Gas Station Feasibility Study in Montana

Almost all 7(a), and one dominant lender

Montana's record for gas stations and truck stops covers 26 loans and $17.3 million from FY2017 to FY2026, and it is overwhelmingly a 7(a) story: 25 loans went through that program and a single one through SBA 504. Wallis Bank alone holds 9 of the 7(a) loans, worth $8.5 million, while Bank of Bridger National Association holds 5 for $707,100. The gap in average size between the two says a lot about what each lender has financed. The page repeats SBA's note that each loan sits under whichever institution holds or held it; the counts show books, not preferences.

A wide band below the median

The median loan is $660,450, which sits at 0.63x of the median this class draws nationally, but the spread is unusual: the middle half starts as low as $81,250 and stops at $699,250, with most of the width lying beneath the median. In other words, Montana has many small, probably rural stations and a thin cluster of larger purchases near the top. Franchise loans make up 7.7%. The location quotient of 0.92x shows near-parity with the national mix, while the state is 41 of 53 and the class is 8 of 39 within Montana.

Places and years

Yellowstone County has 5 loans, Cascade 4, and Carbon and Richland 3 each; Granite, Park and Sanders have 2. Approvals peaked at 7 loans in FY2025, after none in FY2019 and FY2022, and FY2026 shows 2 worth $5.1 million, so the more recent years carry larger dollars per loan.

Coding limits and withheld rates

The code reflects the borrower's industry. A travel center cannot be split from a plain fuel stop, and charging for electric vehicles has no entry in the 2022 NAICS index, so a Montana project built around charging would not appear here. Cancellation and charge-off floors are not published for the state; the cohorts are too small, and a missing rate is not a zero.

Testing a Montana fuel site

In Montana the thing to test is the trade area. A study should count passing traffic, seasonal swings from tourism and agriculture, and the distance to the next competing pump, because rural sites live or die on captive customers. It should price the tanks, canopy and building against the loan sizes seen here, show coverage in the slowest winter months, and have the appraisal separate the real estate from the business. Environmental history of the site needs a plain line in the study, and so does the supply contract.