and actual pricing follows the same stairs. In FY2025, the median loan of $50,000 or less priced 1.25 points above the median loan over $350,000. The size bands below are the SBA's own maximum-rate tiers.
| Loan size (FY2025) | Median rate | Middle half | Variable | Loans |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loans of $50,000 or less | 10.75% | 10%–13% | 86.6% | 18,722 |
| $50,001 to $250,000 | 10.5% | 9.99%–11.25% | 90.5% | 28,342 |
| $250,001 to $350,000 | 10.25% | 9.5%–10.5% | 89.2% | 6,663 |
| More than $350,000 | 9.5% | 8.5%–10.25% | 84.7% | 24,345 |
Against today's legal maximums (13.25% / 12.75% / 11.25% / 9.75% by the same tiers, at a 6.75% prime rate): most borrowers pay under the cap, but the smallest loans price closest to it.
SBA 7(a) initial note rates by loan size, FY2025, computed from the public FOIA record. The cap is today's variable-rate maximum; paid rates span the full year and include fixed-rate loans on a separate schedule, so a few in the largest tier run above the current cap.
Same loan, different price
The middle half of FY2025 loans under $50,000 spans 10% to 13%, a 3-point gap between borrowers in the same size band, in the same year. Some of that is credit quality; a lot of it is which lender you walked into. That spread is the strongest argument in this data for shopping more than one lender.
Fixed-rate loans are the minority (12.4% in FY2025) but carried lower initial rates in every size band: 9.49% vs 11% variable under $50,000, and 7.5% vs 9.75% over $350,000. Read that with care: a variable rate can fall as well as rise, and lenders may reserve fixed pricing for stronger credits.
Median rate by lender
Every lender with at least 500 rated 7(a) approvals since FY2024, sorted cheapest first. The spread from top to bottom is 5.99 points, but read the median loan size beside the rate: lenders built on small Express loans naturally price higher than lenders writing large, collateralized deals. The pairing tells you each lender's actual business.
Do credit unions price lower?
Mostly, yes. 218 credit unions wrote 4,188 rated 7(a) approvals since FY2024, 2.4% of the rate-reported market. Pooled, their median is 9.75% against 10.5% for every other lender. Read the pooled gap with care: credit unions write a different mix of sizes and rate structures, and mix widens it. Held to the same fiscal year, the same size band, and variable-rate loans only, the gap in FY2025 runs 0.25 to 0.5 points in the three bands above $50,000, in the credit unions' favor.
| Loan size (FY2025, variable) | Credit unions | Banks & others | Gap | CU loans | Other loans |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loans of $50,000 or less | 12% | 11% | −1 | 331 | 15,874 |
| $50,001 to $250,000 | 10% | 10.5% | +0.5 | 419 | 25,215 |
| $250,001 to $350,000 | 9.75% | 10.25% | +0.5 | 153 | 5,791 |
| More than $350,000 | 9.5% | 9.75% | +0.25 | 628 | 19,981 |
Gap is the bank median minus the credit union median: positive means credit unions priced lower. Variable-rate loans only; medians are withheld below 30 loans.
The exception is the smallest band, where credit union loans priced at 12% against 11%. That premium traces largely to a single book: Mountain America FCU, the most active credit union in SBA lending, accounts for 13.2% of all rated credit union approvals in the window. Set that one lender aside and the remaining credit unions' small-loan median falls to 10%, below the bank median. We report the group with every lender in it, because the same exclusion cuts the other way elsewhere: without its book, the credit union median in the largest band rises from 9.5% to 10%. The lesson is not that any lender is mispriced. It is that a group median can be one book in disguise, on either side of the comparison. FY2024 shows the same shape: cheaper in the three larger bands, a premium in the smallest (12.5% vs 11.5%).
The data records what loans cost, not why. Tax status, funding costs, field-of-membership rules, and credit selection all differ between charter types, and the approval file records none of them. We publish the measured spread; what explains it is an argument this dataset cannot settle.
What this means if you're borrowing
Know your tier's median before you accept a quote: in FY2025 that was 10.75% under $50,000 and 9.5% above $350,000. A quote near the legal maximum is a signal to keep shopping, not a market rate. Compare lenders active in your state and industry with the Lender Finder, and see current SBA loan rates for how the all-in cost works.
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Mario Bailey. (2026). What SBA borrowers actually pay. SBA Loan Index. https://sbaloanindex.com/studies/average-sba-loan-interest-rate/
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