SBA Express Payment Calculator

Enter a loan amount, a term, and a rate to see what an SBA Express loan costs every month. The calculator also returns the highest rate SBA allows at that loan size, the guaranteed portion, and the upfront guaranty fee. Nothing is saved and nothing is sent anywhere; the math runs in your browser.

How the estimate works

How Does This Calculator Compute Your Payment?

Math, and not much of it. The loan amount, the annual rate divided by 12, and the number of months go into the standard payment formula, and out comes the level payment that retires the balance by the maturity date.

The schedule below the widget shows how each payment splits between principal and interest. It always ends at a zero balance.

One quick note: a variable-rate Express loan gets re-amortized every time the rate adjusts. The figure here is the payment if the rate you entered holds for the whole term, which is not what usually happens.

Can an SBA Express Loan Carry a Balloon Payment?

No. SBA does not allow balloon payments, and SBA Express is a delivery method inside the 7(a) program, so the rule reaches it. A fixed-rate loan has to use a payment that fully amortizes by the maturity date, and variable-rate loans are typically re-amortized at each reset for the same reason.

An interest-only period is allowed if the note says so. That means a real payment can start below the number this calculator shows. It cannot end below it, because the balance still has to reach zero on time.

How Long Can an SBA Express Loan Run?

It depends on what the money buys. Working capital, inventory, and intangible assets cap at 10 years. Equipment, fixtures, and furniture generally cap at 10 years and can reach 15 if the IRS asset class useful life supports it, plus up to 12 months for installation. Leasehold improvements cap at 10 years plus up to 12 months.

Real estate is the outlier at up to 25 years, plus a reasonable construction or renovation period. A mixed-purpose or change-of-ownership loan gets a blended maturity, or up to 25 years when at least 51% of the proceeds go to real estate. A line of credit follows its own rules and runs to 10 years at most, counting the term-out.

What SBA caps, and what it doesn't

What Is the Highest Rate an SBA Express Lender Can Charge?

SBA caps the spread over a base rate, and the cap steps down as the loan gets bigger. At $50,000 and under it is 6.5 points over base. From $50,001 to $250,000 it is 6.0 points. From $250,001 to $350,000 it is 4.5 points. From $350,001 to $500,000 it is 3.0 points.

The tier boundaries are inclusive at the top, which is where most tables go wrong. A loan of exactly $250,000 sits in the 6.0 band, not the 4.5 band. These are maximums, not quotes.

Does SBA Express Price Off a Different Table Than 7(a)?

No. Express uses the same four size tiers as a standard 7(a) loan. An older rule split the spread by maturity instead, pricing loans under seven years differently from loans at seven years or more.

It was repealed effective August 1, 2022, along with the regulation that carried it. The old split still shows up on a lot of sites.

Which Base Rate Applies to an Express Loan?

The Prime rate and the SBA Optional Peg Rate are both permitted. Three more were added on March 1, 2026: the 5-year Treasury note rate, the 10-year Treasury note rate, and SOFR. When a lender uses one of the three new options, the rate still may not exceed Prime plus the allowed spread for that loan amount.

Express lenders get one extra piece of latitude nobody else in the program has. They may price off their own in-house base rate, with their own change intervals, as long as the rate never exceeds the maximum allowable 7(a) rate. So put your lender's index in the base rate field if you know it, then put Prime in as well. Whichever of the two ceilings is lower is the one that binds, and it is Prime that sets the outer limit.

For a variable-rate loan, the base rate in effect on the first business day of the month sets the initial rate for any application SBA receives that month.

Can You Prepay an SBA Express Loan Early?

On most of them there is nothing to pay. SBA's subsidy recoupment fee only reaches loans with a maturity of 15 years or more, and only when you prepay more than 25% of the highest outstanding balance during one of the first three 12-month periods after first disbursement.

It runs 5% of the prepaid amount in year one, 3% in year two, and 1% in year three.

An Express real-estate loan written at 25 years can trip it. A 10-year working capital loan cannot, because it never crosses the 15-year line. Separately, the regulation that lists the fees a 7(a) lender may collect from you does not include a prepayment fee, and it permits only the fees on that list unless SBA loan program requirements say otherwise. Ask your lender what its note says.

Program limits

What Is the Maximum SBA Express Loan Amount?

$500,000. That number is in the statute, it has stood since October 1, 2021, and it did not revert to $350,000 the way a lot of stale copy claims.

It is also an aggregate gross cap rather than a per-loan cap. SBA counts every outstanding SBA Express, Community Advantage Pilot, Community Express, and Patriot Express loan held by you and your affiliates against the same $500,000. Carry $200,000 already and your room is $300,000.

How Much of an SBA Express Loan Does SBA Guarantee?

50%, at every loan size. This is the figure calculators get wrong most often. The familiar 85% and 75% tiers belong to standard 7(a) and do not reach Express, so a $500,000 Express loan carries a $250,000 guaranteed portion and the lender holds the other half.

Is Collateral Required?

Not at $50,000 or less. Above that, SBA sets no schedule of its own. It tells the lender to follow, to the maximum extent practicable, the written collateral policy it already uses for similarly sized loans that carry no SBA guaranty.

Two guardrails sit on either side of that. A loan request is not to be declined solely because collateral is short. And the SBA guaranty is not a substitute for collateral the borrower actually has.

Is a Personal Guaranty Required?

Yes. Every owner of 20% or more of the business signs one. The collateral relief at $50,000 and under does not touch this, and the two get confused constantly. Collateral is about the assets. The guaranty is about the people.

What Does the Upfront Guaranty Fee Cost?

For fiscal year 2026, the upfront fee is 2% of the guaranteed portion on gross loans of $150,000 or less, and 3% of the guaranteed portion above that. Because Express guarantees half the loan, the fee lands on half the balance: 3% on a $500,000 loan means 3% of $250,000, or $7,500.

The top of the fee schedule, which starts at $700,001 and carries two marginal rates, cannot reach an Express loan at all. Express stops at $500,000.

Two waivers are worth knowing, and the calculator models both. SBA charges no upfront fee on an Express loan to a business owned and controlled by a veteran or a veteran's spouse. For fiscal year 2026 it charges none on a loan of $950,000 or less to a manufacturer in NAICS sectors 31 through 33, and every Express loan sits under that figure.

Your lender may pass the upfront fee on to you. The 0.55% annual service fee it pays SBA may not be passed to you.

Program facts confirmed against 15 U.S.C. 636(a)(31), 13 CFR 120.214, 120.220 and 120.223, and SOP 50 10 8 (effective June 1, 2025) on Jul 31, 2026. FY2026 fees run through September 30, 2026. Confirm current fees and maximum rates with your lender before relying on them.

Every figure above is a program limit or a ceiling, and none of it is an offer. What you can actually borrow, at what rate, comes from a lender looking at your business. Tell us about it and we will come back with options and what they cost.