SBA 7(a) Dental Office Feasibility Study in Utah

A small-ticket niche in Utah

Dentists in Utah borrowed through SBA 7(a) 166 times across FY2017 to FY2026, for $134.1 million in gross dollars. By number of loans that is 15th among states for the pairing of program and class, yet inside Utah the dental office is the 5 of 39 class, so the profession matters more to local small-business credit than the national rank suggests. The typical loan is modest. A median of $390,650 is 0.79x the national figure for 7(a) dental lending, and the middle half of Utah's loans spans $100,275 to $998,000.

No franchise brand sits behind these loans: the franchise share is 0.00%. Live Oak Banking Company heads the lender table with 31 loans and $57.3 million. Zions Bancorporation, National Association has 20 loans yet only $2.8 million, evidence of very small tickets. Central Bank has 12 loans. Glacier Bank has 10, and Mountain America FCU closes the list with 9. What the page prints are SBA's records of loans each institution currently holds or once held; they describe where paper sits, never how a bank underwrites. Salt Lake County supplies 74 loans, Utah County 34, Weber 14 and Davis 10.

Floors worth reading carefully

Cancellation after approval hit at least 5.3% of FY2017 to FY2024 approvals, climbing to 6.1% once loans that never reached disbursement are treated as cancelled. Take the funded cohort of 89 loans, FY2017 to FY2021 vintages: 1.1% stand charged off today, and the identical 1.1% did so inside five years. Loans still open can sour, so both figures are minimums. Both rates rest on a funded cohort of modest size. Annual volume began at 26 loans in FY2017, bottomed at 11 in FY2023, and reached $29.4 million across 17 loans in FY2026.

What a Utah dental study must prove

Start with chair demand in the actual trade area: patients per provider, the insurance mix, and whether a purchased practice will keep its collections after the seller leaves. Compare build-out and equipment cost with a loan that usually sits below the national norm, and place the project inside the middle half stated above. Coverage of debt service needs a ramp for a startup and a transition haircut for an acquisition. The appraiser will value the practice on income it can document, so the revenue forecast must survive that scrutiny.