Glossary
Every term this site uses without stopping to explain it, in plain English. Written for someone running a business and looking for a loan, not for someone who works in credit.
SBA (U.S. Small Business Administration)
The U.S. Small Business Administration: the federal agency that guarantees the loans on this site. It does not usually lend money itself — a bank or a Certified Development Company makes the loan, and the SBA guarantees part of it, which is what makes a lender willing to write it. Note the name. It is the Small Business Administration, a federal agency; it is not the "Small Business Association", which is a common slip but not a real body. Where this site says SBA, it means the Administration.
Main Street lending
A general phrase for credit to ordinary small businesses — the shops, surgeries, workshops and restaurants on a real high street — as opposed to corporate or capital-markets lending. Almost everything on this site is Main Street lending in that sense. It should not be confused with the Federal Reserve’s Main Street Lending Program, a separate and now-closed emergency facility from 2020 that was not an SBA programme and is not in this data.
7(a)
The SBA’s main lending programme, named after the section of the Small Business Act that created it. A bank makes the loan and the SBA guarantees part of it, which is what makes the bank willing to lend to a business it would otherwise turn down. It funds almost anything a business needs — working capital, equipment, buying premises, buying a business. Around nine in ten SBA loans are 7(a).
504
The SBA’s fixed-asset programme. It funds real estate and heavy equipment, and it is structured as two loans at once: a bank lends roughly half, a Certified Development Company lends about 40% backed by an SBA-guaranteed debenture, and the borrower puts in the rest. Loans are larger and longer than 7(a), and the programme cannot be used for working capital.
CDC (Certified Development Company)
A non-profit licensed by the SBA to make the SBA-backed half of a 504 loan. CDCs are regional and mission-driven rather than commercial banks. On this site they appear alongside banks in lender rankings, because from a borrower’s point of view both are institutions that either funded businesses like theirs or did not.
Approval amount
The loan amount the SBA approved, which is what every dollar figure on this site is built from. It is not necessarily what was ultimately drawn or what remains outstanding — the FOIA files record the approval, not the current balance.
Charge-off
When a lender writes a loan off as a loss. On this site a loan counts as charged off only when the SBA has recorded both a charge-off date and a charge-off amount above zero. It is the closest thing in the data to "this loan failed".
Charge-off rate, by dollars
Charged-off dollars divided by dollars approved. This is the headline loss measure on the site, and the one that matters to whoever carries the loss.
Charge-off rate, by count
The share of loans that charged off at all, regardless of size. It runs much higher than the dollar rate, because small loans fail more often than large ones. The two measures can rank the same lenders in opposite orders, which is why the site always shows both.
Paid in full (PIF)
The loan was repaid. It is the outcome of the large majority of loans in the file, and the counterpart to a charge-off.
Right-censoring
The reason recent loans look safe. A loan approved two years ago has had two years to fail; one approved in 2001 has had twenty-five. Any loss rate on a recent cohort is therefore understated, not because the lending was better but because not enough time has passed. It is the most important limitation on this site.
Vintage
The fiscal year a loan was approved in. Grouping by vintage is how loans are compared fairly — everything approved in 2007 met the same economy afterwards.
Fiscal year (FY)
The federal government’s accounting year, running 1 October to 30 September. FY2026 began on 1 October 2025. Every year on this site is a fiscal year unless it says otherwise, which is why a fiscal quarter runs one ahead of the calendar one.
NAICS code
The North American Industry Classification System — a six-digit code identifying what a business does. Every loan carries one, and it is how the site knows which industry a loan belongs to. The official wording is often nothing like what an owner would call their own trade, which is why the site maps plain-English trade names onto the codes.
Sector
The top level of NAICS: twenty broad groupings such as Construction, Retail Trade or Health Care, each containing dozens to hundreds of individual industries.
WSJ Prime
The Wall Street Journal prime rate, the benchmark most variable-rate 7(a) loans are priced against. It moves with the Federal Reserve. When Prime moves, every SBA rate moves with it, which is why this site compares loans on their spread over Prime rather than on the rate itself.
Spread over Prime
The gap between the rate a borrower was charged and Prime on the day their loan was approved. This is the part the lender chose, and the only way to compare pricing across years. A 7(a) loan at 11.25% in 2024 and one at 5.50% in 2021 were both priced at roughly Prime plus 2.5.
Fixed and variable rate
A fixed-rate loan keeps its rate for the life of the loan; a variable one moves with Prime. The SBA files only record which is which from FY2009 onward, so any fixed/variable figure on this site is scoped to FY2009 and later.
Size standard
The threshold below which the SBA considers a business small, and therefore eligible. It is set per industry, and measured either on average annual receipts or on employee headcount depending on the trade. A construction firm with $40m of revenue and a factory with 500 staff can both qualify.
Delegated authority
Permission for an experienced lender to approve an SBA loan itself rather than submitting it to the agency first. It is why some lenders can move much faster than others.
Suppressed rate
Where this site declines to show a median rate because it is drawn from fewer than 20 loans. SBA rates cluster on round numbers, so a median off a handful of loans looks precise and is not.
Still unclear?
For how these terms are actually applied to the data — which loans are counted, why some are excluded, how current the file is — see the questions on the home page. If something here is wrong or missing, tell me.