On June 18, 2025, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) published an interim final rule extending the compliance dates for the Small Business Lending Rule under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (Regulation B). The interim final rule will extend the three-tiered compliance deadline for financial institutions by twelve months. The highest volume lenders (i.e., financial institutions with at least 2,500 covered transactions in the preceding two years) must comply by July 1, 2026. Moderate-volume lenders (i.e., those with at least 500 covered transactions) must comply by January 1, 2027. The smallest volume lenders (i.e., those with at least 100 covered transactions) must comply by October 1, 2027.
Advocacy previously commented on the Small Business Lending rule in January 2022 and raised several concerns with the proposal. We stated that the CFPB’s approach may be unnecessarily burdensome to small entities, may impact the cost of credit for small businesses, and may lead to a decrease in lending to small, minority, and women-owned businesses. Advocacy expressly noted that the CFPB’s proposal to require financial institutions to collect discretionary data points not required by statute may be costly and potentially problematic for a small business applicant’s privacy. Due to our concerns with the final rule, Advocacy encourages the CFPB to rescind the 2023 final Small Business Lending rule or modify the rule to address Advocacy’s small business concerns.
In the interim, Advocacy supports the compliance date extension. Based on Advocacy’s estimates using CFPB and Census Bureau data, the three-tiered compliance date extension could save affected small entities roughly $48.5 million over the next ten years.
COMMENT LETTER
(PDF, 240 KB)
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CONTACT: Tanner Long
EMAIL: tanner.long@sba.gov
TAG(S): CFPB