How small must a business be to qualify for a Small Business Administration loan? In very general terms...
"To qualify as small business... a business concern eligible for assistance from SBA as a small business is one that is organized for profit, with a place of business located in the United States. It must operate primarily within the United States or make a significant contribution to the U.S. economy through payment of taxes or use of American products, materials or labor. Together with its affiliates, it must meet the numerical size standards as defined in the Small Business Size Regulations, 13 CFR 121." -- U.S. Small Business Administration
SBA Web Site - Size Standards Information
To assist businesses with the increasingly complex subject of size standards, the SBA has recently added several resources to its Web service. Among the many resources of the SBA Office of Size Standards are:
- Summary of Size Standards by Industry - based on the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS).
- Guide to Size Standards - A non-technical explanation of how the SBA defines a small business and how it establishes its small business size standards.
- Local SBA Offices - real humans who can answer your questions.
While the exact legal size specifications are very detailed and vary depending on the loan program involved, the most commonly applied maximum size standards are as follow:
- 500 employees for most manufacturing and mining industries
- 100 employees for all wholesale trade industries
- $5 million for most retail and service industries
- $17 million for most general & heavy construction industries
- $7 million for all special trade contractors
- $0.5 million for most agricultural industries
About one-fourth of industries have a size standard that is different from these levels. They vary from $0.5 million to $25.0 million for size standards based on average annual revenues and from 100 to 1500 employees for size standards based on number of employees.
