Quarterly 7(a) origination crossed $9.2B for the first time since 2022, led by acquisition financing and a meaningful recovery in restaurant and personal-services lending.
Q2 2026 SBA 7(a) origination reached $9.2B, up 18% YoY and the strongest quarter in nearly four years. Acquisition financing led the rebound — change-of-ownership deals comprised 34% of dollar volume, up from 27% a year ago.
Lender concentration is shifting. The top-10 SBA lenders captured 41% of volume this quarter vs 49% in Q2 2025, reflecting both new entrants and renewed appetite from regional banks that retreated in 2023–2024.
Restaurants and personal services together represented 19% of unit volume — the highest concentration since 2019. Healthcare practice acquisitions also continued their structural rise (14% of dollar volume vs 9% three years ago).
Twelve-month default rates on 2026 originations are tracking 80 bps below the 2023 vintage at the same seasoning point, with the largest improvement in services and B2B.
Funders that adopted soft-pull pre-qualification in 2025 are reporting 2.3x higher application-to-funding conversion and materially lower CAC than peers still gating with hard pulls.
Falling SBA fees and faster PLP processing have changed the math. For tickets under $500K with weaker collateral, 7(a) is now structurally cheaper than conventional term once total cost of capital is measured.
