SBA 7(a) Gas Station Feasibility Study

Gas stations: big loans and brand flags

Gas station borrowers took 6,403 SBA 7(a) loans from FY2017 to FY2026, for $9.34 billion, with a median loan of $1.1 million and a middle half from $510,000 to $2.1 million. 7(a) carries most SBA lending for the class, and none of the metrics lies far from the class across both programs or from the 7(a) program as a whole. Rebuild and environmental work should be priced from quotes, not from averages.

Franchise share is 46.7% of all the loans. Celtic Bank Corporation leads with 427 loans and $864.2 million. Metro City Bank has 297 for $423.8 million, Commonwealth Business Bank 269 for $436.8 million, Readycap Lending, LLC 248 for $490.6 million and Wallis Bank 247 for $454.0 million. Texas leads with 1,239 loans and California has 1,112, well ahead of Washington with 591, Georgia with 509 and Illinois with 281. FY2021 was the high-water mark at 983 loans and $1.46 billion; FY2026 brought $1.12 billion on 581 loans, more dollars than any year except FY2021.

Cancellations high, losses low

The cancellation floor, 15.4% of FY2017 to FY2024 approvals, with a ceiling of 15.7%, is the risk a borrower meets most often. Once funded, these loans hold up: the charge-off floor on 2,939 station loans disbursed from FY2017 to FY2021 is 1.2%, with 0.51% inside five years.

What a gas station study must test

The code is the borrower's industry. Truck stops and travel centers are folded into the code for stations that sell fuel without a store, so the record cannot isolate them, and EV charging is absent from the industry index, so charging revenue is invisible in this record. A feasibility study for a 7(a) station has to test demand from traffic counts, access and competing stations; fuel margin and in-store sales as separate lines; the cost of tanks, environmental work and any rebuild; debt service coverage that does not depend on a fuel margin the station has never earned; and an appraisal that allocates value among real estate, equipment and business, since a station's sale price usually carries all three.