SBA wants to change what counts as a small business. Tell them what it would do to yours.
COMMENT PERIOD OPEN · SBA-2026-0199 + SBA-2026-0265 · CLOSES SEPTEMBER 21, 2026
On August 20 the Small Business Administration proposed replacing the size standards that decide which firms count as small — and changing the method behind them. Roughly 980 six-digit industry standards would become 338, most set at a broader level than the industry they measure today. Your industry would be folded into a group and share one ceiling with every other industry in it. Some industries would also change what is measured, moving between average annual receipts and employee count.
The record closes September 21. The American Small Business Chamber of Commerce™ is filing its own comments in both dockets. We are asking you to file your own, and not to wait for ours.
What filing actually involves
File your comment on the size standards →
It takes about ten minutes, and there is no blank page:
- Enter your six-digit NAICS code. You will see the current standard, the proposed standard, and every other industry that would share your ceiling.
- Say where you stand — support, oppose, mixed, or undecided. You are only asked the questions that fit your position.
- Answer a short set of questions about your market. Most are checkboxes. You may get one or two follow-ups to sharpen your strongest point.
- Read both comments and edit anything. Nothing is submitted for you. You file them yourself on Regulations.gov, and the tool links you to each page.
Why your comment carries weight ours cannot
SBA has not published the market analysis behind these groupings. What ends up in the record is what businesses put there.
There are things only you can tell the agency. Whether the firms it proposes to group with yours actually bid against you, or whether you have never once seen one on a solicitation. What a company at the proposed ceiling can do that yours cannot. What you hired, bought, built or certified because you expected to compete as a small business — and what becomes of that if the pool widens.
A trade association comment carries a position. A business owner's comment carries evidence — and evidence is what an agency must answer on the record.
Write it in your own words. When many filings share identical paragraphs, regulators can and do treat them as a single submission. Fifty comments describing fifty different markets are worth more than five hundred copies of the same one.
What we are filing, and why you should not wait for it
Our comments will argue the chamber's position: that size standards belong at the six-digit NAICS level, where an industry is actually an industry; that SBA has not shown a firm at the proposed size is not dominant in its field, which the Small Business Act requires before that firm may be treated as small; and that the agency should publish the industry-level data behind any grouping before it finalizes anything.
That is a position. It is not a substitute for the record.
Your filing is independent of ours and should be. You do not need to agree with us, and you do not need to mention us. The tool works the same whether you support the proposal, oppose it, or want SBA to show its work first. If a higher ceiling would help your firm, say so — that belongs in the record too.
Two dockets, one deadline
Both filings are separate, and both close September 21. The tool prepares each one and links you to it.
- SBA-2026-0199 — the proposed size standards themselves — read the docket
- SBA-2026-0265 — the methodology used to group industries and calculate them — read the docket
File before September 21
Comments received after the closing date are not part of the record SBA must answer. If you get stuck, or your industry has a wrinkle the tool does not cover, write to us before the 21st rather than after it.