Data sources and licences
SBA 7(a) and 504 FOIA loan data
Published by the U.S. Small Business Administration at data.sba.gov, with a data dictionary. The catalog marks the dataset as a U.S. government work in the public domain. SBA updates the files quarterly, usually about a month after the quarter ends. The files used for the current build:
| SBA file | Approvals | As of | Read |
|---|---|---|---|
| FOIA_504_FY1991_FY2009_asof_260630.csv | 111,066 | 30 Jun 2026 | stored totals |
| FOIA_504_FY2010_Present_asof_260630.csv | 117,983 | 30 Jun 2026 | parsed this build |
| FOIA_7a_FY1991_FY1999_asof_260630.csv | 337,033 | 30 Jun 2026 | stored totals |
| FOIA_7a_FY2000_FY2009_asof_260630.csv | 690,333 | 30 Jun 2026 | stored totals |
| FOIA_7a_FY2010_FY2019_asof_260630.csv | 545,751 | 30 Jun 2026 | stored totals |
| FOIA_7a_FY2020_Present_asof_260630.csv | 388,338 | 30 Jun 2026 | parsed this build |
Files covering closed fiscal-year blocks are totalled once and the totals stored; the open blocks are parsed at every build. Stored totals are refreshed when SBA republishes the closed blocks, and the date they describe is shown above. Borrower name and address columns are discarded as each file is read; they are not in the stored totals or anywhere else.
Census Bureau County Business Patterns
County Business Patterns 2023 supplies the number of business establishments per county, per state and per NAICS industry, used to express approvals per 1,000 establishments. Connecticut's eight historical counties, which SBA still uses on older approvals, come from CBP 2021. NAICS titles are from the Census Bureau's 2017 and 2022 code lists. These are U.S. government works in the public domain; the footer carries the Census Bureau's non-endorsement notice.
Not affiliated
SBA Ledger is not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. Small Business Administration or the Census Bureau. The agencies' own publications are authoritative.
Reuse
Tables and figures on this site may be quoted with a link to the page and the data-through date. The underlying data is public domain and best obtained from SBA directly.