Fiscal Year 2025
2,374
Loans Approved
$1.5B
Total Value
7aSavvy is an SBA 7(a) loan broker. The idea behind the service is fairly simple. Instead of a Georgia borrower filling out one bank application after another and hoping that the lender is willing and able to fund that sort of deal, we look at the request and point it toward a lender that is a great fit.
If you’re an entrepreneur in Georgia and you are trying to finance an acquisition, buy equipment, purchase commercial real estate, or add working capital, the lender you end up with matters a great deal. Two lenders can look at the same request and come to different conclusions, because each one has its own appetite for certain industries, deal sizes, and uses of proceeds. Our job is to read your deal and connect you with a lender in Georgia that is a good fit for it, rather than leaving you to find that out through trial and error.
An SBA 7(a) loan is made by an approved lender and carries a partial guarantee from the U.S. Small Business Administration. In most cases the SBA does not hand out the money itself. A bank, credit union, or approved non-bank lender provides the financing, and the government guarantee covers part of the balance if the loan is not repaid, which lowers the risk the lender is taking on. For loans of $150,000 or less the guarantee is usually 85%, and for larger loans it is usually 75%. The loan amount tops out at $5 million in most situations.
Uses of SBA 7(a) Loans in Georgia
Entrepreneurs in Georgia tend to look at an SBA 7(a) loan when they need financing that is attainable and has good terms that work for their business. The proceeds can go toward buying a company, purchasing equipment, improving a facility, buying owner-occupied commercial property, refinancing eligible business debt, or shoring up working capital.
Common uses include:
- Buying an existing business
- Purchasing owner-occupied commercial real estate
- Buying equipment
- Construction, renovation, or buildout work
- Refinancing eligible business debt
- Funding expansion
Buy
A Georgia business owner can use SBA 7(a) financing to purchase business assets or acquire a company that is already operating. That might mean buying an established business that already has customers and revenue coming in, purchasing a building for the business to occupy, or paying for the equipment the operation depends on day to day. Because the guarantee gives lenders more security to approve loans, this kind of purchase is one of the more common reasons borrowers in the state look at the program.
Build
The proceeds can also pay for construction, renovation, and improvement work tied to a business. That covers a range of projects, including leasehold improvements, interior buildouts, renovating an existing facility, adding on to a building, ground-up construction meant for business use, and improvements to owner-occupied property. Georgia sees a fair amount of this kind of activity, from restaurant buildouts in Atlanta to warehouse and light-industrial work around the Savannah port corridor.
Expand
Growth usually costs money before it pays anything back, and that gap is where a lot of owners get stuck. An SBA 7(a) loan can help fund expansion such as opening another location, adding capacity, hiring, buying inventory ahead of demand, upgrading technology, and carrying seasonal swings in cash flow while a business is growing. For a Georgia company that is trying to keep up with demand, this can be the difference between taking on the next opportunity and having to pass on it.
SBA 7(a) Loan Industries in Georgia
Lenders fund SBA 7(a) loans across a wide range of Georgia industries, and the state’s business base is broad enough that most of them show up on a regular basis. Small businesses make up about 99.7% of all businesses in Georgia, which works out to roughly 1.4 million of them, and they employ close to 1.8 million people, so the mix of deals that come through is varied.
Industries that come up often include:
- Restaurants and other food service businesses
- Hotels, motels, and other hospitality businesses
- Gas stations and convenience stores
- Retail stores
- Medical, dental, and other healthcare practices
- Franchise businesses
- Logistics, trucking, and warehousing operations
- Manufacturing companies
- Car washes
- Self-storage facilities
- Professional and other service firms
Georgia’s economy leans on a handful of large sectors that feed a lot of small-business activity around them. Logistics and transportation are among the biggest, helped along by the Port of Savannah and the freight network that moves through metro Atlanta. Manufacturing has grown with the automotive plants that have come into the state, food processing and poultry are long-standing industries here, and film and television production has brought steady work to the Atlanta area. Healthcare and hospitality fill out the picture, and each of these larger sectors creates demand for the smaller suppliers, contractors, and service businesses that often turn to SBA 7(a) financing.
SBA 7(a) Loan Qualifications in Georgia
Qualifying for an SBA 7(a) loan starts with the basic eligibility rules that apply to small business borrowers. In general the business has to be for-profit, operate inside the United States or its territories, fall within the SBA size standards for its industry, and plan to use the money for an eligible purpose.
Most common business structures work here, including sole proprietorships, partnerships, corporations, limited liability companies, and similar for-profit entities.
Meeting those general rules gets you in the door, but it is far from the whole review. Once a Georgia business clears the basic eligibility, the lender looks at the full request. That review can include the business’s financial performance, the owner’s credit profile, how the ownership is set up, the industry, any available collateral, the use of proceeds, management experience, and whether the business can reasonably repay the loan. The paperwork is not the same for every deal either, since an acquisition, a real estate purchase, and a debt refinance each call for different documentation.
SBA 7(a) Loans in Georgia: Pros and Cons
For a Georgia borrower, an SBA 7(a) loan opens up flexible financing for the kinds of things that are hard to pay for otherwise, whether that is buying a company, expanding, purchasing equipment, refinancing eligible debt, or investing in owner-occupied commercial property. The loan is still made by a regular lender, but because the SBA guarantees part of it, lenders are often willing to consider requests that would not fit neatly into conventional financing. That tends to help entrepreneurs that have a solid plan but a more complicated funding need, or thinner cash flow than a bank would normally want to see.
Some of the benefits include:
- Repayment terms that are usually longer than most other business financing
- Flexible use of proceeds across eligible business purposes
- Financing available for acquisitions, expansion, equipment, working capital, debt refinancing, and owner-occupied real estate
- Fully amortized repayment, so there is no large balloon payment waiting at the end
- Interest rates that are competitive for qualified borrowers and eligible uses
- Down payments that are generally lower than what conventional financing asks for
The value is not only in getting the money. It is also in the way the loan is put together, since a long, fully amortized loan term provides long-term security, and the flexibility lets an owner cover more than one need through a single loan instead of stacking up several of them.
There are also drawbacks worth knowing about. As of March 1, 2026, the business has to be 100% owned by U.S. citizens or U.S. nationals. The loan also caps out at $5 million, which can be tight on higher-priced real estate deals in and around metro Atlanta, where property tends to cost more.
SBA 7(a) Loans vs. Other Types of Loans
SBA 7(a) Loans vs Conventional Loans
With a conventional loan the lender carries the full risk, so approval can be harder for a borrower who has limited collateral, weaker cash flow, a shorter track record, or a deal that does not look standard. An SBA 7(a) loan works differently, because the loan still comes from a private lender, but the SBA guarantees part of it, which gives the lender more room to say yes. On top of that, SBA 7(a) loans come with some better terms, such as a lower down payment and a longer, fully amortized term. Which one makes more sense depends on the business and the deal. A business with strong cash flow, plenty of collateral, and a simple funding need may do fine with a conventional loan, while a borrower with fewer resources or a more complicated purpose is usually the one who benefits from looking at the SBA 7(a) route.
SBA 7(a) Loans vs SBA 504 Loans
Both of these programs come with SBA backing, but they are built for different jobs. The SBA 7(a) loan is the more flexible of the two, and it can be used for working capital, buying a business, owner-occupied commercial real estate, equipment, construction, eligible refinancing, and expansion. The SBA 504 loan is more narrow, and it is meant for long-term, fixed-asset financing such as owner-occupied commercial property or large equipment. The two programs share a few features, including down payments that start around 10% and real estate terms that run up to 25 years. The differences matter, though. SBA 504 rates are usually lower and fixed, while SBA 7(a) rates are usually a little higher and can move with the market. A 504 loan can reach about $11.25 million, which is higher than the $5 million ceiling on a 7(a) loan, but the 7(a) process is generally simpler and quicker, partly because a 504 loan is put together from two pieces, a standard lender loan and a second loan through a nonprofit CDC.
Georgia SBA 7(a) Loan Program Statistics
These are the year-by-year* statistics of the SBA 7(a) loan program in Georgia from Fiscal Year 1992 to today, including the number of 7(a) loans approved and total approval amount.
| Fiscal Year | Loans Approved | Approval Amount |
| 1992 | 635 | $229,804,655 |
| 1993 | 705 | $253,278,801 |
| 1994 | 906 | $307,164,485 |
| 1995 | 1,310 | $284,683,080 |
| 1996 | 1,032 | $271,909,613 |
| 1997 | 1,092 | $342,368,891 |
| 1998 | 955 | $335,190,578 |
| 1999 | 1,087 | $387,953,560 |
| 2000 | 1,066 | $385,204,616 |
| 2001 | 1,042 | $371,795,664 |
| 2002 | 1,160 | $442,623,375 |
| 2003 | 1,500 | $367,299,965 |
| 2004 | 2,020 | $441,431,361 |
| 2005 | 2,372 | $524,837,442 |
| 2006 | 2,677 | $562,857,405 |
| 2007 | 2,748 | $578,698,166 |
| 2008 | 1,926 | $495,282,922 |
| 2009 | 876 | $329,727,588 |
| 2010 | 1,181 | $507,499,800 |
| 2011 | 1,443 | $1,013,304,100 |
| 2012 | 1,032 | $682,004,200 |
| 2013 | 1,364 | $997,632,800 |
| 2014 | 1,211 | $861,288,400 |
| 2015 | 1,852 | $1,201,976,700 |
| 2016 | 1,869 | $1,258,696,600 |
| 2017 | 1,710 | $1,265,867,900 |
| 2018 | 1,731 | $1,246,508,700 |
| 2019 | 1,524 | $1,139,524,000 |
| 2020 | 1,236 | $1,043,690,000 |
| 2021 | 1,758 | $1,821,930,600 |
| 2022 | 1,364 | $1,161,176,800 |
| 2023 | 1,685 | $1,177,681,300 |
| 2024 | 2,032 | $1,300,391,100 |
| 2025 | 2,374 | $1,529,136,100 |
Source: SBA, 7(a) & 504 FOIA
*U.S. Federal Government fiscal years
SBA 7(a) Loans On the Rise
The SBA 7(a) loan program has seen great growth in Georgia, with the annual total value of approved loans up almost 7x since 1992.
About 7aSavvy
7aSavvy is an SBA 7(a) loan broker that works with business owners in Georgia. We are not a lender, and we are not the SBA. We do not approve loans and we do not set rates. What we do is look at your deal and put you in front of lenders that are interested in actually funding your Georgia loan request. The lender pays us when a deal closes, so the service does not cost you anything.
The company is led by founder and CEO Brett Smith, who has worked on more than $1 billion of SBA loans and has over 15 years of experience on both sides of the table, as a lender and as a broker.
How 7aSavvy Works
Step 1: You tell us about the deal. Use our Get Connected form to share the basics, including the loan purpose, a rough loan size, the industry, and where in Georgia the business is located.
Step 2: We read the request. We look at the use of proceeds, industry, and the details a lender is going to care about.
Step 3: We match you with the right lender. We know which Georgia lenders have the appetite for a deal like yours, the right industry experience, and the capacity to fund it, and we make the introduction.
Step 4: We stay with it. We help keep the request moving toward funding instead of leaving you to chase the bank on your own.
A Quick Example
Denise ran a small trucking and last-mile delivery business outside Savannah, and she had been leasing the warehouse and yard she worked out of for years. When the property came up for sale, she wanted to buy it so she was not at the mercy of a landlord, and she needed about $2.6 million for it, roughly $2.4 million for the real estate and another $200,000 for a new dock door and some yard repairs. With 10% down, about $260,000, she was looking for a loan of around $2.34 million. Her regular bank turned her down for a conventional loan, because her margins were lower than they were comfortable with. Through 7aSavvy she was connected with a lender that regularly funds logistics and owner-occupied real estate deals, and the loan closed in 78 days.
