Sponsors (8)
The bill broadens SBA-backed leverage and incentivizes targeted investment to increase capital for small and underserved businesses, while increasing federal financial exposure and creating oversight and equity concerns for existing firms.
Small business owners can access higher SBA-backed leverage per company (raising per-company caps to up to $250M or $175M), enabling more capital for expansion, operations, or refinancing.
Investors in low-income, rural, covered-technology, and small manufacturing businesses can have those new investments excluded from leverage calculations (within limits), encouraging targeted private investment in underserved and priority sectors.
Commonly controlled business groups (multi-entity small business structures) can obtain larger combined leverage caps (up to $475M or $350M), helping affiliated small businesses raise more collective funding.
Taxpayers face greater federal exposure because higher SBA-backed leverage limits increase the potential size of losses if guaranteed loans or investments default.
Excluding some new investments from leverage calculations weakens overall leverage oversight and could permit higher total borrowing by firms, raising financial risk for individual companies and increasing potential losses to the SBA.
Only allowing exclusions for investments made after enactment disadvantages existing small businesses whose prior qualifying investments won't count, creating uneven treatment between similarly situated firms.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Increases statutory SBIC leverage limits and lets certain post-enactment investments in rural/low-income areas, covered-technology firms, and small manufacturers be excluded from leverage counts up to capped amounts.
Raises the statutory leverage limits under the Small Business Investment Act for SBIC licensees and commonly controlled groups, and narrows which government-origin funds count when the SBA evaluates leverage requests. It also creates a new exclusion that lets certain post-enactment investments (in low-income or rural small businesses, covered-technology small businesses, or small manufacturers) be excluded from leverage calculations up to set caps. The changes increase single-company and combined leverage ceilings, establish a per-company excluded-amount cap (the lesser of 50% of private capital or $125 million, subject to other statutory limits), and tie eligibility for the exclusion to specific categories of investments and to investments made after enactment.
Official title: Amend the Small Business Investment Act of 1958 to exclude from the limit on leverage certain amounts invested in smaller enterprises located in rural or low-income areas and small businesses in critical technology areas, and for other purposes.
Introduced December 3, 2025 by John Wright Hickenlooper · Last progress December 3, 2025