Franchise Lender Report: The SBA Loan Record a Bank Checks on One Brand Before It Lends to You

What is in the report

The Item 19 in a franchisor's FDD was written by the franchisor, and it was written to be read a certain way. This report was written by the banks that lent to its franchisees and by the federal agency that paid when those loans went bad. Neither had a reason to flatter the brand. It is the file a loan officer opens before saying yes, laid out so you can read it the same way, before you sit across from one.

The regulator reached for the same file. In 2024, FTC staff used this SBA loan data as their own independent measure of franchise risk, and wrote that it "may be a useful resource for borrowers when assessing how to limit potential risks and maximize rewards when deciding whether to purchase a franchise."

• Default rate against its industry. The share of SBA 7(a) loans to this brand's owners, approved FY2010–FY2019, that the banks wrote off, beside the industry, all-franchise and non-franchise benchmarks. One number the franchisor did not choose.
• Rate by approval year. Whether the brand was getting safer or riskier as the decade went on, year by year. A headline rate can hide a trend running the wrong way.
• Lending since 2020. How many loans banks have made to this brand's owners recently, and for how much. A bank that has stopped lending to a brand has already given its opinion.
• Default rate by the owner's situation. Start-up, existing business, or bought an existing one: each group's default rate for this brand beside the industry's. The brand average blends them all.
• When the charge-offs came. For brands with any charge-offs: the year of the loan each one was recorded in, and the median time from approval, against the industry and all franchises.
• Loan size and losses. The median loan of owners who repaid and, where any defaulted, of those who did, with the average written off per failed loan and the total.
• States and lenders. The states with the most loans to the brand's owners, with each state's rate, and the lenders that made the most of them.
• Nearest peers. The brands closest to it in the same industry, ranked, so you can see what else the same borrower, with the same money, could have bought instead.
• The CSV behind every table. Every figure in the PDF as data, so your accountant, your lender or your partner can check the arithmetic rather than take anyone's word for it.

Stamped with your order id on every page, in a format a lender will recognize because it is the format lenders use.

Lender Report or FDD Teardown?

The Lender Report is the record. The FDD Teardown ($500) is the record read by an analyst against the franchisor's own disclosures, ending in a written verdict. If you want the numbers and will do the reading yourself, or your attorney will, the report is enough, and it is the same federal file the teardown starts from. If you want someone with no stake in your answer to hold the brand's Item 19 up against the bank's ledger and tell you in writing what they see, order the teardown.

How it works

1. Pick the brand. Start typing above. Every brand on this site with a published record is available, the same day.
2. Pay $29. Card checkout by Stripe. One brand per order, against a franchise fee that is usually five figures.
3. Download. The confirmation page has the PDF and CSV buttons. No waiting, no email to look for, nothing to explain to anyone.

Weighing one brand and meeting a lender soon? Pick the brand above, pay $29, and read the bank's file tonight, before the bank reads it to you.

Not sure which brand yet? Browse all brands. The report is built from the same public SBA data as the free brand pages and adds the loan-level detail they leave out; the methodology explains where it comes from.