SBA 504 Loan Rates 2026: 4,414 Loans, 6.97% and the Real Fees

What a 504 loan is made of, and which part has the "504 rate"

A 504 project has three pieces of money, and only one of them carries the rate CDCs advertise. The regulation describes the usual permanent financing as a borrower contribution of “at least 10 percent of the Project costs”, a CDC loan funded by a debenture “for up to 40 percent of the Project costs and certain administrative costs, collateralized by a second lien on the Project Property”, and a third-party loan for the rest, on a first lien (13 CFR 120.801(c)).

The three pieces of a standard 504 project (13 CFR 120.801, 120.910, 120.920, 120.930; SOP 50 10 8.1)

The 504 loan cannot be smaller than $25,000, and the outstanding 504 balance is limited to $5,000,000 per borrower, or $5,500,000 per project for small manufacturers and energy-reduction projects (13 CFR 120.930(b), 120.931). Each owner of 20% or more must sign an unlimited personal guaranty: SOP 50 10 8.1 says such an individual “must provide an unlimited full guaranty.” For an existing building, the business must occupy 51% of the rentable property; for new construction, the regulation requires it to occupy at least 60% immediately (13 CFR 120.870(b)). A 504 loan is not for rental property: the SBA's 504 page lists “Speculation or investment in rental real estate” among the uses it cannot fund. If you are buying to rent out, our bridge loan guide and hard money rate data cover investor loans.

How the 504 rate is set: the monthly debenture sale

The rule itself is one sentence: “The interest rate of the 504 Loan and the Debenture which funds it is set by the SBA and approved by the Secretary of the Treasury” (13 CFR 120.932). The SBA's lending procedures add the market link: “Most commonly, the 10-year Treasury Rate is used as a benchmark for the 20-year and 25-year debenture rates, and the 5-year Treasury Rate is used as a benchmark for the 10-year debenture rate” (SOP 50 10 8.1). The SBA's 504 page describes the rate as “Pegged to an increment above the current market rate for 10-year U.S. Treasury issues.”

Your rate is fixed on the pricing date of the sale your loan goes into, which is after closing, not when the SBA approves the loan. The SBA's 2026 funding calendar defines the pricing date as “the first Thursday of first full week of the month” (Information Notice 5000-869666) and adds that “The 20 and 25-year debentures will be offered monthly while only the sale months marked with an asterisk (*) will include the sale of 10, 20 and 25-year debentures.” In the 2026 calendar, the 10-year sales are the January, March, May, July, September and November pricings; the next sales price on November 5 and December 10, 2026.

Current and recent SBA 504 rates (effective rates published by CDCs, fees included)

SomerCor, a Chicago CDC, states that its published rates “include monthly servicing fees to the CDC, SBA, and central servicing agent; based on SBA FY27 fees.” Its October table still shows a 10-year rate, but under the SBA's calendar the October 8 sale had no 10-year debentures, so that figure is not an October price. Another CDC, Capital Partners, publishes a monthly history whose figures run lower for the same months (6.304% for the 25-year in September 2026, against SomerCor's 6.54%), so CDCs do not all present the rate the same way; ask your CDC whether the quote includes the ongoing fees. Capital Partners' series is still useful for the trend: its 25-year figure fell from 6.517% in January 2025 to 5.482% in March 2026, then rose every month to 6.304% in September 2026.

What the SBA's FOIA file shows about 504 lending

The SBA publishes every 504 loan it has approved since fiscal 1991 in its 7(a) & 504 FOIA dataset, updated quarterly; the dataset page says the data “is typically available one month after the quarter has ended.” We downloaded both 504 files on October 9, 2026; every row carries the AsOfDate 2026-06-30. Our script, saved with the data, streams the files and counts loans by ApprovalFY, excluding loans whose LoanStatus is CANCLD. The SBA's fiscal year runs October to September.

SBA 504 approvals by fiscal year (net of cancelled loans, SBA FOIA file as of June 30, 2026)

FY2026 is running 5.0% behind FY2025 in loans and 2.6% behind in 504 dollars over the same nine months (our arithmetic). The gap is mostly October: the file has no approvals dated October 2025, the month federal appropriations lapsed, and by month the FY2026 approvals ran from 417 in November 2025 to 681 in March 2026 and 575 in June 2026. Cancellations are also visible: 232 of the 6,762 FY2025 records (3.4%) are marked cancelled, and recent years will gain more as approved deals fall through. Of the 4,414 FY2026 loans still counted, 3,408 were NOT FUNDED (undisbursed) at June 30, 2026, which means their debentures had not been sold and their rates not yet set.

How big FY2026 504 loans are (net of cancelled loans)

The file reports the two loans but not the borrower's equity or the total project cost, so the project size has to be inferred. The 504 share of the two loans clusters around 45%, which is what a 40/50 split looks like once the financed fees are added to the debenture (40 divided by 90 is 44.4%, our arithmetic). A third of FY2026 504 loans (1,491, or 33.8%) were under $500,000, and 44 were above $5,000,000, the size only manufacturers and energy projects can reach.

Terms and programs, FY2026 to date

There is no real-estate-or-equipment field in the file, but the term tells you almost as much. SOP 50 10 8.1 allows “A maximum of 25 years for real estate” and “A minimum of 10 years for machinery and equipment”, with mixed projects taking the term of the asset category that makes up most of the proceeds. So in FY2026 at least 94.1% of 504 loans financed mostly real estate, and only 1.8% (79 loans) were 10-year loans of the equipment kind. The 504 is, in practice, a commercial real estate loan for owner-occupants.

Which businesses, states and lenders use 504 loans

FY2026 504 loans by industry (NaicsDescription) and state

By loan count the list is led by full-service restaurants (243), hotels (199), child care (142), limited-service restaurants (117) and general automotive repair (100). Manufacturers made 8.8% of the loans and took 11.5% of the dollars; that matters for cost, because manufacturers pay no SBA fees in FY2026 or FY2027.

The 10 largest CDCs and first-lien lenders in FY2026 (names as in the SBA file)

Neither list is concentrated. The largest CDC had 10.6% of FY2026 504 dollars and the largest first-lien lender 4.6% of first-lien dollars. Some first-lien lenders make few, large loans (Celtic Bank: 42 loans averaging about $4.4 million, our arithmetic), and not all are banks: Harvest Commercial Capital is a non-bank lender. CDCs are certified for an area of operations, so the useful comparison is between the CDCs and banks active in your state; the CSV lists the top 10 nationally. Our Ready Capital review uses the same FOIA dataset for an SBA 7(a) lender.

The fees, line by line, on a $1,000,000 project

The SBA's 504 page puts the fees at about 3% of the debt: it says they total “approximately 3% of the debt, rate may be financed with the loan”. The pieces are in the regulation and the SOP. The CDC “may charge up to 1.5 percent of the net Debenture proceeds to process the financing” (13 CFR 120.971(a)(1)), and its servicing fee is “at least 0.625 percent per annum and no more than 2 percent per annum on the unpaid balance of the loan”, with anything above 1.5% in a rural area or 1% elsewhere needing SBA approval (13 CFR 120.971(a)(3)). The SBA's own two fees change each fiscal year. For loans approved from October 1, 2026, SBA Information Notice 5000-881796 sets “The upfront guaranty fee will be 0.50% (50 basis points)” and an annual service fee of “0.203% (20.3 basis points) of the outstanding balance of the loan”, both waived for manufacturers, a list of food-supply-chain industries and “businesses located in a rural area”. For FY2026 approvals the annual fee was 0.209% and only manufacturers were exempt (Notice 5000-871532).

Here is the arithmetic for a $1,000,000 owner-occupied building, standard 50/40/10 structure, 25-year debenture, non-manufacturer, approved in FY2027. We follow the gross-debenture method in SOP 50 10 8.1 (fees are added to the net debenture, the sum is divided by 0.996 to add the underwriters' fee, and the result is rounded up to the next thousand).

504 fees on a $1,000,000 project, loan approved on or after October 1, 2026 (our arithmetic)

Two points matter more than the table's total. First, the one-time fees are rolled into the debenture, so you pay interest on them for 25 years; the $12,000 difference between the gross and net debenture is borrowed money. Second, the ongoing fees are what make the effective rate higher than the debenture's coupon: at the 0.625% CDC minimum, the CDC, SBA and agent fees add about 0.93 points a year in year one (our arithmetic), and they are recalculated on the falling balance every five years. A manufacturer, food-supply-chain or rural business approved in FY2027 skips the $2,000 guaranty fee and the 0.203% annual fee; its gross debenture in the same example is $410,000 (our arithmetic). The bank's own origination fees, appraisal, environmental report and title costs are not in this table, and they vary by lender. The SOP's own worked example (a $1,000,000 project with a 35% debenture) shows the same method; its division step prints $360,065 where $360,375 divided by 0.996 is about $361,822, but both round to the $362,000 gross debenture it uses (our arithmetic).

The monthly payment above is a level-payment estimate. The actual 504 amortization schedule changes at the five-year fee recalculations, so the payment steps down slightly; the CDC provides the schedule at funding. You can model the bank piece and the 504 piece together in our commercial real estate loan calculator.

504 vs 7(a): what the 7(a) file shows

The 7(a) FOIA file, unlike the 504 file, has an InitialInterestRate field (the rate at approval) and a fixed-or-variable flag. In FY2026 to June 30, 2026, the SBA approved 35,641 7(a) loans (net of cancellations). For the 3,977 with a term of 300 months or more, the kind used for real estate, the median initial rate was 8.25% (middle half 7.52% to 9%), and 85.6% were variable-rate; for the 2,412 of those of $1,000,000 or more, the median was 8%. A 504 debenture rate is fixed for the full term, and the 6.97% October figure already includes ongoing fees, while 7(a) loans also pay a guaranty fee on top. The catch is that the 504 rate covers only 40% of the project; the first lien is a separate bank loan whose rate the FOIA data does not show.

What this data cannot tell you

• No 504 rate in the file. The 504 data dictionary lists no interest-rate field, for either the debenture or the first-lien loan. The debenture rate is set at the sale after closing, and the bank's rate is in the bank's note.
• Approval, not closing. Loans are dated and grouped by approval. 77.2% of FY2026 loans (3,408 of 4,414) were undisbursed at June 30, 2026, and some will be cancelled; recent counts tend to fall as cancellations are recorded.
• No project cost, equity or property type. The file has the 504 amount and the first-lien amount, not the down payment, the price of the building or whether it is real estate or equipment; we use the term as the proxy.
• Loan status is partly hidden. Disbursed loans that are not paid in full, charged off or cancelled show as EXEMPT under FOIA Exemption 4, so the file cannot show current delinquency. Charge-offs only show on older cohorts: 2,146 of the 8,941 FY2007 loans counted (24%) were charged off, against 52 of 5,018 FY2016 loans (1%) so far (our arithmetic).
• Jobs are self-reported. The dictionary says the SBA does “not review, audit, or validate” the JobsSupported numbers.

What you can do with this

1. Get the date right. The rate is set at the debenture sale after your loan closes, not when you apply. Ask your CDC which month's sale your loan is likely to make (the November 2026 sale prices on November 5) and budget at the latest published rate plus a margin.
2. Ask whether the quote includes fees. Compare 504 rates "fees included" with fees included. SomerCor's published rates include the CDC, SBA and agent servicing fees; another CDC's table shows lower numbers for the same months.
3. Check whether the SBA fees are waived for you. For loans approved October 1, 2026 to September 30, 2027, manufacturers, the listed food-supply-chain NAICS codes and businesses in a rural area pay neither the 0.50% upfront nor the 0.203% annual SBA fee; SomerCor puts the rate benefit at about 25 basis points.
4. Negotiate the first lien separately. It is half the project and the FOIA data shows more than a thousand lenders doing it. The SBA's ceiling is Prime plus 6%; get at least two term sheets and compare their rate, term, prepayment terms and fees.
5. Read the prepayment clause. The regulation lets you prepay the 504 loan if you pay principal, interest, fees “and any prepayment premium established in the note”; ask the CDC for that schedule before closing, as well as the bank's.
6. Use the CSV. It has the fiscal-year series back to 1991, the FY2026 size and term cuts, the top CDCs and banks and the fee rules with their sources.

FAQ

Sources, read on October 9, 2026: SBA 7(a) & 504 FOIA data (data.sba.gov/dataset/7a-504-foia), files FOIA_504_FY1991_FY2009, FOIA_504_FY2010_Present and FOIA_7a_FY2020_Present, all as of June 30, 2026, and the 7(a) and 504 FOIA data dictionary (our script sba504_foia_analysis.py and its output are in the data folder); 13 CFR Part 120, Subpart H (eCFR, current through the June 3, 2025 amendment), §§ 120.801, 120.870, 120.883, 120.910, 120.920, 120.921, 120.930-120.933, 120.940, 120.971 and 120.972; SBA SOP 50 10 8.1, effective October 1, 2026; SBA Information Notices 5000-881796 (504 fees for FY2027), 5000-871532 (504 fees for FY2026), 5000-869666 (504 debenture funding schedule for 2026) and 5000-877653 (maximum third-party lender rate); the SBA's 504 loans page; rate pages of SomerCor (somercor.com, October 8 and September 10, 2026 sales) and Capital Partners CDC (cpcdc.com/rates), which are CDCs' published figures, not SBA documents. All counts, medians, shares, changes and fee amounts are our arithmetic. This is analysis of public records, not investment, legal, lending or tax advice, and not a loan offer.