On Tuesday, May 4th, the US Small Business Administration (SBA) informed lenders that the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was out of money and that the only remaining funds available for new applications are $8 billion set aside for community financial institutions (CFIs), which typically work with businesses in underserved communities. The agency has also set aside $6 billion for PPP applications still in review status or needing more information due to error codes.
In late March of this year, Congress extended the PPP applications deadline to May 31, in part to give the SBA and lenders time to resolve error codes that were holding up nearly 200,000 applications in the SBA’s PPP platform. The error codes were due to validation checks implemented by the SBA to prevent fraudulent applications from being funded.
The PPP Extension Act of 2021 did not include any additional funding over and above the $292 billion that was approved for the current round of the PPP .