Feasibility Study Data for the Kalispell, MT Micro Area

A thin published record: cancellations only

Kalispell, MT is Flathead County alone, a micropolitan area with 349 loans and $191.7 million from FY2017 to FY2026, ranking 211 of 928. Its outcome record is thin: SBA publishes a cancellation floor of 6.6% for FY2017 to FY2024 approvals, yet holds back both the matching ceiling and any charge-off rate. Nothing is substituted for the missing values, and silence on them is not a zero.

A median of $222,000 is 1.07x the national figure; loans in the centre of the distribution range from $54,000 to $543,000, and 10.3% are franchise brands. Of the total, 309 are 7(a) and 40 are 504, with Capital Matrix, Inc. holding 20 of the 504 loans for $9.3 million and Big Sky Economic Development Corporation 13 for $8.3 million. A visitor-oriented economy shows in the tracked classes: first is full-service restaurant with 13 loans, limited-service restaurant has 12, hotel and motel 11 and coffee shop and snack bar 6. Another 258 loans fall in no tracked class. Flathead County holds all 349 loans. Because the outcome record is limited to one cancellation floor, comparisons with other areas should be made cautiously and only on the figures printed here.

Who SBA lists in Flathead

The names below come from SBA's holder field and place loans without characterising any bank. Three Rivers Bank of Montana holds 81 7(a) loans worth $39.1 million, far ahead of Glacier Bank with 54 worth $9.3 million. Wells Fargo Bank National Association holds 26, Freedom Bank (MT) 21 worth $4.6 million and U.S. Bank, National Association 17 worth $1.5 million. The gap between the first two in dollars per loan is large.

Approvals dropped to 26 loans in FY2019, climbed to 41 in FY2021 and 42 in FY2025, and in FY2026 reached $34.7 million, the highest dollar figure of the decade, on 34 loans.

Questions for a Kalispell study

With little published about losses, a study carries more of the burden of proof. It should test demand at the site against what the leading restaurant and lodging classes already supply, separate visitor from resident spending, and run debt service coverage with conservative assumptions about vacancy and ramp-up. The appraisal must support value. Flathead County is placed by the 2023 delineation. Nothing here assures an approval.