Fiscal Year 2026
24
Loans Approved
$17.5M
Total Value
In fiscal year 2026, lenders approved 24 SBA 7(a) loans for bed and breakfasts, worth $17.5 million. That works out to an average of about $729,000 per inn, down from 28 loans and $37.6 million the year before. It is a small corner of SBA lending, and that is exactly why the lender you pick matters so much.
An SBA 7(a) bed and breakfast loan is made by an SBA-approved lender, such as a bank, credit union, or non-bank SBA lender. The SBA does not hand you the money. It guarantees part of the loan for the lender, up to 85% on loans of $150,000 or less and up to 75% on larger ones, which is what lets a lender offer a long term and a modest down payment on a property type many banks would rather skip. To qualify as lodging, an inn needs more than half of its revenue to come from guests staying 30 days or less. A house rented out by the month is a rental, and SBA loans do not cover rentals.
7aSavvy is an SBA 7(a) loan broker for innkeepers and B&B buyers. You tell us about the inn, the price, and what the money needs to do. We take the deal to lenders that are funding SBA 7(a) bed and breakfast loans right now, talk through the details with them, and then introduce you to the one that fits. A six-room Victorian in a ski town that runs at full occupancy for four months a year and a twelve-room inn with a restaurant on a wine route are different credit stories, and they often don’t land well at the same lender.
Why Innkeepers Start With 7aSavvy
Plenty of B&B buyers walk into the bank where they keep their checking account. That is a gamble. The banker is there to protect the bank, and a branch that has never financed an inn may treat yours like a big house with too many bathrooms. If you do not know 7(a) lending well, there is a lot that can go wrong between the offer and the closing table. We are the 7(a) expert working on your side of that table.
- No cost to you, and no change to your loan. The lender pays 7aSavvy a referral fee when your loan funds. That fee does not raise your rate or change your terms, and all of the top SBA lenders pay referral fees to SBA loan brokers.
- We talk to lenders every single day. Our team is on the phone with several lenders daily, about loans already moving and new ones just getting started. Your inn is discussed with a lender, and its fit confirmed, before that lender is ever selected.
- Inn deals go to inn lenders. One lender likes established inns with three years of clean books. Another will finance a startup conversion if the owner has hospitality experience. A third is comfortable with a seasonal resort town. We match your bed and breakfast financing to the lender built for that profile.
- We have worked inside the bank. Our founders have more than 35 years of SBA lending experience between them, including about 20 years spent bringing SBA loans into banks and getting them funded. We know what an underwriter will ask about occupancy, average daily rate, and the owner’s quarters before the question shows up.
How 7aSavvy Works for Bed and Breakfast Deals
Step 1: Tell us about the inn. Our Get Connected form asks for the price or project cost, the location, the number of guest rooms, and what the loan needs to cover. It takes a few minutes, and loans under $350,000 and loans of $350,000 or more follow separate paths.
Step 2: We read the file the way a credit officer would. For a bed and breakfast loan, that means guest room count, occupancy and average daily rate by month, booking channel history, the seller’s tax returns, the lodging and food service permits, zoning, and how much of the building is guest space versus the owner’s private suite. Problems get spotted and fixed before a lender opens the file.
Step 3: We prescreen with lenders, then make the introduction. We talk the inn through with lenders that close B&B SBA loans of your size, and only after that do we connect you with a decision-maker, usually a Vice President or higher, at the lender that fits. Since the work is done up front, a decline happens only in extreme cases. When an inn deal does fall apart, the seller is the usual reason, which is why we push early for complete seller books and booking records.
Step 4: We stay on your team through funding day. Most SBA 7(a) bed and breakfast loans take 45 to 90 days from the first call to funding.
Our SBA 7(a) Lender Connections for Bed and Breakfasts
From fiscal year 2020 through fiscal year 2026, 130 different lenders made at least one SBA 7(a) loan to a bed and breakfast inn. 81 of them made exactly one. Only 21 made three or more. For most lenders on the SBA’s list, an inn shows up about as often as a total solar eclipse, and an underwriter seeing their first B&B tends to ask a lot of nervous questions.
Most active SBA 7(a) bed and breakfast lenders by number of loans (FY 2020 to FY 2026):
| Rank | Lender | B&B Loans | Total Value |
| 1 | Beacon Bank and Trust | 12 | $22.19M |
| 2 | Celtic Bank | 10 | $12.81M |
| 3 | M&T Bank (Manufacturers and Traders Trust) | 10 | $2.14M |
| 4 | iTHINK Financial Credit Union | 9 | $7.23M |
| 5 | Readycap Lending | 7 | $11.46M |
| 6 | Harvest Small Business Finance | 7 | $8.38M |
| 7 | Newtek Small Business Finance | 7 | $5.31M |
| 8 | Byline Bank | 6 | $9.47M |
| 9 | Huntington National Bank | 6 | $5.06M |
| 10 | Paragon Bank | 5 | $9.06M |
Source: SBA, 7(a) & 504 FOIA
Look at the averages and this list of B&B SBA loans stops looking like a ranking. Beacon Bank and Trust’s inn loans averaged about $1.85 million and Readycap’s about $1.64 million. M&T’s averaged roughly $214,000. Both are busy, real SBA lenders, and they are clearly built for very different bed and breakfast deals. Sending a $2 million inn purchase to a lender that lives in the $200,000 range can waste time you do not have.
Picking the right name for your loan is our job. Celtic Bank, Huntington, and Ready Capital (Readycap Lending) all appear in that table, and they are among our lender relationships, along with GBank and the rest of our 100+ SBA 7(a) lenders. We know which of them is taking inn requests this quarter and which loan officer has actually closed one.
What an SBA Bed and Breakfast Loan Can Pay For
One SBA 7(a) loan can handle several parts of an inn project at once, with a single monthly payment. SBA bed and breakfast loans typically go toward:
- Buying an operating B&B. The building, the furniture, the website and booking history, and the goodwill in one business acquisition. In fiscal year 2025, the three change of ownership loans in this industry averaged about $2.94 million.
- The property itself. 20 of the 28 inn loans approved in fiscal year 2025 carried terms of 20 years or more, the sign of real estate in the deal. Together they accounted for $35.7 million.
- Opening a new inn. Nine fiscal year 2025 SBA loans for B&Bs, worth $14.9 million, went to B&Bs that were not open yet. Ground-up builds, additions, and turning a large home into a licensed guest house fall under construction.
- Renovation and guest rooms. Adding private baths, accessible rooms, a commercial kitchen, fire sprinklers, or a new roof before the season starts.
- Furniture, fixtures, and equipment. Beds and linens, kitchen equipment, laundry machines, HVAC, and the property management system.
- Refinancing. Eligible business debt, including a high-rate balloon loan, can be refinanced into a longer, fully amortizing SBA term.
- Working capital. A cushion for payroll, marketing, and the quiet months.
SBA 7(a) Bed and Breakfast Loan Terms and Eligibility
How Much Can You Borrow for a Bed and Breakfast?
The SBA 7(a) maximum is $5 million, and one 2025 loan was approved right at that cap. The median B&B SBA loan that year was about $971,000, and 14 of the 28 loans were $1 million or more. What you qualify for depends on the inn’s cash flow, your down payment, the appraisal, how the money will be used, and the lender’s underwriting.
Loan Terms and Interest Rates
- Loan amounts up to $5 million
- Down payments commonly 10%
- Terms up to 25 years when real estate makes up most of the loan, up to 10 years without real estate
- Fully amortizing payments, no balloon
- Prepayment penalty on loans with terms of 15 years or more: 5%, 3%, then 1% in years one through three
SBA 7(a) rates are usually set as prime plus a spread, and for loans above $350,000 the SBA caps that spread at prime + 3.0. Most 7(a) loans price between prime + 1.0 and prime + 3.0. 25 of the 28 bed and breakfast loans approved in fiscal year 2025 were variable rate. Check today’s benchmarks on our SBA 7(a) interest rates page and estimate a payment with the SBA loan calculator. The most practical way to tighten the spread is to put your inn in front of the lender that wants it most.
SBA 7(a) Bed and Breakfast Loan Qualifications
The business must be a for-profit U.S. business that meets SBA size standards, shows a need for credit, and runs the inn itself. More than half of its revenue has to come from guests staying 30 days or less, and the operating business needs to occupy the property rather than lease it to someone else. Since March 1, 2026, every direct and indirect owner must be a U.S. citizen or U.S. national whose main home is in the U.S. or its territories.
For an SBA 7(a) bed and breakfast loan, lenders typically review:
- Three years of business tax returns and profit and loss statements, plus a current P&L and balance sheet
- Monthly occupancy, average daily rate, and revenue reports, along with booking platform statements
- Personal credit, three years of personal tax returns, and a personal financial statement for each owner of 20% or more
- The purchase agreement and a breakdown of price between real estate, furniture and equipment, and goodwill
- Lodging, health, and food service permits, plus zoning approval for the number of guest rooms
- A floor plan showing guest rooms, common areas, and the owner’s living quarters
- A commercial appraisal and, when goodwill is part of the price, a business valuation
- A business plan and projections for any startup, conversion, or expansion, with contractor bids for construction
Every owner of 20% or more signs a personal guarantee. A quality of earnings report is required when the business purchase price, not counting owner-occupied real estate, is $3 million or more. The full list lives on our SBA 7(a) loan documents page, and the SBA cash flow calculator shows how a lender will test your inn’s debt service coverage.
About 7aSavvy
7aSavvy is an SBA 7(a) loan broker that arranges SBA 7(a) loans for bed and breakfasts and country inns for borrowers across the country. We are not a lender and not a government agency, and the lender makes the final call on approval, rate, and terms. What we do is build a clean loan file, prescreen it with the lenders most likely to fund it, and stay with you from the first conversation to funding day. See more on the Savvy Difference page.
