2,186 plumbing businesses closed an SBA 7(a) loan in FY2025–FY2026 — a median of $200,000 at 10.00%, with the cheapest quarter under 9.24%. Getting financed is not the unusual move in your industry; getting the cheap end of it is.
- Short answer
- Bankable — service-weighted shops especially
- Best fit
- Equipment finance on trucks and jetters
- Also fits
- Line of credit for seasonal and receivable gaps
- Once bankable
- SBA 7(a) for acquisition or the shop
- What decides it
- Service vs new-construction revenue mix
- Usual disqualifier
- Cash-basis books, undocumented sub labor
Three revenue types, three different credits
Plumbing revenue is not interchangeable, and lenders read the mix before they read the total.
- Emergency and service — the best revenue in the trade. Collected at the door or within days, high margin, no receivable risk, and demand is non-discretionary.
- Repair and replacement — good margins, homeowner-paid, occasionally financed.
- New construction — the weakest from a credit standpoint. You are a subcontractor waiting on a GC, exposed to retainage, someone else's schedule, and payment terms you did not set.
A shop doing 70% service is a fundamentally better credit than one doing 70% new construction at the same revenue. If your mix favours service, say so with numbers — most contractors never mention it and it is the strongest thing on the file.
Recurring work exists here and is under-claimed
Backflow testing, grease trap service, commercial maintenance agreements and municipal contracts are contracted recurring revenue with renewal histories. They are worth far more to a lender than the same dollars of one-off work, and most plumbing shops present them as undifferentiated revenue.
What places, and what does not
- Service trucks and vans — titled, easy, often zero down for established shops.
- Jetters, camera and locating equipment, vacuum trailers — finance well when trailer-mounted and titled.
- Hand tools and small equipment — bundled into a truck deal rather than financed alone.
- Shop and yard real estate — SBA 504 territory, and usually the cheapest long-term money a growing shop can access.
Where plumbing files get declined
- Cash-basis books that cannot separate service margin from install margin.
- Subcontracted labor paid without documentation. Classification exposure a lender cannot size.
- New-construction concentration with a single GC carrying the receivables.
- Owner comp mixed into field payroll, making coverage impossible to compute.
- Stacked advances taken to cover a slow winter.
Send us the file either way. Split your revenue three ways, send two years, and we will tell you what it supports. Either way you get the memo, and you will know our fee before you commit to anything.
Common questions
- Is a plumbing business bankable?
- Bankable — service-weighted shops especially
- What financing fits a plumbing business best?
- Equipment finance on trucks and jetters
- What do lenders look at for plumbing businesses?
- Service vs new-construction revenue mix
- Why do plumbing businesses get declined?
- Cash-basis books, undocumented sub labor
What plumbing actually paid
2,186 SBA 7(a) loans to this industry in FY2025–FY2026 approvals (1 Oct 2024 – 30 Jun 2026), from the SBA’s own disclosure file.
- 10.00%
- Exactly the all-industry median.
- 9.24–10.75%
- A quarter closed cheaper than this, a quarter more expensive.
- $200K
- Half the loans in this industry were smaller.
SBA files plumbing and HVAC under one code — 23822, Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors — so these figures cover both trades together. Medians across loans carrying an initial rate. The spread inside one industry is not a discount anyone is offering — it is which lender read the file. See every lender’s rate.
Industries with the same answer
These businesses look nothing alike, but the product that fits them is the same one — and usually for the same structural reason.