SBA Hot Topic Tuesday – Two-Thirds of Small Businesses Applied for Credit in 2020
March 21, 2023
Delaney Sexton
Contributing Editor
SBA Hot Topic Tuesday – Two-Thirds of Small Businesses Applied for Credit in 2020
The SBA’s Office of Advocacy released their annual Frequently Asked Questions About Small Business publication that “gathers the most up to-to-date statistics about American small businesses in one place.”
Here are the key statistics formed from recent government data:
• There are over 33 million small businesses in the United States.
• In 2020, more than two-thirds of small businesses applied to a bank for new credit.
• 86% of businesses received financial assistance from a pandemic-related loan program at the SBA during 2020. In 2021, two-thirds of small businesses received pandemic financial assistance.
• 1.07 million small businesses opened in 2020, and 1.02 million small businesses closed that year.
• From 1997 to 2019, the number of nonemployer firms increased from 15.4 million to 27.1 million.
• Small businesses comprise 43.5% of the nation’s gross domestic product.
• During fiscal year 2021, more than a quarter of contracting dollars went to small businesses, a slight increase from the previous fiscal year.
• The Office of Personnel Management (67.35%), the Department of Interior (61.02%), and the SBA (60.55%) awarded the highest share of contracting dollars to small businesses.
• An average of two-thirds of new small businesses survive the first two years. After five years, 48.9% of small businesses survive, and in ten years, a third of small businesses survive.
• The 2017 to 2019 two-year survival rate for young small businesses was 79%.