Tennessee

South region#24 of 61 by dollars+13.4% loans YoYTop trade: Hotels (except Casino Hotels) and Motels
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Loans on record
18,652
since FY1991
Dollars approved
$7.1B
Average loan
$383K
Charge-off rate
4.7%
by dollars · 14.6% by count

Largest lenders in Tennessee

Ranked by loans into this state since FY2016. A lender headquartered elsewhere still counts. The SBA market is national, and several of the largest lenders in most states are based nowhere near them.

Approvals by fiscal year

'11'15'20'25'26

Hatched bar is FY2026, a partial year. The snapshot ends 30 June 2026.

804 loans in FY2025▲ 13% vs FY2024115 lenders active in FY2025

What gets funded here

Loan count by NAICS industry, whole record. Shares are of all 18,652 loans in Tennessee, which is why they are small: SBA lending in any state spreads across hundreds of trades, and no single one of them is close to dominant.

What borrowers here pay

Typical pricingPrime + 2.75
Median rate 10.25%Fixed 15%1,806 loans

Median initial rate on Tennessee 7(a) loans approved FY2024 onward, against a market median of Prime + 2.75. That is about what the market typically prices. It is the rate at approval, not an offer, and says nothing about fees.

A state prices dear or cheap mostly because of what gets borrowed there, not where it is. Markets whose lending skews to small loans sit higher. How SBA pricing works →

Program mix

7(a) · 94% (17,573)504 · 6% (1,079)

Split by loan count.

Where inside the state

Davidson18%
Shelby16%
Knox9%
Hamilton7%
Williamson7%
Rutherford4%

Share is of all this state’s loans, so the 6 counties shown need not sum to 100%. Together they hold 60% of them. County is recorded as a name only, so it is shown but not linked.

Loss rate in context

Tennessee4.7%
Every market4.6%

Elsewhere in the South

Borrower?

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