Marina Feasibility Study and SBA Loan Data

Questions buyers ask

Who writes marina feasibility studies that lenders accept?

Loan Analytics writes them. We have no part in the loan or the project, and each study carries the signed conclusion of Daniel Smith, MAI. The study is addressed to the credit officer, not to investors, and it is accepted when the officer can check it: each market claim tied to a named competitor or a dated source, each cost line tied to a bid or quote, and the project placed in the SBA marina record on this page, 220 7(a) loans and 80 504 loans from FY2017 to FY2026. We prepare marina studies for conventional, USDA and SBA lenders alike, for purchases of operating marinas, dock and slip expansions and new builds.

Why would a lender ask for a feasibility study on a marina loan?

Because the lender's own evidence is thin. A marina is a seasonal business on water the operator may not own, and the SBA record a credit officer could compare it with is small: 11 7(a) marina approvals nationwide in FY2026 and 5 under 504, and outside Florida and Michigan no state with enough loans for a median. The record also shows where marina loans go wrong first, before funding, with cancellation floors of 27.9% under 504 and 14.4% under 7(a). A study fills the gap with market evidence from the trade area and tests the items that stall a closing, so the lender decides on facts rather than on a short national history.

How much does a marina feasibility study cost?

The prices below come from our 2026 survey of fees, published on this site, which records what feasibility providers list for their studies. The survey does not name marinas among its examples, so the band depends on the project. A single-site study of what the survey calls a standard special-purpose asset is listed at $5,000 to $12,500. Its complex band, $10,000 to $25,000, covers ground-up work, multi-site projects, unusual concepts and construction with phased delivery, the band a new marina or a phased dock expansion is most likely to fall in. Where a USDA lender asks for the 7 CFR Part 5001 standard, the survey's price runs from $7,500, with $18,750 the highest it prints and some quotes above that. We quote the fee for the specific marina in the scope reply.

How long does a marina feasibility study take?

That depends on the marina, and the timeline arrives with the scope reply, worked back from the lender's deadline; no fixed turnaround is published. What sets it for a marina is specific. A purchase with years of slip, storage and fuel records needs less fieldwork than a new build that has to establish demand from registrations and waitlists. A project outside Florida and Michigan has no state median to lean on, so its competing marinas are verified one by one. And a project whose permits or bottomland lease are still open needs each traced to its agency before the study can say when the docks can be built.

Which SBA program finances more marina projects, 7(a) or 504?

7(a), by loans and by dollars. From FY2017 to FY2026 it approved 220 marina loans for $246.0 million against 80 for $101.7 million under 504, and over the full record since FY1991, 1,083 loans against 276. It also holds the large loans: in the top occupied size band 7(a) has 48 loans for $157.5 million and 504 has 17 for $50.5 million. 504 marina loans are larger at the middle, a $965,500 median against $461,750, partly because 504 has almost no small marina loans. The programs differ most on cancellation, a floor of 27.9% under 504 against 14.4% under 7(a), the risk a 504 study has to address before anything else.

What size SBA loan does a marina usually get?

The median 7(a) marina approval in FY2017 to FY2026 was $461,750, with a lower quartile of $147,600 and an upper quartile of $1.8 million. Under 504 the median is $965,500 and the quartiles $513,750 and $1.8 million. By state, Florida's median is $1.1 million and Michigan's $340,000, and no other state has enough loans for one. The 7(a) record is heavy at both ends, 65 loans in the smallest band and 48 in the top occupied band, and no loan in either program reached the band above it. A study places the request in its own program, band and state, because the national median sits between distinct groups of borrowers and fits neither closely.

Which states have the most SBA marina loans?

Florida, with 46 loans for $61.6 million from FY2017 to FY2026, then Michigan with 25 and $16.8 million, New York with 20 and $13.9 million, Illinois with 15 and $12.6 million, New Jersey with 13 and $15.5 million, California with 12 and $12.8 million, and Indiana and Maryland with 11 each. Ranked by the dollar totals the table prints, the list changes: Texas is second with $18.9 million on 8 loans, Missouri third with $17.0 million on 9, and Michigan fourth. Florida is the only state with a cancellation floor, 23.1%, and Florida and Michigan the only ones with a median, so below them a state row gives a lender a count and little else.

What if my marina is in a state with few SBA marina loans, or none?

Then the study says so and builds the market case from the site outward. At the foot of the state table several states hold a single marina loan and several have no row, and a marina there has no SBA state record to be measured against. That is not evidence that lenders avoid marinas there, because the tables count SBA loans only. The study identifies the marinas a boater in the market would choose between, verifies their slips, rates and occupancy directly, and ties demand to the boats kept in the area. The worked example on this site, a conventional bank marina acquisition and dock expansion in Kentucky, shows that kind of study.

Which lenders make SBA loans to marinas?

The Huntington National Bank is the lender this page lists, with 26 marina loans approved from FY2017 to FY2026 for $14.6 million; its charge-off floor is withheld. Lenders under 5 marina loans are not listed, and the bank's 26 make up a small part of the record's marina lending, so most borrowers in these years worked with a lender the table does not name. That shapes how we write. The study is built so that a credit officer new to marinas can follow how slips, storage, fuel and service earn their income, and so that a lender with a marina book can check each assumption against what it already knows.

How often are SBA marina loans cancelled before they close?

Among marina approvals from FY2017 through FY2024, at least 14.4% under 7(a) and 27.9% under 504 were cancelled, and Florida's state floor is 23.1%. These are floors, the cancellations the files record, and a rate prints only where 30 or more loans support it, so Michigan and every smaller state have none. The table gives no reasons. For a waterfront project the candidates are the items that must all be in hand at closing: permits from more than one agency, a dredging approval, the bottomland lease, a construction window, and an appraisal that supports the loan. The study traces each of them before approval.

Have SBA marina loans been charged off?

Under 7(a), not yet on the record: for marina loans funded from FY2017 through FY2021 the floor is 0.00% overall and 0.00% within 5 years. That floor is a minimum on a young cohort whose window takes in FY2020, the year of the most 7(a) marina dollars, $45.7 million, and FY2021, with 34 loans, so it can rise as those loans age. No 504 rate prints, the 504 cohort holding fewer than 30 loans, and Florida, Michigan and The Huntington National Bank show no rate either. None of those blanks is a zero. A lender will not accept a clean floor in place of coverage, so the study tests debt service on the project's own monthly income, in a weak season and after a storm.

Has SBA lending to marinas grown or shrunk?

The count has shrunk and the loans have grown. 7(a) marina approvals ran between 30 and 48 a year through the 1990s, while FY2026 brought 11, the fewest in the record. Dollars moved the other way: no printed 7(a) total before FY2016 reaches FY2016's $26.7 million, and FY2020 set the record high, $45.7 million on 26 loans. Under 504, FY2022's 13 loans for $21.8 million set the high, and FY2026's 5 loans for $4.5 million are the fewest since FY2014. A lender reads this as a class financed less often but in larger amounts, and expects the study to justify the size of the request against the recent window, not the long average.

Do you prepare marina studies for USDA or conventional bank loans?

Yes. Our marina studies serve USDA Business and Industry lenders and conventional banks as well as SBA lenders. Every table here is built from SBA approvals, so a study for a USDA or conventional lender cannot present them as its own lending history; it uses them as context on loan size and outcomes and builds its case from the market. The worked example on this site is a conventional bank marina acquisition and dock expansion in Kentucky, a state whose SBA row holds one marina loan and no printed dollar total, and it shows how such a study reads when the SBA record offers little to compare against.

What does a marina feasibility study test about the water itself?

Who has the right to use it, for how long, and what it costs to keep it usable. The study records whether the marina owns the bottomland under its docks or leases it, from whom, on what term and with what renewal rights, because the docks are collateral only while that right lasts. It sets out each permit the project needs for docks, dredging and shoreline work with its agency and status, the dredging history and the cost of the next dredge, and the condition of docks, pilings and bulkheads with the reserve they need. On a coast it adds storm exposure; on an inland lake or reservoir it adds who controls the water level.

How does the study handle a marina's seasonal income?

Month by month. It splits revenue into its lines, wet slips, dry and winter storage, fuel, service and repair, the ship store and any restaurant, and gives each its own calendar and margin, because a year-end total hides the months when little comes in while debt service is still due. It then tests coverage in the weakest months, in a short season, and in the year after a storm when docks may be closed for repair. A Michigan marina, where the median loan is $340,000, and a Florida marina, where it is $1.1 million, do not face the same season or the same storm, and the study sets its stress cases to the market the marina is in.

Will my lender compare a marina with a restaurant, boat sales or dry stack storage to this record?

This record holds such a project only if the borrower's main line of business is the marina. These tables count loans by the industry code that places them in the class, so a waterfront restaurant with slips or a boat dealer is counted elsewhere, and storage in dry stacks operated by a boat dealer is not in these figures. A study for a mixed operation has to say which record the lender should read, show the revenue split that supports that choice, and test each part on its own economics, because the lender will underwrite the restaurant or the dealership as what it is, not as a marina.

Which other reports come with a marina loan, and at what price?

Lenders usually pair the study with an appraisal, environmental work and title, and each has a price line in our 2026 fee survey, published on this site. A marina appraisal falls in one of the survey's appraisal bands: $2,500 to $7,500 for standard commercial work or, where the appraiser values the marina's slip, fuel and service business as a going concern, the special-purpose band of $5,000 to $15,000. Environmental review opens with a questionnaire and records search, $300 to $1,500. If the lender escalates to a Phase I, the survey prices a standard site from $2,000 to $5,000 and gas stations and similar high-risk uses from $3,500 to $6,000, the band a lender may apply where a marina sells fuel. Title, survey and recording are listed at $2,000 to $5,000, and business valuations at $1,800 to $7,000. The lender decides which reports it orders.

What information starts a marina scope request?

The marina's location and the water it sits on; the number of wet slips and dry storage spaces by boat length; the fuel, service, ship store and restaurant lines it runs or plans; whether you are buying a running marina, expanding one or building new; the bottomland arrangement and any lease term; the permits held and those still needed; the financing program and the lender, if either is chosen; the loan size; and the lender's closing date if one is set. For an operating marina, add recent years of revenue by line and by month. We then locate the project in this page's record, by program, size band and state row, and reply with the study's scope, its timeline and its fee.