Most SBA advice online is written by people selling something. These guides are written against the public approval record, 2.1 million real loans, so the claims are checkable. Where a rule could change, we say so and point you at sba.gov instead of guessing.
The two programs are not competitors, they answer different questions. 7(a) is the flexible workhorse behind 90% of SBA loans; 504 is a purpose-built structure for buying buildings and heavy equipment. Picking wrong costs you months.
Read the guideThe advice that startups cannot get SBA loans is wrong, and the public record proves it: roughly one in three approvals goes to a business under two years old. Here is what those borrowers actually had, and what they were approved for.
Read the guideThe document list is long but it is finite, and almost all of it is knowable weeks before you apply. Assembling it up front is the cheapest thing you can do to speed up an approval.
Read the guideA surprising number of applications die on eligibility rather than credit. The restrictions are mostly about the type of business and the use of proceeds, and they are worth checking before you spend a month on a plan.
Read the guideThe public data only contains approvals, so nobody can tell you a true decline rate. What it does show is the shape of what gets approved, and most failed applications are recognisably outside that shape before they are ever submitted.
Read the guideTwo lenders can look at the same borrower and reach opposite conclusions. Choosing well is not about rate shopping, it is about finding the institutions that already write your kind of deal.
Read the guideEvery statistic in these guides is computed from the U.S. Small Business Administration's public 7(a) and 504 loan data, released under FOIA and refreshed quarterly. Figures are measured over the trailing five years unless stated otherwise. The dataset contains approvals only, never declines, which is why you will not find an “approval rate” anywhere on this site.