Worked Example: USDA Business and Industry Loan RV Park Feasibility Study in North Dakota

This is a worked example, not a client engagement. The example follows a feasibility consultant testing a seasonal RV park of an assumed 120 full hook-up sites, sited in a rural-eligible area of North Dakota and funded by a guaranteed loan under USDA's Business and Industry (B&I) program, and reports what the arithmetic gives when national median performance, not a developer's hopes, drives the underwriting. Each project input below is an assumption and is marked as such, while each market, program or rate figure names the publisher it comes from. It is written for the lender, the sponsor and the consultant deciding what the study would have to prove.

At a glance. A seasonal full hook-up RV park of an assumed 120 sites, costing $3,992,354 in the model and carrying a $2,994,265 USDA B&I guaranteed loan with an 85 percent guarantee, reaches stabilized debt service coverage of 0.90x, short of the assumed lender minimum of 1.25x that binds here (Table 7). The base case fails; the useful product of the exercise is the set of numbers that say what would have to be true for it to pass, ending in a restructure that does (Table 10).

• Total project cost: $3,992,354
• USDA B&I guaranteed loan (85% guaranteed): $2,994,265
• Borrower equity (25% of total project cost): $998,088
• Stabilized net operating income after replacement reserve: $260,710
• Stabilized debt service coverage: 0.90x
• Blended season occupancy needed for 1.25x: 63.6%
• Loan the base case supports at 1.25x: $2,158,476

The Lender's Question: What a Feasibility Consultant Tests First

The lender's question is narrow. For a new business borrowing more than $1,000,000 under a B&I guarantee, the rule calls for a feasibility study by an independent, qualified consultant the Agency accepts, and the Agency fixes the scope by the complexity of the project and the borrower ^[1]. Under the regulation the study is a report with an opinion or finding on the economic, market, technical, financial and management feasibility of the proposed project, judged by its expectation for success ^[2]. Financial feasibility means the ability of the project to achieve sufficient income, credit and cash flow to sustain itself over the long term and meet all debt obligations ^[3]. The lender asks whether this park, at this cost and loan, services the note with a margin that survives what goes wrong.

A consultant would therefore test coverage first, and measure it the way the rule does. In 7 CFR 5001.3 the debt service coverage ratio is a quotient: annual principal and interest divides earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization after subtracting reasonably expected replacement capital expenditures ^[4]. Pads, pedestals, septic parts and bathhouse fixtures wear out, so an assumed reserve of $300 per site per year comes off earnings before coverage is struck.

The second test is the eligibility boundary. Under 7 CFR 5001.105(b)(8), an eligible B&I project can be a tourist or recreation facility such as a resort trailer park or a campground run as a public or private commercial enterprise ^[5]. Residential trailer parks and other housing whose primary purpose is independent housing are not ^[6]. The same pads and sewer runs can be either, depending on who is parked on them and for how long.

Decision. Loan size would follow the reserve-adjusted coverage test rather than loan-to-cost, since coverage is the tighter limit in this model; the short-stay revenue share would be handled as a covenanted underwriting input, not an operating detail.

The Site and Its Market in North Dakota

The project is sited in a rural-eligible area of North Dakota. OneRD counts as rural any part of a state that is not a city or town above 50,000 inhabitants and not the urbanized area contiguous and adjacent to one ^[7]. The example names no city or town; the site is described by what sells it, which is proximity to Theodore Roosevelt National Park and to the Interstate 94 corridor that carries visitors to it. Both are named as demand context, not as a location.

The state's own population does not carry the project. The Census Bureau's Vintage 2025 estimates put North Dakota's resident population at 799,358 on July 1, 2025, up from an estimates base of 779,136 in April 2020 ^[8]. That is growth on a small base, which is why the demand case rests on visitors arriving by interstate rather than on residents.

What the state does have is a measurable and growing outdoor recreation economy. The Bureau of Economic Analysis reports that North Dakota had the fastest growth in outdoor recreation employment of any state in 2024, at 4.3 percent ^[9]. BEA's state tables put outdoor recreation at 2.2 percent of North Dakota's value added in 2024, with 15,511 outdoor recreation jobs, or 3.3 percent of wage and salary employment ^[10]. Within that, BEA puts the state's RVing value added at $116,053 thousand in 2024, above boating and fishing at $100,559 thousand ^[11].

A few items a full study would carry have no sourced figure here. The State of North Dakota's web hosts did not respond during the research, so there is no sourced figure for state tourism visitation or spending, campground licensing, sales or lodging tax on campsite rentals, or property tax rates. Revenue is shown net of any pass-through taxes, and property tax is an assumed $38,000 a year, to be confirmed with the county assessor.

Decision. The study would treat the national park and the interstate as the market and the state as the regulatory wrapper; it would not claim local demand from a resident base of 799,358 people spread over a large state ^[8].

Demand: Who Fills the Sites from May to October

The anchor is the national park. The National Park Service reports that Theodore Roosevelt National Park drew 733,000 visitors in 2024, who contributed an estimated $56 million in local communities ^[12]. The park is open year-round, but the Park Service says its busiest months are June, July and August ^[13]. That sentence sets the model's season: an assumed 92 peak nights from June 1 to August 31 and an assumed 92 shoulder nights across May, September and October, with the park closed November through April.

Two facts about the national park's own infrastructure bear on a full hook-up park outside its gate. Every campground inside the park is primitive, with no hookups and no showers, and sites are reserved through recreation.gov ^[14]; an RV visitor who wants 50-amp power, a sewer connection and a hot shower must find them outside. And the Park Service marked completion of the approximately $51 million South Unit Scenic Loop Road rehabilitation on November 25, 2025, reopening the full loop ^[15], a road that approximately 100,000 vehicles a year drive as part of their visit ^[16]. No monthly visitation series from the Park Service was available here, which leaves the June to August concentration sourced as a statement, not a count.

The national backdrop is supportive and should be quoted at its actual strength. In its 2026 outdoor hospitality report, Kampgrounds of America says over 52 million North American households went camping in 2025, above pre-pandemic levels ^[17]. The same Kampgrounds of America report puts the sector's local community spending at $66 billion in 2025, a $5 billion increase from 2024 ^[18], context the assumed demand here does not lean on. BEA reports that RVing was the second-largest conventional outdoor recreation activity in the nation in 2024, at $27.5 billion in current-dollar value added ^[19]. None of these is a North Dakota figure; they say only that the activity the park serves is large and not shrinking.

Seasonality is the other half of demand. The Outdoor Hospitality Industry's 2026 Industry Outlook Report finds that, across the Northeast and Midwest, a majority of parks shut from January to March and again from November to December ^[20], and that the most common shoulder months in the Midwest are April and October ^[21]. The model's assumed 184-night season drops April, and a consultant would not count on it at this latitude.

The long-stay pool is real and is also the eligibility risk. The Energy Information Administration estimates North Dakota crude oil field production at 1,171 thousand barrels per day in 2025, against 1,198 in 2024 and 1,069 in 2022 ^[22]. Oilfield crews are the workforce that fills monthly sites in western North Dakota. The model admits them at an assumed long-stay rent of $1,000 a month, but holds site revenue to an assumed 90 percent short-stay floor, a design limit rather than a forecast.

Decision. The study would build demand from the national park's visitation and the primitive state of its own campgrounds, treat the national camping figures as context only, and model the oilfield workforce as a capped secondary segment.

Competition and the Benchmarks a Study Would Use

No local competitor rate card or site inventory is sourced, because a worked example invents no business; this section sets the benchmarks a local rate survey would be read against.

The Outdoor Hospitality Industry's 2026 Industry Outlook Report, from a survey fielded between September 2025 and January 2026, finds that the typical (median) park reported 57 percent occupancy over its months of operation, main and shoulder seasons included, for the past 12 months ^[23]. The same Outdoor Hospitality Industry report finds a median average daily rate of $56 across all site and unit types ^[24] and a median revenue per available site of $35 ^[25].

The Outdoor Hospitality Industry report also describes the park this example competes against: the typical park has 105 total rentable sites ^[26], employs 3 full-time and 3 part-time staff weekly in its main season ^[27], and reports a most common length of stay of 3 nights ^[28]. Sixty-two percent of parks raised nightly or weekly rates for 2025, with a typical increase of 3 percent, according to the Outdoor Hospitality Industry survey ^[29]. The average park in the Outdoor Hospitality Industry survey splits its guests nearly evenly, 54 percent short-term and 46 percent long-term ^[30], and the mean seasonal rate per month for a full hook-up site is $1,936.72 ^[31]. That seasonal rate is national and resort-weighted, which is why the model's assumed $1,000 monthly rent sits far below it.

Every OHI figure carries the same caveat, and a study would print it beside each use: the Outdoor Hospitality Industry report rests on 109 qualified responses, a 3 percent response rate, with a margin of error of plus or minus 9.2 percentage points ^[32]. The medians are the best public operator benchmark available; they are not a comparable set.

A downside reference exists and should be named for what it is. Campspot platform data published by the Outdoor Hospitality Industry in the January 2025 edition of The Data Dig show campsite occupancy averaging 34.9 percent over the trailing 365 days, up 4 percent year over year ^[33], and a trailing 365-day average daily rate of $32.28, mostly flat ^[34]. Those Campspot figures are platform-wide and year-round, so they include closed months and tent sites, and are not a comparable for a seasonal full hook-up park; they mark the floor a lender would want to see tested.

Decision. The study would commission a local full hook-up rate survey within the park's drive-time market and read it against the OHI medians, treating any local rate at or below the national median as a reason to cut the assumed peak rate, not as a reason to assume higher occupancy.

Cost Basis: What the Park Would Cost to Build

Rounded to the dollar; lines may not foot by $1.

The cost side has no North Dakota source. The one public construction benchmark is thin: in the Outdoor Hospitality Industry's 2026 Industry Outlook Report a majority, 55 percent, of existing parks that added full hook-up sites in the past 12 months reported an average cost under $10,000 per new site, from only 25 respondents, which OHI flags as statistically unstable ^[36], and the assumed $12,500 per site here sits deliberately above it. That OHI figure is for sites added to a park that already has a well, a wastewater system, primary power and an entrance. A greenfield park has none of those, and in North Dakota its water and sewer lines must be buried below frost depth. The shared systems are carried separately as an assumed $600,000 for the well, water storage, wastewater treatment, primary power and entrance road.

The remaining hard cost lines are assumptions sized to a one-building operation: an assumed $480,000 bathhouse and laundry building, an assumed $260,000 office and camp store, and an assumed $100,000 of furniture, fixtures, equipment and signage. Land is an assumed $200,000 for about 25 acres. There are no owner's living quarters, a program choice: under 7 CFR 5001.105(b)(8), owner-occupied living quarters in a tourist facility are allowed only when their pro rata value, based on square footage, is deducted from the use of loan proceeds ^[47].

Soft cost and contingency are assumptions at 7 percent and 8 percent of hard cost, which on the $2,940,000 subtotal come to $205,800 and $235,200 in Table 3. One assumed $100,000 line covers third-party reports, closing and financing, with the feasibility study, appraisal and environmental work not broken out. Interest during construction and pre-opening costs are an assumed $150,000; working capital and opening inventory an assumed $85,000. Total project cost is $3,992,354, or $33,270 per site, including the $76,354 USDA guarantee fee, which is itself a function of the loan.

The capital stack follows the equity rule. Where a new business builds a project and the lender asks for the loan note guarantee before construction ends, the borrower needs 25 percent balance sheet equity (or debt-to-equity of 3 to 1 or less), or an investment that reaches at least 25 percent of the total eligible project cost ^[38]. Other new businesses need at least 20 percent balance sheet equity at closing, or the same 25 percent investment ^{[48] [37]}. The model takes equity at 25 percent of total project cost, which satisfies the investment test under either paragraph, and that gives a $2,994,265 loan and $998,088 of equity in Table 3, with a guaranteed portion of $2,545,126 at the 85 percent guarantee.

Decision. The study would treat per-site development and the shared utility systems as the two cost lines to bid before anything else, because together they are more than two thirds of hard cost and neither has a public North Dakota benchmark.

Revenue Build: Occupancy, Rate and the Short-Stay Share

The revenue build is plain. An assumed 120 sites open for 184 nights give 22,080 available site-nights (Table 4). Peak occupancy is an assumed 80 percent across June, July and August, the national park's busiest months ^[13], and shoulder occupancy is an assumed 30 percent across May, September and October. Those inputs yield 8,832 peak and 3,312 shoulder occupied site-nights and a blended season occupancy of 55.0 percent, held just under the Outdoor Hospitality Industry's reported median of 57 percent for parks across their operating months ^[23]. A new park with no reviews and no repeat guests should not be assumed to outperform the typical established one.

Rate is where a full hook-up park earns its premium. The assumed peak short-stay nightly rate is $66 and the assumed shoulder rate is $54, blending to $62.73 in Table 4. That is above the $56 median average daily rate the Outdoor Hospitality Industry reports across all site and unit types ^[24], and a study would have to justify the gap with a local survey; the argument for it is that the OHI median mixes tent, water-and-electric and full hook-up inventory. Even so, site revenue per available site-night comes to $31.63, below the $35 median RevPAS the same Outdoor Hospitality Industry report finds ^[25], because the lower occupancy more than offsets the higher rate.

The short-stay share is the input that keeps the park a transient recreational business. The model sets an assumed 90 percent of site revenue from stays under 30 nights and solves for the long-stay mix that produces it: at an assumed monthly rent of $1,000, or $32.88 per site-night, long stays take 17.5 percent of occupied site-nights, 2,124 of them, and produce $69,835 of the $698,353 of site revenue (Table 4). The model is built this way because the regulation's line is about what the park is for: residential trailer parks whose primary purpose is independent housing cannot be financed ^[6], while a resort trailer park or campground operated as a commercial enterprise can ^[5]. A revenue floor is something a lender can covenant and a servicer can test from the reservation system. The Outdoor Hospitality Industry's finding that the average park is 46 percent long-term guests ^[30] shows how far the industry norm sits from the posture this project would have to hold.

Camp store, laundry and other income is an assumed 9 percent of site revenue, or $62,852, and total revenue at stabilization is $761,204, or $6,343 per site per year (Table 4). For scale, the Outdoor Hospitality Industry's median park reports total revenue of $5.5 million over the past 12 months against a mean of $16.4 million ^[49]; this is a small operator by that measure.

Occupancy in the ramp (Table 5) is assumed to start well below the stabilized level, so blended occupancy is 35.8 percent in Year 1 and 46.8 percent in Year 2 against 55.0 percent at stabilization. The Year 1 figure is close to the 34.9 percent trailing-365-day figure that Campspot data published by the Outdoor Hospitality Industry show platform-wide ^[33]. Year 1 revenue is $494,783 and net operating income after reserve is $34,361; Year 2 reaches $647,024 and $163,703. Stabilization is Year 3.

Decision. The study would hold occupancy at or below the OHI median and put the burden of proof on rate, because rate is what a local survey can evidence and occupancy for a new park cannot be evidenced at all.

Debt Service Coverage and Sensitivity

Table 6 has fixed lines that are assumptions and variable lines that follow revenue. Payroll, taxes and benefits are an assumed $150,000, sized to a year-round manager plus seasonal staff in line with the 3 full-time and 3 part-time employees the Outdoor Hospitality Industry reports for the typical park in its main season ^[27]. Utilities are an assumed $72,000, repairs and grounds an assumed $36,000, insurance an assumed $30,000, property taxes an assumed $38,000 pending the county, and administrative costs an assumed $24,000. Marketing is the one sourced operating input: the Outdoor Hospitality Industry's typical park spends 3 percent of revenue on marketing in a typical year ^[35], and the model uses that rate, which comes to $22,836. Reservation platform and card fees are an assumed 3.5 percent of revenue, camp store cost of goods an assumed 55 percent of store income, and the management fee an assumed 4 percent of revenue.

Total operating expenses are $464,495 and EBITDA is $296,710. After the replacement reserve, which at an assumed $300 per site comes to $36,000, net operating income available for debt service is $260,710, and expenses plus reserve take 65.8 percent of revenue (Table 6). The one operator benchmark for that ratio is the Outdoor Hospitality Industry's median park, which reported expenses of $3.73 million against median revenue of $5.5 million, with means of $9.52 million and $16.4 million ^[50]; the model's ratio sits inside the range those pairs imply, at the heavier end.

The note is priced off prime. Per the Federal Reserve's H.15 release, the bank prime loan rate held at 7.00 percent on every business day between November 2 and November 6, 2026 ^[42]. Lender and borrower negotiate the rate on a guaranteed loan, and it can be fixed, variable or a mix of the two ^[43]; a variable rate has to identify its published base rate and interest factor in the note, and the example the rule itself gives is National Prime plus 1.0 percent ^[44]. The model takes an assumed spread of 1.50 percent over prime, giving 8.50 percent on a 25-year fully amortizing schedule. Annual principal and interest is $289,328, and against $260,710 of net operating income the stabilized coverage is 0.90x (Table 7).

That number is the finding. Measured against the assumed 1.25x lender minimum, net operating income falls $100,950 a year short (Table 7). The minimum is a lender credit-policy assumption; 7 CFR 5001 sets no numerical coverage floor for a new business in the text read for this example, and the study would state the lender's actual policy figure. If the annual guarantee retention fee is passed to the borrower, which on the opening balance comes to $13,998, coverage after the fee is 0.86x (Table 7). The retention fee is charged at the retention fee rate on the loan balance outstanding each December 31, scaled by the guarantee percentage ^[41], so it declines as the loan amortizes, but in the early years it is a real cash cost.

Table 7 also answers the lender's next question: what loan does this cash flow support? At the assumed 1.25x minimum and the same rate and term, the base case supports a loan of $2,158,476, which would need $1,812,565 of equity, or 45.6 percent of total project cost.

Revenue down 10 percent, applied through occupancy in both seasons, takes coverage to 0.68x; down 20 percent, to 0.45x (Table 8). A 2-point rise in the variable rate lifts principal and interest to $339,256 and lowers coverage to 0.77x. Expenses up 10 percent gives 0.74x. Hard cost up 10 percent flows through the loan to a $314,308 payment and 0.83x. The one upside case, site rents up 10 percent across the nightly and monthly rates, lifts revenue to $837,325 and coverage to 1.12x, still short of the assumed 1.25x minimum. Rate alone does not rescue the base case.

The break-even table puts the same conclusion in occupancy terms. Coverage reaches 1.00x at a blended season occupancy of 57.4 percent, which means 83.5 percent in the peak months and 31.3 percent in the shoulder at the assumed rates, and total revenue of $794,889 (Table 9). Coverage reaches the assumed 1.25x lender minimum at 63.6 percent blended occupancy, which requires 92.5 percent in the peak months and 34.7 percent in the shoulder, total revenue of $880,027 and a site RevPAS of $36.57. Fixed costs plus reserve are $386,000 a year and variable costs take 15.0 percent of revenue, which is why the break-even sits so close to the base case: a seasonal park has little cost to shed when the nights do not come.

In the ramp years the gap is wider. Year 1 coverage on principal and interest is 0.12x and Year 2 is 0.57x (Table 5). Even on an interest-only payment of $254,513, Year 1 covers 0.14x and Year 2 covers 0.64x; only the stabilized year covers interest, at 1.02x. The rule allows an interest-only period, but full principal and interest payments must start within 3 years of the promissory note's date ^[51], so interest-only through Year 2 is permitted and does not fix the problem.

Decision. At national median performance the base case misses the assumed lender minimum, and the study would say so, offering the supportable loan of $2,158,476 and the occupancy break-evens as the terms for re-sizing instead of tuning assumptions until the case passed.

What the USDA B&I Rule Requires and How the Study Would Meet It

Purpose and place. The purpose of the project must be to improve, develop or finance business, industry and employment and improve the economic and environmental climate in rural communities ^{[52] [53]}, in a rural area as the rule defines it ^[7]. A seasonal park employing a year-round manager and seasonal staff in a rural-eligible area of North Dakota, drawing on visitor spending the Park Service estimates at $56 million a year in the national park's local communities ^[12], fits that purpose on its face. The study would document the rural determination from the Agency's own eligibility tool for the actual parcel.

Eligible type and the residential line. Resort trailer parks and campgrounds operated as a commercial enterprise are eligible ^[5]; residential trailer parks whose primary purpose is independent housing are not ^[6]. The study would meet this with the assumed 90 percent short-stay revenue floor as a covenant and a maximum stay length in the park rules, and would leave owner's quarters out of the loan or deduct their pro rata value as 7 CFR 5001.105(b)(8) requires ^[47].

Equity. The 25 percent investment test ^{[38] [48]} is the regulatory floor, and the coverage section shows the floor is not where this project works: the base case supports $2,158,476 at the assumed 1.25x minimum, which implies 45.6 percent equity (Table 7). The B&I rule as cited here sets no new-loan coverage minimum, so the assumed 1.25x lender requirement is the binding minimum, and a study would say so. Here it is coverage.

Fees and guarantee. For fiscal year 2026, the Federal Register notice of March 9, 2026 charges a B&I guaranteed loan of less than $5 million 3.0 percent at guarantee and 0.55 percent a year as the periodic retention fee, with an 85 percent guarantee, and adds 0.50 percent if the guarantee is issued while construction is still under way ^[39]. The one-time fee multiplies the total loan by the guarantee percentage and by the year's fee rate ^[40], which on the model's loan is $76,354 (Table 3). The 0.50 percent fee does not apply to all construction loans, only to loans requesting the guarantee before project completion ^[54]; the model leaves it out on the assumption that the lender holds the guarantee request until the park is complete. The notice says those rates apply to guaranteed loans obligated in fiscal year 2026 unless a later FY2026 appropriation precludes them ^[55]. No fiscal 2027 notice was found for this example, so the rates here are the fiscal 2026 notice's, and a loan obligated later would carry that year's.

Term and structure. No final maturity may outlast the justified life of the project or its collateral, and none may exceed 40 years ^[46]; the repayment schedule has to retire the debt with no balloon ^[45]; an interest-only stretch is allowed if full payments start inside 3 years of the note ^[51]. The model's assumed 25-year fully amortizing term sits inside all three and is set to the useful life of pads, buried utilities and small buildings.

The study itself. The study behind a new-business guarantee above $1,000,000 is written by an independent qualified consultant whom the Agency accepts, within the scope the Agency sets ^[1]. A consultant would expect the Agency to press hardest on financial feasibility, meaning cash flow sufficient to meet all debt obligations over the long term ^[3], because that is the dimension on which this base case fails.

Risks a Lender Would Price

Long-stay drift and eligibility. This is the risk specific to western North Dakota. The Outdoor Hospitality Industry reports that the average park is 46 percent long-term guests ^[30], and the state produced 1,171 thousand barrels of crude a day in 2025 by the Energy Information Administration's estimate ^[22], so the pool of workers who would take a monthly site exists. In a weak shoulder month the operator's incentive is to fill empty pads with crews; past some share the park becomes housing, which is outside the program ^[6]. The study would recommend covenants a servicer can test from reservation records: a stay-length limit, the assumed 90 percent short-stay revenue floor, and an annual certification. The same demand is cyclical; EIA's series shows state output falling from 1,199 thousand barrels a day in 2020 to 1,069 in 2022 before recovering ^[22], so a park that leaned on crews would have leaned on a swing.

Season length and weather. The park earns everything in 184 nights, and the Park Service's statement that the national park is busiest in June, July and August ^[13] means most of it in 92 of those nights at an assumed 80 percent peak occupancy. A cold May or an early October snow shortens the year with no month to recover in, and at the assumed rates the park needs 83.5 percent peak occupancy just to reach 1.00x (Table 9).

Ramp. Year 1 coverage is 0.12x on principal and interest and 0.14x on interest only; Year 2 is 0.57x and 0.64x (Table 5). No structure inside the rule removes that gap, since the interest-only window closes within 3 years of the note ^[51]. The lender would price this as a funded debt service reserve or sponsor guarantee through Year 2, sized from Table 5.

Staffing. In the Outdoor Hospitality Industry's 2026 survey, staffing issues were the most commonly reported greatest barrier to success over the next 12 months, named by 30 percent of respondents, up from 15 percent in the prior study ^[56], which bears on whether the assumed $150,000 payroll line can hire a year-round manager in a rural labor market that competes with the oilfield.

Rate. The note is variable over prime by assumption, and a 2-point rise lowers coverage from 0.90x to 0.77x (Table 8). A study would recommend testing a fixed or capped structure, which the rule permits since rates and caps are negotiated ^[43].

Construction cost. There is no North Dakota greenfield cost source, and the only public per-site figure, the under-$10,000 cost most existing parks reported for added sites in the Outdoor Hospitality Industry survey, is for additions and rests on 25 responses ^[36]. Hard cost up 10 percent takes coverage to 0.83x (Table 8).

Unsourced state items. The state's campground licensing rule, the tax treatment of campsite rentals and the county's property tax rate could not be sourced here, and each would need confirming.

Decision. The study would rank long-stay drift first because it is the only risk that can make the loan ineligible rather than merely weak, and the ramp reserve second because it is the only one with a precise dollar answer in the model.

What Would Decide the Outcome

The base case fails. At national median occupancy and a rate card modestly above the national median, with the regulatory minimum equity, the project covers 0.90x of its debt service and 0.86x after the retention fee, against an assumed lender minimum of 1.25x (Table 7). A consultant does not fix that by adjusting inputs; the consultant reports the break-evens and a restructure, and lets the sponsor and the lender choose.

Occupancy. The model needs 57.4 percent blended season occupancy to reach 1.00x and 63.6 percent to reach the assumed 1.25x, against 55.0 percent assumed (Table 9). In peak-month terms that is 83.5 percent and 92.5 percent against an assumed 80 percent. A study would have to evidence, from a local survey of full hook-up parks in the national park's corridor, that established parks run at or above those levels in June, July and August. If they do, the base case was conservative. If they do not, occupancy is not the lever.

Rate. Site rents up 10 percent lift coverage only to 1.12x (Table 8), so rate alone does not clear the assumed 1.25x minimum either, but it moves coverage more than any other single input. The study would need to show local full hook-up nightly rates above the assumed $66 peak and $54 shoulder, and a reason to believe a new park could charge them from its first season.

Cost. Coverage moves with the loan almost one for one (Table 8). Bids on per-site development and the shared utility systems, most of the $2,940,000 of hard cost in Table 3, would either confirm the assumed $12,500 per site and $600,000 of systems or move the whole analysis.

Ramp reserve. Whatever the stabilized answer, Years 1 and 2 cover 0.12x and 0.57x on principal and interest (Table 5), and a lender would size a debt service reserve or sponsor support against those figures in the sources and uses.

Eligibility covenant. The assumed 90 percent short-stay revenue floor and a stay-length cap would be written into the loan documents, because filling shoulder months with monthly crews both improves coverage and risks the guarantee ^[6].

The restructure. Because the base case fails, the model computes a restructure that leaves the park, its cost lines and every operating input as they are and cuts the B&I loan to what stabilized income carries at the binding minimum: the supported $2,158,476, rounded down, gives a restructured loan of $2,150,000 (Table 10). Recomputed on that loan at the same 85 percent guarantee and 3.0 percent rate, the guarantee fee falls to $54,825 and total project cost to $3,970,825, while the sponsor's equity rises to $1,820,825, or 45.9 percent of cost, which is $822,737 more than the base case asks. Principal and interest fall to $207,749, which the $260,710 of net operating income covers 1.25x, leaving $1,024 of income above the assumed 1.25x lender minimum that binds, and the equity share clears the 25 percent minimum investment for a new business building a project ^[38], so the restructure passes both tests a B&I loan faces here. It cures neither the retention fee nor the ramp: with the $10,051 fee passed through, the memo coverage is 1.20x, so a lender that counts the fee would size lower still, and Year 1 and Year 2 net operating income of $34,361 and $163,703 (Table 5) both fall short of the new debt service.

Decision. The study would put forward the restructured $2,150,000 loan, with equity near 45.9 percent of cost and a funded reserve through Year 2, as the request that passes both tests; a sponsor able to bring only the program's 25 percent would need a local survey showing peak-season results above the break-evens in Table 9.

Questions to Ask a Feasibility Study Company About an RV Park B&I Loan

Does a USDA B&I loan for an RV park always need a feasibility study?

Not always. The rule calls for one when a new business seeks a guarantee on more than $1,000,000, written by an independent qualified consultant the Agency accepts, to a scope the Agency sets ^[1]. A loan of the size modelled here, to a newly formed operator, is squarely inside that requirement.

Can the park take monthly workforce tenants and still qualify?

The rule names resort trailer parks and campgrounds operated as a commercial enterprise as eligible ^[5] and residential trailer parks whose primary purpose is independent housing as ineligible ^[6]; it sets no percentage. This example models an assumed 90 percent of site revenue from stays under 30 nights and treats that share as a covenant, while noting that the average park in the Outdoor Hospitality Industry's 2026 survey is 46 percent long-term guests ^[30]. A study for an actual project would put the question to the Agency in writing.

What coverage does USDA require?

The regulation fixes how coverage is measured ^[4], yet the text read here states no numerical coverage minimum for a new business, so the assumed 1.25x lender requirement is the binding minimum; the example labels it an assumption wherever it appears.

How should I choose a feasibility study company or consultant for a USDA project?

Ask three things. Whether the consultant has no tie to the sponsor, the contractor or the lender, since the rule asks for an independent qualified consultant whom the Agency accepts ^[1]. Whether every market figure will be sourced to its publisher and every project number labelled as an assumption; a study that quotes a national median occupancy without naming the Outdoor Hospitality Industry survey it came from, its 109 responses and its plus or minus 9.2 point margin of error ^[32], is not giving the reader what they need. Last, whether the consultant will show a base case that fails, as here, instead of nudging inputs until coverage clears the lender's line. The dimensions the rule lists ^[2] are the scope; the willingness to say the project does not work at today's assumptions is the qualification.

Which fiscal year's fee notice applies?

The notice in force when the loan is obligated. The fiscal 2026 notice set a 3.0 percent guarantee fee, a 0.55 percent retention fee and an 85 percent guarantee for B&I loans under $5 million ^[39], applying to loans obligated in fiscal 2026 ^[55]. No fiscal 2027 notice was found for this example, so a loan obligated after September 30, 2026 would carry rates this example cannot quote.