Lender concentration

Where one lender dominates, penetration is high

SBA 7(a) originations, FY2021–FY2025. Counties with at least 25 loans.

The median county's largest lender holds 22.2% of local SBA originations — a competitive market. But in 166 counties one lender wrote more than half of all loans, and in 31 it wrote more than three-quarters. Those are the counties at the top of the penetration table.

22.2%median county's largest-lender share

166counties where one lender wrote over half of all SBA loans (14.7%)

62.4%share of all Ohio 7(a) loans written by a single institution

Source: Analysis of SBA 7(a) and 504 FOIA loan data (as of 31 March 2026), US Census Bureau County Business Patterns 2023, and Population Estimates Vintage 2025. Cancelled and never-funded approvals excluded. Published by sba-feasibility-study.com.