Every number, its source, and its date

The 7(a) upfront guarantee fee tiers are sourced from SBA Information Notice 5000-872051 (FY2026), read in full, and cross-checked against sba.gov lender-facing pages. The 504 program’s upfront and annual service fees come from the same cycle of SBA notices. Each fee table stored by the calculator carries the source URL, the source label, and the date it was verified.

When the SBA publishes revised fees for a new fiscal year, the table is replaced (not edited in place), and the old year is kept for reference. Pages that display fee-driven numbers show the fiscal year they used.

SBA 7(a) loans are priced as the prime rate plus a spread, with spread caps that vary by loan size and term. The prime rate used by the calculator is the published US prime rate (FRED series DPRIME), date-stamped at verification, 7.00% effective September 17, 2026, at the time of writing. Spreads vary by lender; the calculator shows a range and labels it as an estimate. Actual offers depend on the lender’s pricing.

Monthly payments use standard fully-amortizing installment math on the loan amount (optionally including a financed guarantee fee), at the modeled rate, over the entered term. The formula is the standard annuity payment: rate/12, compounding monthly. Nothing exotic, which is the point. The guarantee fee is priced from the tier table for the program and amount you select; where the fee is financed, the calculator shows both the cash-at-closing and the financed variants, including the interest the financed fee itself accrues.

The readiness check weights the factors SBA lenders and the SBA’s own SOPs emphasize: time in business, annual revenue and cash-flow consistency, personal credit band, equity injection (down payment), available collateral, and loan purpose. The output describes which factors are strong and which a lender will scrutinize. It deliberately does not produce an approval probability, no tool can, and any that claims to is guessing.

Fee tables: re-verified every October 1 (fiscal-year rollover) and whenever the SBA issues a mid-year notice. Prime rate: re-checked monthly. If a verified source cannot be found for a value, the site shows “pending verification” rather than the stale number.