SBA Loans 7(a) & 504 Programs
The 7(a) and 504 loan programs are key financing tools administered by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) to support small business development. The 7(a) program provides general-purpose loans for working capital, equipment, or real estate, while the 504 program offers long-term, fixed-rate financing for major fixed assets in partnership with Certified Development Companies (CDCs).
This indicator reports the total annual average funding and per capita annual average funding of SBA 7(a) and 504 loans approved between 2019 and 2023. Data are obtained from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Community Investment Explorer, which aggregates loan-level data from the SBA’s public records into census tract level.
Source
Source Description
The Community Investment Explorer (CIE), developed by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, is a powerful interactive tool that visualizes more than $2.2 trillion in community and economic development investments across the United States from 2018 to 2022. The tool includes data from nine federal programs and allows users to explore how capital is distributed across states, metro areas, and rural communities, focusing especially on low- and moderate-income (LMI) neighborhoods.
CIE enables users to analyze various funding indicators—such as funding-to-population ratios, per capita investments, and annual averages in LMI tracts—to better understand investment patterns and identify gaps. Unlike other tools, CIE bases its data on the location of the project or recipient (e.g., affordable housing development, small business, or community service), not the funding source.
To ensure accuracy, the tool integrates demographic and geographic data from the 2024 FFIEC Census Flat File, the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2023 estimates, and geographic crosswalks from the IPUMS National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS). CIE is especially valuable for policymakers, researchers, and local leaders looking to make data-informed decisions about resource allocation and equitable development.
Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Community Investment Explorer.
https://www.stlouisfed.org/community-development/data-tools/community-investment-explorer (Accessed on [insert date]).
Methodology
Data for SBA Loans 7(a) & 504 Programs are totals by year and by census tract for each program from 2019 to 2023 acquired from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’s Community Investment Explorer, which aggregates loan-level records released by the SBA through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). CARES aggregate to the five-year averages for each tract and county and calculate the per capita averages using the tract population data for the two SBA programs.
For more indormation about the data source, please access the data through Community Investment Explorer.