While Congress continues to debate stimulus bills and how best to assist small businesses, the Small Business Administration's Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) Program is now available to small businesses in most if not all areas of the county – including all 50 states, Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. The EIDL Program provides loans to small businesses in an amount of up to $2,000,000 per borrower that carry an interest rate of 3.75 percent and are repayable over a term of up to 30 years. Proceeds of the loans may be used to pay existing fixed debt, employee payroll, accounts payable and other expenses of operation.
Disaster declarations for each state and territory are available on the SBA's website at https://disasterloan.sba.gov/ela/Declarations and should be reviewed to confirm that an applicant's county or parish is included within a declared disaster area. Applicants may submit their applications online at https://disasterloan.sba.gov/ela/Information/ApplyOnline. In addition, applicants may submit their applications to their local SBA office by mail or apply in person at an SBA Disaster Recovery Center. For information or to find a location near you, contact the SBA's Customer Service Center at 1-800-659-2955 (TTY: 1-800-877-8339) or e-mail disastercustomerservice@sba.gov.
Please note that the SBA's website is experiencing heavy traffic. The system may be more accessible after normal working hours. In the meantime, you can access copies for the form of application and other required documents here, a summary of the process that the SBA uses in underwriting applications here, and a tutorial for completing the application here.
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