What This Dashboard Is
A view of SBA 7(a) loans from FY2020 through June 2026, filtered to the states, counties, and cities you pick. The page opens on the entire United States. Acquisition figures include every Change of Ownership loan, up to the $5 million program maximum. Restaurants and food service (NAICS 722) and cancelled loans are excluded. A borrower outside the project state is labeled with that state.
How "Recession Resilience" Is Measured
For each industry, we look at SBA 7(a) loans approved in FY2020 through FY2023 (loans that have had at least roughly 2 years to season) and compute the share that ended up charged off. Cancelled loans are excluded from the denominator. The FY2020–2023 window includes the COVID-19 shock and the 2022–2024 interest rate spike, so it's a useful real-world stress test for which industries survive turbulence.
Caveats & What This Doesn't Tell You
- SBA 7(a) loans are a sample of small business activity, not the whole picture. Cash businesses and self-funded deals don't show up.
- "Change of Ownership" is the SBA's tag for acquisition financing, but it doesn't reveal seller-financing structure. You'll need to confirm seller carry directly with brokers and lenders.
- Charge-off rate is about whether the SBA loan failed, not whether the business failed. The two are correlated but not identical (some businesses sell or refinance out).
- Loan amount ≠ business revenue. The 75th percentile loan is ~$535K, but acquired businesses often have revenue 1.5–4× the loan amount.
- The data only goes back to FY2020, so we don't have a 2008-style recession in this dataset. COVID and the rate spike are our best stress tests.
- County is the project county. The city breakdown lists borrower cities in that same state. A Clark County project with a borrower in another state still counts in the county totals and is left out of the city table.
- The place picker loads one file per state from data/loans/. With no state selected, that is every state file. Counties are listed only for the states you picked, and cities only for the counties you picked. One loan that matches more than one selected place is counted once. The city table stays hidden until you pick a county.
- A lender mark is that bank's site icon when the name matches one institution. Shared names, including Citizens Bank, and lenders without a verified site show initials.
Source Files
- FOIA_7a_FY2020_Present_asof_260630.csv — primary dataset. SBA's FOIA release of every 7(a) loan FY2020 through June 2026. 388,338 rows nationally, 2,964 for Clark County, 2,583 after restaurant exclusion, 2,187 after cancelled loans are removed.
- 7a_504_foia_data_dictionary.xlsx — column definitions.
- state_statistics_rankings_2025.xlsx, metro_statistics_rankings_2025.xlsx — used for population context.
- The bkstudy and lender activity files were inspected but their pre-aggregated views overlap with what we computed directly from the FOIA data, so they aren't relied on for the main charts.
Suggested Next Steps
- Pick 2–3 industries from the "Best-Fit" table and search BizBuySell, BizQuest, and LoopNet for live Vegas listings in those NAICS codes.
- Email or call 2–3 of the top lenders here to pre-qualify before you make offers. Live Oak, Newtek, Byline, and Readycap are usually responsive to acquisition deals.
- For any specific target, ask the seller for 3 years of tax returns (Schedule C or 1120-S), bank statements, and a current AR aging. The SBA will require these anyway.
- Build a quick DSCR model: NOI ÷ (proposed debt service) should be ≥ 1.25x to clear SBA underwriting.