How it works

The four steps

1. You enter figures you already have. Revenue, debt service, tangible net worth, collateral offered, time trading. Whatever you would read off your own books. Nothing is looked up on your behalf.
2. You mark which documents you hold. Five commonly requested items, listed below. In hand or outstanding: that is the whole question asked of each one. They are not an SBA-fixed list — see below.
3. myloankit renders the PDF. An SBA Benchmark Score, every dimension broken out with what was measured against what the SBA published, and the document list.
4. The figures you entered are purged. Once the PDF exists, the financial detail behind it is removed. What remains is on the privacy page.

How the number is built

By a fixed rubric, published in the open. The same inputs return the same score on any day — there is no model, no training data, and nothing that drifts between one run and the next. Each dimension is measured against a benchmark from a named public source, and the PDF prints that source beside the number.

Your personal credit is never pulled, no consumer report is taken in, and the file is never sent to a lender — you send it, or you do not.

What the SBA Benchmark Score measures

Six selected dimensions. The five that carry weight are worth 100 points between them, but your score is not out of 100 — it is out of the dimensions your figures could answer. Every threshold below is an SBA requirement, cited to the instrument it comes from. None of them is a myloankit judgment about which businesses are worth backing.

• Debt service coverage — 35 points. Your net operating income divided by your annual debt service, and your global cash flow divided by your global debt service. Both are tested. Above $350,000 the business ratio must reach 1.15:1; at or below $350,000, as a 7(a) Small Loan, it must reach 1.10:1. Global coverage must reach 1.00x at every loan size. A shortfall is stated as the ratio you reached against the one published, so the gap is readable as a figure: the annual cash flow you would need to add, or the debt service you would need to shed, to close it. Above $350,000: SBA SOP 50 10 8, effective 1 June 2025. At or below: SBA Procedural Notice 5000-876777, effective 1 March 2026.
• Debt to worth — 20 points. Total debt against tangible net worth, at 9:1 or better. Tested twice, against your most recent fiscal year and against your current quarter, and both must hold. A business that has improved since year end still has to show the improvement in the quarter. A shortfall means one or both periods carry more debt against worth than the published maximum. The PDF prints both ratios, so you can see which period is carrying it. SBA SOP 50 10 8, effective 1 June 2025.
• Collateral coverage — 20 points. Nothing is required at or below $50,000. Above it, which rules apply depends on the size of the request: at or below $350,000 a 7(a) Small Loan, above it a Standard 7(a) loan, and the two paragraphs differ. What you pledge is counted at the percentages the SOP publishes for each class — new machinery at 75% of price, used at 50% of book or 80% with an Orderly Liquidation Appraisal, property with structures at 85% of market value, land without at 50%, furniture and trading assets at 10% — less any prior liens. Property whose equity is under a quarter of its market value is left out entirely, because SBA does not ask for a lien on it. Personal real estate is counted only above $350,000, where a Standard 7(a) shortfall calls for it; below that SBA permits it and does not require it, so it is not held against you. Where half or more of the proceeds are working capital, a 7(a) Small file is measured against fixed assets alone, which is how the SOP defines the test. Points move with the share of the request your counted collateral secures. Falling short does not zero the dimension and never did under the SOP: SBA states that a request is not to be declined solely on the basis of inadequate collateral, and names lack of collateral as one of the primary reasons lenders use the guarantee at all. The shortfall is stated in dollars as a gap to close. At or below $350,000: SBA SOP 50 10 8 Section B, Ch. 2, Para. C.3.a. Above: Section B, Ch. 1, Para. C.3.c. Effective 1 June 2025.
• Equity injection — 15 points. Your injection as a share of total project cost, at 10% or more, for start-ups. SOP 50 10 8 restored this requirement. A shortfall is the additional cash the project needs from you before the file meets the published minimum. SBA SOP 50 10 8, effective 1 June 2025.
• Document completeness — 10 points. A count: how many of five commonly requested items you hold. Points scale with the count, so this is the one dimension that moves in increments rather than all or nothing. SBA does not publish a fixed application document list. The SOP says loan files must include "the forms and information the Lender requires" to underwrite the loan, and the items it does name vary by loan type, processing method, loan size and the lender's own policy — a 7(a) Small file and an SBA Express file are given different lists in the same paragraph. The five counted here are a common subset chosen by myloankit, not a requirement SBA imposes, and a lender will ask for things that are not on it: a credit memorandum, personal financial statements for every 20% owner and guarantor, IRS tax transcripts, and more depending on what the loan is for. A shortfall is a list of what is missing, which is still the most directly actionable thing in the document. SBA SOP 50 10 8 Section B, Ch. 2, Para. D, effective 1 June 2025. The list is myloankit's selection.
• SBA program screen — no points. A yes or no. 13 CFR 120.110 names business activities the 7(a) programme is closed to; the screen reports whether yours is one of them and, if so, which paragraph names it. It carries no weight and moves the score by nothing in either direction — an activity is on the published list or it is not, and that is not a matter of degree. 13 CFR 120.110.

Those five weights add to 100, and that is the size of the whole rubric — not the size of your denominator. You are scored out of the dimensions your file actually reached. A file that answers three of them is scored out of those three, and the next section is what happens to the other two.

What the six leave out

This is the most important thing on the page. The six are a selection, and a good score on them is not a statement that your file is complete. SBA's own requirements are much wider, and a lender applies all of them.

Eligibility is a separate question the six barely touch. SOP 50 10 8 Section A, Chapter 1 sets ten tests before credit is looked at: that the applicant is an operating business, organized for profit, located in the United States, small under SBA size standards, not one of the business types the programme is closed to, the citizenship and residency status of its owners, franchise agreements, credit not available elsewhere, customer identification, and OFAC sanctions screening. Only one of those — the closed business types, under 13 CFR 120.110 — is asked here, and it is asked as a yes or no with no points attached.

Underwriting is wider again. For a 7(a) Small loan the lender's credit memorandum must address the credit history of the applicant, its associates and every guarantor; repayment ability including two recent months of bank activity; the management team and its experience; personal financial statements for every owner of 20% or more; why credit is not available elsewhere; proposed collateral; life and other insurance; seller financing and standby terms; liens, judgments and pending litigation including divorce proceedings; franchise and management agreements; the justification for any debt being refinanced; and the effect of any affiliates on repayment. Of that list, this tool measures debt service coverage, collateral and equity, and nothing else.

One omission is deliberate and permanent. 13 CFR 120.150 names three things a lender weighs: credit history, earnings or cash flow, and equity or collateral. myloankit measures the second and third and will never measure the first. No owner's personal credit, no consumer report data and no demographic attribute enters this service at any point — a choice made because scoring an individual is how a readiness tool turns into something that has to answer for a lending outcome. It means the score cannot speak to a third of what the regulation lists, and saying so is more useful than pretending otherwise.

Uses of proceeds, occupancy and leasing rules, environmental investigation, appraisal standards, tax transcript verification, guaranty requirements, fees and agent rules are all outside the six as well. SBA SOP 50 10 8 Section A, Ch. 1 and Ch. 3–5; Section B, Ch. 2, Para. C as amended by SBA Procedural Notice 5000-876777, effective 1 March 2026; 13 CFR 120.150.

Requirements that do not apply to your file

Two of the six can be inapplicable. Collateral is not required at or below $50,000. The equity injection minimum is for start-ups, not existing businesses.

Where one does not apply, the row still appears, marked as not applying at your loan size or to your business type. It is never dropped from the document, because a reader who cannot see the row cannot tell whether it was cleared, missed, or never asked.

It carries no points, and its weight leaves the maximum. A requirement that was never put to you is not an item outstanding against you — but it is not free marks either. A file where collateral does not apply is scored out of 80 rather than 100, and the PDF prints that 80. The same holds for a dimension your figures could not answer: it leaves the denominator rather than counting as a failure. Scoring 60 out of 85 and scoring 60 out of 100 say different things about the same file, and only the first one is true of it.

What the PDF contains

1. The SBA Benchmark Score and its maximum — points earned out of the points the dimensions your file reached were worth, not out of 100. The whole rubric's 100 is printed beside it, so you can see how much of it your figures answered.
2. The SBA program screen — pass or not, with the CFR paragraph named if not.
3. Each of the five scored dimensions — what was measured in your figures, the published threshold it was measured against, the source and its effective date, the points, and a sentence saying which side of the line you are on and why.
4. Operating history — months trading, and whether that adds projections with supporting assumptions to your document set. It is reported, never scored.
5. The document list — SBA Form 1919 Borrower Information Form, business federal tax returns, interim financial statements, business debt schedule, and projections with supporting assumptions where the business has traded under two years. Each marked in hand or outstanding.
6. The disclaimer — the same one at the foot of this page.

Why now

As of 1 March 2026 the SBA discontinued mandatory use of the SBSS score for 7(a) Small Loans. Lenders now apply their own credit analysis against a 1.10:1 debt service coverage floor.

That moves work from the lender's side of the table to yours. When a central score gated the file, the figures behind it mattered less to the applicant, because the gate was computed elsewhere. With the gate removed and a published ratio in its place, the state of your file when you hand it over is the thing being read — and it is a thing you can check before you hand it over.

What you walk away with

It is a file you can read before anyone else does, and hand to a bank, a credit union, a CDFI or an online lender knowing what is in it.

Build your file