On Thursday, April 16, 2020 the Small Business Administration (SBA) announced that the $349 billion set aside for the paycheck protection program (PPP) had dried up, and that it would not be accepting new PPP loan applications or accepting new lenders until Congress approves additional funding for the program. According to SBA, the fund issued 1,661,397 loans from 4,975 lenders before it was exhausted.

PPP and the SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan program (EIDL), as well as other SBA loan flexibility programs, have been the centerpiece of Congress’s small business COVID-19 recovery efforts. PPP loans were made available to qualifying businesses with less than 500 employees, and can be converted into grants, with no payback requirements if the funds are used over an 8-week period on qualifying payroll, mortgage interest, rent and utilities expenses.

Efforts to approve $250 billion additional dollars for the program have been stalled in Congress for the last two weeks as congressional leaders negotiate issues related to additional COVID-19 recovery efforts outside of PPP refunding. eBay government relations continues to advocate on behalf of small businesses for more funding to be approved for SBA programs to help during COVID-19 recovery.

Please connect to eBay’s Customer Service page for more information related to eBay’s responses to COVID-19 and to the eBay Mainstreet COVID-19 page for more information related to local, state and federal COVID-19 resources.