Byline Bank SBA Loans and Byline Bank SBA Loan Reviews for Buying a Business
Byline Bank SBA loans from SBA data: 164 acquisition loans in FY2025, fourth in the US, median $900,000 at prime plus 2.75%. Rates, terms, industries and reviews.
By the Buyouts team
October 2026 · 9 min read
Short answer: Byline Bank is one of the five most active SBA lenders for buying a business. SBA's own loan file shows 164 change of ownership 7(a) loans worth $212.0 million in fiscal 2025, fourth in the country by count, with a median loan of $900,000. It is a mid-size-deal lender with a strong niche in insurance agencies and pharmacies, and it prices above the market: its median acquisition loan carried prime plus 2.75% against prime plus 2.00% for all lenders. It has almost no public borrower reviews, and it has financed only nine software or IT acquisitions since 2019.
The loan figures come from the 7(a) loan file SBA publishes on data.sba.gov, with data to 30 June 2026, which we downloaded and analyzed on 12 October 2026. Byline's own SBA pages and its Trustpilot profile were read the same day. Nothing here is a loan quote or financial advice.
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Byline Bank SBA loan reviews from borrowers
There are almost none to read. Byline's Trustpilot profile for bylinebank.com is unclaimed and had zero reviews when we checked on 12 October 2026. The testimonials on Byline's own SBA page are hand-picked quotes from a holding company owner and a coffee bar owner, which tell you the bank can close a hard file, not how often it does.
So the useful review is the loan file itself. It shows what Byline actually finances, at what size and rate, and how those loans performed. That is a better guide for a buyer than star ratings, which for banks are dominated by checking-account complaints anyway.
How many business acquisition loans Byline makes
Byline approved 505 SBA 7(a) loans worth $561.1 million in fiscal 2025. Acquisitions have become a much larger share of that book, close to half of its loans in fiscal 2026 so far.
| Fiscal year | Byline acquisition loans |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 85 loans, $114.4M |
| 2021 | 89 loans, $139.8M |
| 2022 | 140 loans, $208.6M |
| 2023 | 130 loans, $192.7M |
| 2024 | 97 loans, $151.9M |
| 2025 | 164 loans, $212.0M |
| 2026, Oct to Jun | 125 loans, $153.3M |
In fiscal 2025 only three lenders made more acquisition loans: Huntington National Bank with 878, Live Oak Bank with 769 and First Internet Bank with 251. By dollars Byline ranked fifth, behind those three and GBank. The order held in the first nine months of fiscal 2026, when Byline was again fourth by count with 125 acquisition loans, 46% of all its 7(a) approvals.
What size of deal Byline finances
Byline's main SBA page says its SBA loans start at $350,000, and most of its acquisition lending is well above that. The median acquisition loan was $900,000 in fiscal 2025, against $700,000 for the whole market. Loans approved under its Preferred Lender authority, 242 of its 289 acquisition loans in fiscal 2025 and 2026, had a median of $1,020,000.
| Acquisition loan size, FY2025 to Jun 2026 | Byline loans |
|---|---|
| $350,000 or less | 62 |
| $350,001 to $1 million | 100 |
| $1 million to $3 million | 100 |
| Over $3 million | 27 |
The $350,000 floor is not absolute. Byline made 40 SBA Express acquisition loans in the same period with a median of $150,000, and one of the recent deals it advertises is a $300,000 Express loan for the purchase of a boat manufacturer. In practice a sub-$350,000 loan from Byline tends to be either an Express loan or a companion to a larger deal, so a buyer with a $200,000 purchase will usually find a more natural home at a small-loan lender. We cover the bank that dominates that end of the market in our Huntington National Bank SBA loan review.
Byline Bank SBA loan rates
Byline publishes its rate for search fund and self-funded acquisition loans: "2%-2.75% + WSP rate", meaning prime as published in the Wall Street Journal. The loan file says it usually lands at the top of that range. For every variable-rate acquisition loan approved from January 2025, we subtracted the prime rate in force on the approval date from the starting rate. This is our calculation, not a figure SBA or Byline publishes.
| Spread over prime, acquisitions from Jan 2025 | Median |
|---|---|
| Byline, loans above $350,000 (208) | Prime + 2.75% |
| All lenders, above $350,000 (6,565) | Prime + 2.00% |
| Byline, $350,000 or less (59) | Prime + 2.75% |
| All lenders, $350,000 or less (2,830) | Prime + 2.25% |
Three quarters of a point matters. On a $1,000,000 ten-year loan with prime at 7.00% it is about $410 a month, or roughly $49,000 over the life of the loan (our arithmetic, 9.75% against 9.00%). And 24 of Byline's 208 larger acquisition loans were priced at prime plus 3.00%, above its published range and at the SBA maximum for loans over $350,000. The same pattern shows in the raw rates: Byline's median starting rate on acquisitions in fiscal 2025 was 10.25%, against 9.50% for the market.
Every one of Byline's 289 acquisition loans in fiscal 2025 and 2026 was variable rate, even though its 7(a) page mentions fixed-rate options. If you want a fixed rate on an acquisition, ask for it in writing before you send a full package.
Byline Bank SBA loan terms
Byline's general 7(a) page offers "15 years for non-real estate debt". Its search acquisition page says "up to 10 years for most uses", and that is what the file shows: 236 of its 289 acquisition loans ran 120 months, 43 ran 300 months because they included real estate, and only 5 ran 180 months. Plan your debt service on ten years unless the deal includes a building.
The rest of the published terms are buyer-friendly:
- A term sheet "in 24 to 48 hours after submitting full documentation" and a target to close "within 50 days of receiving signed term sheets".
- Up to 90% financing for acquisitions, which matches the 10% minimum equity injection SOP 50 10 8.1 sets for a first acquisition from 1 October 2026.
- No prepayment penalty on non-real-estate loans. On a ten-year acquisition loan SBA does not charge its own prepayment fee either; the SBA fee applies only to loans of 15 years or more, explained in the SBA 7(a) prepayment penalty.
- Closing costs, working capital and buyer due diligence costs can be included in the loan, which lowers the cash you bring but raises the 10% injection, because it is calculated on the whole project.
- Conventional debt on top of the $5,000,000 SBA maximum for larger purchases.
What kinds of businesses Byline finances
Byline lends nationally but has clear specialties, and the file confirms them. Its two largest acquisition industries in fiscal 2025 and 2026 match two of its marketed industry teams.
| Industry, FY2025 to Jun 2026 | Acquisition loans |
|---|---|
| Insurance agencies and brokerages | 35 |
| Pharmacies | 22 |
| Beer, wine and liquor stores | 18 |
| Gas stations with convenience stores | 10 |
| Limited-service restaurants | 10 |
| HVAC and plumbing contractors | 9 |
| Landscaping services | 9 |
Its insurance group lending page offers "100% financing available on most loans that qualify" for agency acquisitions, which makes it one of the obvious first calls if you are buying a book of business. Franchises were 51 of the 289 loans. Geographically the bank is Chicago-based, with about $9.9 billion in assets and branches around Chicago and Milwaukee, but more than four in five of its acquisition loans went outside Illinois: Illinois 53, California 30, Florida 28, Texas 24, Wisconsin 19 and New York 16 led the list.
Does Byline finance software and SaaS acquisitions?
Rarely. Across every fiscal year from 2020 to June 2026, Byline made 9 acquisition loans to software or IT businesses: four custom programming shops, two software publishers and three IT services firms. That is not a refusal policy, and its search acquisition team says it lends "in all industries". But an underwriter who sees one software deal a year will need recurring revenue explained: churn, deferred revenue, customer concentration and how much of the product lives in the founder's head.
Prepare that file before the first call. Reconcile the seller's bank deposits to the revenue they claim, which reconciliation software that matches bank lines to invoices can do in an afternoon rather than a week, and read how SBA lenders underwrite a SaaS acquisition. Then get at least one term sheet from a lender that closes software deals more often, which our top SBA lenders finder shows by state and loan size.
Is Byline Bank legit for SBA loans?
Yes. Byline Bank is an FDIC-insured Illinois bank, its parent Byline Bancorp is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and it is an SBA Preferred Lender, so it approves most loans under delegated authority. Loan performance in the public file is slightly weaker than average: of the acquisition loans it approved in fiscal 2020 and 2021, 5 of 174 show as charged off as of 30 June 2026, about 2.9%, against 1.8% for all lenders, 2.5% for Huntington and 1.4% for Live Oak Bank. Five loans is a small number, so read that as a reason for careful underwriting, not as a warning. Byline also sold the guaranteed portion of 174 of its 289 recent acquisition loans on the secondary market, which is normal for an active SBA lender and does not change who services your loan.
Byline Bank vs Live Oak and Huntington for buying a business
| FY2025 acquisition loans | Count, median, rate |
|---|---|
| Huntington National Bank | 878, $350,000, 9.50% |
| Live Oak Bank | 769, $800,000, 9.25% |
| Byline Bank | 164, $900,000, 10.25% |
| All lenders | 7,533, $700,000, 9.50% |
Huntington is the small-deal volume lender and Live Oak is the specialist for larger deals at the sharpest median rate. Byline sits between them on size and above both on price, and earns its place with industry teams, speed and flexible structures for searchers: its search acquisition page highlights "flexible equity requirements and seller note terms". If your deal leans on a seller note, model it in the seller financing calculator before you ask.
Should you use Byline Bank to buy a business?
Get a Byline term sheet if your loan is between about $500,000 and $5 million, you are buying an insurance agency, a pharmacy or a franchise, or you are a searcher who needs a creative seller note and a fast answer. Do not take its first rate: the file shows it often prices at prime plus 2.75% to 3.00%, so put a competing term sheet next to it and ask for the bottom of its published range. If you are buying software, start with a lender that closes software deals more often and use Byline as the second quote.
Before either conversation, know the cash you need at closing on our cost to buy a business calculator, and test the payment against cash flow on the business acquisition loan calculator. Whoever lends, the file is only as strong as the seller's numbers. Every listing on Buyouts shows verified MRR, churn and growth before you make an offer, which is exactly what an SBA underwriter will ask you to prove.
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