Rankings & leaderboards
States by Suspension Rate per 1,000 Pandemic Loans
Illinois had the highest suspension rate of the 55 jurisdictions ranked: 126.4 suspended borrowers for every 1,000 PPP and COVID EIDL loans, ahead of Georgia (117.2) and Louisiana (94.0). South Dakota had the lowest, 20.3. The rate divides SBA's count of suspended borrowers by the number of loans in the federal loan files. One borrower can hold several loans, so the rate is not the share of borrowers suspended; it compares jurisdictions.
How this list is built
SBA's 2026 releases give suspended borrowers by jurisdiction; the federal spending files give each jurisdiction's PPP and COVID EIDL loan counts. The archive's dataset carries both. This list divides the first by the second and multiplies by a thousand, recomputed here from the two count columns rather than taken from the dataset's own rate column. Five numerators are not from the September release: California and Minnesota from SBA's release of 6 February 2026, Maine and Ohio from 4 June 2026, Wisconsin from 8 July 2026.
A minimum-denominator rule applies. A jurisdiction with a handful of loans produces an unstable rate — one suspension out of four loans is 250 per thousand. Jurisdictions with fewer than 1,000 PPP and COVID EIDL loans are therefore excluded and named below rather than ranked. 2 rows are excluded: Armed Forces Europe, Middle East, Africa and Canada (military mail) (4 loans); American Samoa (474 loans).
Unit ranked: the state or territory. Metric: suspended borrowers per 1,000 PPP and COVID EIDL loans. Universe: 55 jurisdictions above the threshold. All jurisdictions together: 67.73 per 1,000. Vintage: SBA releases of 6 February, 4 June, 8 July and 14 September 2026; dataset built 15 September 2026.
The ranking
| # | Jurisdiction | Suspended per 1,000 loans | Suspended borrowers | PPP and COVID EIDL loans |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Illinois | 126.36 | 96,128 | 760,752 |
| 2 | Georgia | 117.18 | 85,975 | 733,685 |
| 3 | Louisiana | 94.00 | 26,739 | 284,448 |
| 4 | Delaware | 92.92 | 3,462 | 37,258 |
| 5 | Nevada | 91.18 | 14,387 | 157,792 |
| 6 | Alabama | 84.52 | 18,075 | 213,843 |
| 7 | Mississippi | 84.04 | 14,310 | 170,268 |
| 8 | Michigan | 82.24 | 30,923 | 376,006 |
| 9 | Florida | 81.75 | 118,167 | 1,445,517 |
| 10 | Arizona | 76.33 | 17,450 | 228,625 |
| 11 | District of Columbia | 75.45 | 3,007 | 39,855 |
| 12 | New York | 71.39 | 75,451 | 1,056,875 |
| 13 | Texas | 70.76 | 88,831 | 1,255,347 |
| 14 | Tennessee | 68.51 | 19,373 | 282,783 |
| 15 | Maryland | 67.88 | 17,591 | 259,156 |
| 16 | Indiana | 67.23 | 15,114 | 224,794 |
| 17 | South Carolina | 66.00 | 13,052 | 197,744 |
| 18 | North Carolina | 64.08 | 22,439 | 350,155 |
| 19 | Ohio | 63.30 | 27,486 | 434,202 |
| 20 | Arkansas | 62.05 | 7,645 | 123,213 |
| 21 | California | 61.17 | 111,620 | 1,824,668 |
| 22 | Rhode Island | 59.72 | 2,658 | 44,504 |
| 23 | New Jersey | 57.44 | 24,609 | 428,458 |
| 24 | Pennsylvania | 55.70 | 24,492 | 439,735 |
| 25 | Virginia | 52.36 | 15,485 | 295,725 |
| 26 | West Virginia | 52.31 | 2,151 | 41,117 |
| 27 | Washington | 51.99 | 13,393 | 257,588 |
| 28 | Massachusetts | 49.79 | 13,896 | 279,110 |
| 29 | U.S. Virgin Islands | 48.00 | 249 | 5,188 |
| 30 | Missouri | 45.27 | 12,425 | 274,494 |
| 31 | Connecticut | 44.48 | 6,803 | 152,955 |
| 32 | Wyoming | 44.27 | 1,366 | 30,858 |
| 33 | Idaho | 44.00 | 2,832 | 64,365 |
| 34 | Oklahoma | 43.40 | 8,112 | 186,911 |
| 35 | New Mexico | 42.90 | 2,383 | 55,551 |
| 36 | Colorado | 40.87 | 10,138 | 248,070 |
| 37 | New Hampshire | 38.98 | 2,015 | 51,698 |
| 38 | Hawaii | 38.81 | 2,422 | 62,408 |
| 39 | Oregon | 38.08 | 5,831 | 153,116 |
| 40 | Kentucky | 37.86 | 5,788 | 152,896 |
| 41 | Northern Mariana Islands | 36.85 | 44 | 1,194 |
| 42 | Alaska | 36.10 | 1,124 | 31,140 |
| 43 | Vermont | 35.42 | 977 | 27,585 |
| 44 | Utah | 34.87 | 3,685 | 105,675 |
| 45 | Wisconsin | 34.69 | 7,800 | 224,845 |
| 46 | Guam | 33.62 | 167 | 4,967 |
| 47 | Kansas | 31.92 | 4,631 | 145,101 |
| 48 | Puerto Rico | 30.34 | 3,015 | 99,368 |
| 49 | Iowa | 26.18 | 4,942 | 188,775 |
| 50 | Maine | 26.17 | 1,500 | 57,323 |
| 51 | Minnesota | 25.99 | 6,900 | 265,440 |
| 52 | Montana | 24.29 | 1,379 | 56,783 |
| 53 | Nebraska | 21.72 | 2,789 | 128,389 |
| 54 | North Dakota | 20.82 | 1,201 | 57,689 |
| 55 | South Dakota | 20.26 | 1,452 | 71,667 |
What this measures, and what it does not
A suspension is an administrative step, not a finding of fraud. Nothing in this table is an adjudication, and no borrower is named.
A rate is a ratio of two things SBA and USAspending count differently. The numerator is borrowers; the denominator is loans, and one borrower could take both a PPP loan and a COVID EIDL loan, so the denominator counts some borrowers twice. The rate is therefore a comparative index, not a probability that a given borrower was suspended.
The jurisdictions the releases did not break out carry no numerator and are absent. This comparison excludes jurisdictions with fewer than 1,000 PPP and COVID EIDL loans. That threshold is the archive's choice, not SBA's.
Sources
- Archive data page: SBA borrower suspensions by state, 2026
- Archive data page: SBA borrower suspensions, 2026
- File as held:
data/files/sba-borrower-suspensions-by-state-2026.csv(sha256 5b902f91dc555863…)