Specialty program financing
The financing programs your bank has no reason to mention.
C-PACE runs 5–8% fixed for up to thirty years and transfers to the buyer when you sell. USDA B&I guarantees 80–85% of a loan so a lender can write forty-year terms. SBA 504 fixes your rate for decades. None of these are exotic. They are just administered by somebody other than the bank sitting across the table.
- C-PACE invested to date
- $13.5B
- across 3,837 commercial projects
- 2025 originations
- $3.5B
- one provider alone did over $2B
- States with a program
- 40+DC
- adoption is often county by county
- Typical C-PACE rate
- 5–8%
- fixed, roughly 10-yr Treasury + 3%
Where the money actually is
C-PACE by state, not by headline
Verified 2026-08-30
Volume and deal count tell different stories. Minnesota has closed more C-PACE projects than any other state and has one of the smallest average deal sizes in the country. California and Washington are the reverse. If you are trying to work out whether your project is normal for your market, this is the number that matters.
Three programs, three different jobs
Start with the one that matches your project
C-PACE
Fixed-rate financing repaid through the property tax assessment — up to 30 years, and it transfers to the buyer when the building sells.
- Interest rate5–8% fixed
- TermUp to 30 years
- RepaymentProperty tax assessment
USDA B&I
A federal guarantee of 80–85% that lets a lender write terms up to 40 years — if the project sits in a town under 50,000 people.
- Guarantee85% under $5M
- Maximum term40 years
- Rural definitionUnder 50,000 people
SBA 504
Long-term fixed-rate money for owner-occupied real estate and heavy equipment, with a lower down payment than a bank would ask on its own.
- UseOwner-occupied real estate and equipment
- RateLong-term fixed on the CDC portion
- StructureBank + CDC + borrower equity
How we work
We would rather lose the deal than place the wrong one.
No merchant cash advances. Ever.
The SBA itself made merchant cash advances ineligible for 7(a) refinancing in June 2025, on the grounds that they do not support sustainable business growth. We reached the same conclusion earlier and for the same reason. If a broker is still telling you they can refinance an MCA into an SBA loan, the rules stopped allowing that.
“No” is a real answer here.
Most projects that come to us qualify for something. Some do not, and the honest response to those is what would need to change and roughly how long it would take — not a more expensive product with a faster close.
Every figure carries a date and a source.
Program terms move. Guarantee percentages change with the federal fiscal year and C-PACE rules differ by county. Everything on this site shows when it was last verified and links to the primary source, so you can check us.
Cumulative through 2024
The ten largest C-PACE markets
| State | Invested | Projects | Average deal | Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | $2.63B | 181 | $14.5M | In depth |
| Ohio | $928M | 324 | $2.9M | In depth |
| Texas | $843M | 128 | $6.6M | In depth |
| Minnesota | $334M | 451 | $0.7M | Summary |
| Missouri | $315M | 66 | $4.8M | Summary |
| Michigan | $308M | 87 | $3.5M | Summary |
| Pennsylvania | $297M | 30 | $9.9M | In depth |
| Colorado | $286M | 133 | $2.1M | Summary |
| Illinois | $279M | 44 | $6.3M | Summary |
| Washington | $279M | 20 | $14.0M | In depth |
Source: C-PACE Alliance, 2024 National Program Volume Data. Average deal size is calculated from the cumulative figures and is indicative, not a program limit.
Before you call anyone
What is specialty program financing?
It is the set of government and incentive-backed programs that sit outside a bank’s ordinary product menu — C-PACE, USDA Business & Industry, SBA 504 and similar. They typically carry longer terms and lower fixed rates than conventional commercial debt because a public program is absorbing part of the risk. They are underused mainly because they are unfamiliar, not because they are hard to qualify for.
Why would a bank not tell me about these programs?
Usually because the bank is not the one administering them, the process involves a third party such as a state program or a CDC, and the bank has a product of its own that closes faster. That is not misconduct — it is just that nobody in the room is paid to raise the alternative.
Do you place merchant cash advances or high-cost short-term debt?
No. Every program on this site is long-term and fixed or capped in cost. If your project does not qualify for one of them, we will tell you that and explain what would change the answer — we do not route people into expensive short-term products as a consolation prize.
What does it cost to ask?
Nothing, and there is no credit pull to get an answer on program eligibility. Eligibility for these programs turns on the property, the location and the use of funds far more than on the borrower’s credit file.
See which program fits your project
Tell us about the property and we will tell you which programs it qualifies for — including when the answer is none of them.
- Commercial and business purposes only — we do not place consumer loans.
- If the project does not qualify, we say so and tell you what would change that.
- No credit pull to get an answer on program eligibility.