Choosing an SBA loan dataset

Choose the period before comparing totals

An SBA fiscal year runs from October 1 through September 30. Fiscal year 2025 includes October–December 2024; calendar year 2025 includes October–December 2025 instead. Filtering the year on an approval date and filtering approval_fiscal_year answer different questions.

The U.S. SBA Loans, Borrowers & Lenders collection covers Oct 1, 2019 through Sep 30, 2025. It combines 7(a) and 504 approvals across the covered fiscal years.

U.S. SBA 7(a) Loan Approvals — 2025 covers Jan 1, 2025 through Dec 31, 2025 and contains 7(a) approvals only. Use it for analysis of approvals dated within that calendar year.

Loan records and borrowers are different counts

The multi-year collection opens with a borrower summary. Its borrower_address_group_id groups normalized borrower names and addresses; one row can represent several approvals. Use the separate 7(a) and 504 loan tables to analyze individual approval records.

The calendar-year package opens with approval records and supplies borrower groups separately. Repeated published records are retained. A row count is a count of records, not a guaranteed count of distinct businesses or loans.

Keep programs, statuses and dates explicit

For a comparison across lenders or industries, select the same program, approval period and loan statuses in each table. Approval amounts describe approvals; they are not a measure of money disbursed on that date.

The packages overlap in 7(a) approvals dated January–September 2025. Do not add the two files together as disjoint collections. Check the approval_date, program and record definitions in each package before combining results.