We asked SBA to show its work before it changes what counts as a small business

Comment Letter
Written By ASBCC Admin

FILED SEPTEMBER 16, 2026 · SBA-2026-0199 + SBA-2026-0265 · PUBLIC COMMENT

The American Small Business Chamber of Commerce™ filed its principal comments on SBA's proposed size standards on September 16, in both dockets.

The proposal would replace nearly a thousand size limits with 338, switch 173 industries from a sales test to a headcount test, and make roughly 114,000 more companies count as small. It reaches all 980 industries that have a size limit.

We did not tell SBA the numbers are too high. Several hundred commenters already have, and they may well be right. But an objection to a number is an opinion, and an agency can note an opinion and move past it.

We asked for something an agency cannot move past: publish the analysis, industry by industry, that the law says has to be in the proposed rule.

What we actually asked for

Each of these is a question SBA can answer or fail to answer, and anyone can tell which:

  • Who gains and who loses, industry by industry, with the data used. SBA published national totals. It did not publish the figure a business owner needs to check her own industry: how many companies in it become small, and how many stop being small.
  • Why these industries now share one limit. Industries with different histories and different economics are being put under a single number. Where the explanation isn't there, keep them separate.
  • Fix the errors in the published text. We found four. One is a size limit for NAICS 486110 that appears to contradict SBA's own no-decrease policy; another is a row for 561720 that does not identify the industry it means. The 18 exceptions the rule deletes have no published disposition at all.
  • Say what happens on day one. Who has to re-certify their size, what a newly small company can and cannot compete for, and what it means for contracts and vehicles already held.
  • On the methodology, publish the crosswalk. Show how the former seven factors and the considerations in 13 C.F.R. § 121.102 map onto the three components that replaced them, and for every industry changing measure, show which companies qualify under the old limit and which under the new one.
  • Then reopen comment for 60 days. We asked for that time because we intend to use it. Once the record is complete, we expect to comment on the limits themselves. None of this asks SBA to abandon modernization. The case for updating size limits is real, and SBA has shown more of its method than most rulemakings do. The problem is that the public is being asked to comment on a rule it cannot test at home.

Why this is the stronger ground

A comment that says a number is wrong invites a reply that says it isn't.

A comment that says the record does not contain what the statute requires has to be answered with the record. SBA either publishes the industry-level gain and loss counts, or the final rule goes out without them and the gap is on the face of it. That is checkable by anyone, which is the point.

We published our evidence first

We are asking SBA to show its work. We showed ours before asking.

Everything the letter relies on is archived, citable and free to download:

  • Federal Marketplace Index — Size Standards Rulemaking Analysis Data Deposit, v1.0, 32 files, published September 16, 2026. DOI 10.5281/zenodo.22778860
  • federalmarketplaceindex.org — the methodology, the changelog and every prior deposit. We found one of the four errors only because we rebuilt SBA's table ourselves. We should not have had to, and we cannot do it for the analysis we cannot see.

Where the comments are

Both were submitted through Regulations.gov on the afternoon of September 16 and are now posted and public. The same 101-page letter, including exhibits, is on both dockets.

SBA held its virtual public forum on September 17, four days before the record closes, having said in advance that its officials would not respond substantively to testimony given there. That is one more reason the written record is where this gets decided.

Four days left

Any business can still file. It takes about ten minutes, and you do not need to agree with us to do it.

File your own comment →

ASBCC Admin
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