Updated Friday March 5 at 5:30pm EST

As of Friday, March 5, the SBA and approved lenders are still giving priority to small businesses (businesses less than 20 employees). Based on our reports from lenders, there has been significant progress this week in terms of both submissions to the SBA and approvals from the SBA.

The SBA finally released the updated rules yesterday so now lenders can approve applicants accordingly. This includes the guidance for using the gross income calculation if you're a Schedule C filer, instead of the net income, and the rationale behind making this change. If you're interested in the reading the full PPP rule updates, here's the document.

Prior to this week, based on our data, only around 30% of PPP applicants had been approved and received funding. If you haven't been approved yet, you're not alone.

Both of our partner lenders, Funding Circle and Bluevine, have said they are continuing to improve the speed of their processing and give priority to small businesses this week for SBA submission. If you haven't applied to either of these lenders, you can using the links above.

📌 Friday Next Steps: Follow us for even more information on Instagram, Twitter, and Linkedin.

Plus, for every new YouTube subscriber we're donating $1 toward our weekly giveaways. 1K new subscribers means another $1,000 we'll donate back to users like you.

Finally, we have new grant programs available today on our premium grants tracker.

Prior Update Tuesday February 23

The White House released new rules yesterday to help small businesses receive more relief funding, and faster. Specifically, these new rules will help businesses with less than 10 employees get more PPP funding and get PPP funding faster.

We covered the news in yesterday's YouTube video (below) and a summary of the changes is below. We'll be updating this post as more information becomes available.

PPP Round 2 Funding Progress To Date

First, the Biden-Harris administration released data from the SBA on how small businesses have been increasingly helped during this latest PPP round. Here are some of the statistics provided in the report:

• The share of funding going to small businesses with fewer than ten employees is up nearly 60 percent
• The share of funding going to small businesses in rural areas is up nearly 30 percent
• The share of funding distributed through Community Development Financial Institutions and Minority Depository Institutions is up more than 40 percent

Improvements to Speed Up PPP Loan Distributions

Second, the news has 5 main solutions to increase accessibility of PPP loans as well as increase the speed at which small businesses can receive loans. Here are the 5 main initiatives that have been put forth:

1. Institute a 14-day period, starting Wednesday, during which only businesses with fewer than 20 employees can apply for relief through the Program.
2. Help sole proprietors, independent contractors, and self-employed individuals receive more financial support.
3. Consistent with a bipartisan bill, eliminate an exclusionary restriction that prevents small business owners with prior non-fraud felony convictions from obtaining relief through the Paycheck Protection Program.
4. Eliminate an exclusionary restriction that prevents small business owners who are delinquent on their federal student loans from obtaining relief through the Paycheck Protection Program.
5. Ensure access for non-citizen small business owners who are lawful U.S. residents by clarifying that they may use Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) to apply for relief.

Next Steps on PPP Loans

According to our data on the Skip App, as well as our latest YouTube survey, 74% of you are still waiting for your second PPP loan. So if you're still waiting, don't worry — you're not alone.

We're optimistic that these changes will help speed up the process for you in the coming days and weeks.

Second, if you'd like to apply for a PPP loan or you were previously denied, this may be a good opportunity to apply with another lender or apply again. You can consider applying with a second or third lender. Here are two options: First, we recommend Funding Circle since they are having faster approvals, then we recommend Bluevine.