Jason has been writing about small business software platforms, services, and financing since 2015. Jason’s expertise has been featured in Yahoo Finance, Time/NextAdvisor, Home Business Magazine, CreditCards.com, GoBankingRates, TheLadders.com, and other publications. He has a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from San Diego State University and currently lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
WRITTEN & RESEARCHED BY Jason Vissers Jason has been writing about small business software platforms, services, and financing since 2015. Jason’s expertise has been featured in Yahoo Finance, Time/NextAdvisor, Home Business Magazine, CreditCards.com, GoBankingRates, TheLadders.com, and other publications. He has a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from San Diego State University and currently lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Expert Contributor
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As part of the national effort to combat the devastating economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the CARES Act was signed into law on March 26, 2020. The Act authorized the creation of the $349 billion Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a loan program meant to provide loans to businesses impacted by the pandemic.
On December 27, 2020, a new COVID-19 relief package was signed into law. This package allots an additional $284 billion for a second round of PPP funding, allowing business owners to receive a first or second loan. Applications for this round of funding started the week of January 11, 2021, and continued through March 31, 2021. While PPP has closed, many small businesses are eligible for a new COVID-related relief called the employee retention tax credit. This tax refund could mean up to $26,000 per employee you had during the pandemic. Contact one of these top ERC services to see if you qualify.
In the meantime, though, it’s important to know how you can keep tabs on your PPP loan status. If you find yourself in the unfortunate position of waiting to learn about the status of your PPP loan application, here’s what you can do.
Need more information and resources geared toward small business owners during this Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic? Please check out the resource hub we've created.
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Each lender has its own policies surrounding how PPP loans are tracked, so you will need to contact your specific lender directly for more information. Fortunately, though, many banks and lenders have provided online information and portals to make tracking your PPP loan quick and easy. Here’s what to expect from some of the biggest lenders participating in the PPP program:
Each PPP lender will have a somewhat different process for checking the status of your loan application. Asking your lender about the status of your application through normal processes such as contacting a bank branch directly or contacting a customer care center may not work due to the volume of applications being processed. Instead, you’ll have to follow the specific instructions of your bank or lender concerning PPP loan applications.
Unfortunately, I’ve seen reports from business owners who have not been provided any means of checking on the status of their PPP loan application by their lender. If this happens to you, keep trying to contact your lender about the matter through any channel the lender provides. You may eventually find someone who can point you in the right direction.
Given the extraordinary volume of SBA loan requests and the problems the SBA has had with meeting business demand for emergency assistance, this option may not bear fruit immediately. Simply put, the institutional capacity of the SBA to effectively respond to a disaster of this magnitude has been inadequate — and that’s putting it charitably. Nonetheless, I’ve seen a few reports from business owners who were able to get meaningful information from an SBA representative concerning the status of their PPP loan application.
Try contacting your local SBA district office for information on the status of your application. You can also try emailing the SBA at [email protected] for information.
The information you’ll need to check the status of your PPP loan application will depend on how you applied for the loan in the first place. If you applied through SBA.com, you’ll need to enter your login information for the application portal. You should also have whatever information you provided in the application process on hand when you check on the status of your application in case a representative asks for it.
If you applied for a PPP loan directly from your bank or other lender, you’ll need to follow the specific steps listed by your lender in order to check your application status. As a rule of thumb, when checking on your application status through your bank or another lender, you should have whatever information you provided on your original application on hand in case your lender asks for it again. You’ll also likely need to provide your login information to access the online portal that you used to submit your application.
Not necessarily. Your bank may not pull your credit report if you have an existing relationship with them. A credit pull is more likely if you apply with an online lender like PayPal. If you applied to the EIDL and the PPP and see a credit pull from the SBA, that is for the EIDL, as the SBA does not pull credit for PPP loans.
It’s hard to say for sure, but some applicants have said that their loans were funded within 1–3 days of their credit being pulled, or in some cases within hours. For example, some business owners who applied through PayPal’s LoanBuilder saw a credit pull via TransUnion and received their loan within a few days of that. However, other applicants are still waiting a week after a credit pull and have yet to hear back. Generally, though, a hard pull on your credit report means you are advancing in the application process, which is a good thing.
This likely depends on where you are in the application process, so you will have to check with your lender. Canceling a PPP application may be easier than modifying your application. Some lenders, such as Fundera, state that you can cancel or withdraw your PPP application by contacting their customer support.
As far as modifying your PPP application, this depends on a number of factors. A modification may be available in certain cases. For example, borrowers that did not accept all or a portion of their first loan may be able to modify their original applications in the second round of PPP loans. If you need to modify your loan, talk to your lender to find out what options — if any — are available for your specific circumstances.
As we all try to navigate our way through this unprecedented crisis, business owners seeking relief have been dealing with the additional stress of finding that, in short, nothing is working as intended.
If you’ve applied for a PPP loan and have tried checking the status of your application, we’d love to hear about your experience, whether successful or not. Please leave us a comment and tell us all about it!
Check out Merchant Maverick’s COVID-19 hub for more resources, guides, and advice to help your business survive this disaster.
Jason has been writing about small business software platforms, services, and financing since 2015. Jason’s expertise has been featured in Yahoo Finance, Time/NextAdvisor, Home Business Magazine, CreditCards.com, GoBankingRates, TheLadders.com, and other publications. He has a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from San Diego State University and currently lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
