The SBA Doubled the 7(a) + 504 Cap to $10M. Companion Packages Helps You Act on It.

The SBA announced a new rule, effective July 4, 2026, that doubles the cumulative 7(a) and 504 loan limit to $10M per borrower. Eligible borrowers can now combine the two programs for a larger pool of SBA-backed financing on a single project.

Why This Matters

Lenders like you now have more room to structure financing around what a project actually needs and proactively bring these valuable options to your borrowers.

However, a paired 7(a) + 504 deal means more moving parts: related loans for the same applicant, closing in a similar timeframe with Sources & Uses, Documents, Obligors, and interim financing that all need to stay in sync. Operational complexity should never get in the way of the opportunity, and that's where SPARK comes in.

Companion Packages in SPARK were built to make this easy

Since we launched Companion Packages in summer 2024, roughly a third of SPARK customers have adopted it to manage paired deals. If your institution isn't using it yet, this is the moment to get started. It lets your team handle a 7(a) + 504 pairing as one coordinated workflow:

• Shared Sources & Uses across the full project, with combined guaranty fees calculated automatically

• Shared Businesses, Individuals, and Documents that you update once, reflected across all packages

• One Letter of Interest covering the full financing package

• Shared Underwriting of Financial, Individual, and Collateral Analyses; a single Credit Memo; one Decision Request

• Shared Tasks for work that spans both packages (SAM searches, UCC searches, etc.), with package-specific Tasks still tracked independently where they belong

• Coordinated 504 interim financing alongside the 504 package, so funding through the bridge period and the eventual CDC takeout stay visible in one workflow. The interim loan is tracked accurately without being double-counted in project totals.

• Flexible Fee Allocation between companion packages for accurate project accounting

The goal is simple: let your team focus on structuring the right deal for the borrower, while SPARK does the work of keeping all the packages in the project synced with each other.

Next Steps

Reach out to your Customer Success Manager today to learn what's involved in getting started with Companion Packages.