Special Release: The SBA Does It Again, More Updates to the SOP

As many of you are already aware, the Small Business Administration (“SBA”) released an updated Standard Operating Procedures (“SOP”) back in August with an effective date of October 1st. Many of those changes had a major impact on some of the SBA lending parameters with the largest portion of the changes directed at business acquisition financing. In fact, the SBA added a completely new addendum to the SOP specifically to address business acquisition financing.

Many of the announced changes in August were viewed to be negative as it made it harder to get certain types of financing done and many new requirements were put in place to specifically tighten the SBA 7A lending parameters for business acquisition financing.

On Friday September 25th the SBA released their “Technical Updates” to SOP 50 10 8.1. Although these updates were just released, the SOP update is still effective as of October 1st, 2026, providing only a few days for SBA lenders to adjust to these new changes.

The good news based on our read of the SOP changes, these “technical updates” are mostly positive and actually work to correct some mistakes in the updated SOP released in August.

Brad Hettich, President of Commercial Lending X

The full written summary, on the blog.

The SBA made many changes to the SOP. A redlined version shows edits on most of the pages, though many are minor. We pulled out the ones that could actually change a borrower deal and wrote up all thirteen on the blog.

These technical updates are the SBA amending the SOP it released in August. The effective date did not move. Every change we found that could affect a borrower is written up in full on the blog.

If you have any questions regarding any of these changes or the SBA loan programs in general, we would love the opportunity to connect with you to discuss these programs and see how we might be able to assist you. You can reach us at 630-988-4852 or at brad@commerciallendingx.com.

This is general information and not advice on a specific transaction. Every deal is different and SBA program parameters do change. The changes described here reflect the SBA Technical Updates to SOP 50 10 8.1 released September 25, 2026.

Brad

Brad Hettich

President  ·  Commercial Lending X

brad@commerciallendingx.com  ·  630-988-4852

Three pieces that give this update its context.