What a 7(a) loan costs
Every 7(a) approval carries the rate the borrower was given. That makes the price of small business credit a matter of public record, including how much it changes with the size of your loan, your trade, and which bank you walk into. 504 is absent from this page because its file carries no rate at all.
Prime rate, monthly
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6.75%Jun 2026
One row per calendar month, carrying the rate the month ended on. Prime is a step function rather than a series that drifts, so a month in which it moved is reported at the rate in force at its close — which is what a loan approved late in that month was priced against. Averaging would invent a rate that was never in force on any day. Source: Federal Reserve Board H.15, Bank Prime Loan Rate.
Rate and Prime, by fiscal year
The two lines move together, and that is the point. Between FY2021 and FY2024 the median rate went from 5.50% to 11.25%, but the spread went only from 2.25 to 2.75 points. Borrowers paid nearly twice as much because policy rates doubled, not because lenders repriced small business risk. When comparing anything across years, compare the shaded gap.
Spread is measured against WSJ Prime on each loan’s own approval date, not a yearly average. The distinction matters in a year like FY2022, when Prime moved from 3.25% to 7.50% and an averaged figure understates the spread by more than a point. Done properly the medians land on quarter points, which is how these loans are quoted in the first place.
Small loans cost more
A micro loan is priced 1.50 points over what a loan above $2M gets: 11.00% against 9.00%. The underwriting cost of a $75,000 loan is not much less than a $3M one, so the smallest borrowers carry it in the rate. It is the most reliable pattern in SBA pricing, and the one worth knowing before you ask for less than you need.
Fixed or variable
Most 7(a) paper floats. That is why the FY2022–24 jump landed on existing borrowers as well as new ones: a variable loan written at Prime +3 in 2021 repriced the whole way up. Fixed-rate share is a bulge rather than a trend: 15% of loans in FY2010, up to a peak of 25% in FY2014, and back to 14% in FY2025. Fixed/variable is only recorded from FY2009.
By loan term
Spread over Prime by term. The long end is cheapest. Those are the real-estate loans, secured on the building.
Borrower?
Lenders differ by more than sectors do. See who lends to your trade, and what they charge.
Find my lender →Every figure on this page is the initial rate recorded at approval on a 7(a) loan. It is not the rate today, not an offer, and not inclusive of the SBA guaranty fee, packaging fees or closing costs, none of which appear in the file. Medians, not means, because SBA rates cluster on round numbers and a mean sits between two values almost nobody was charged. Anything below 20 priced loans is suppressed rather than shown. The SBA files carry no Prime rate, so spread is computed against a WSJ Prime step series joined on each loan’s approval date; that series reproduces 33 of 35 published annual averages exactly, and the other two to within a cent.