Greater Baltimore banks, credit unions and development companies signed off on more than $237 million in SBA-backed loans for local businesses in calendar year 2025, according to a new ranking. The list offers a street-level view of which lenders were still stepping up to fund expansions, commercial real estate buys and working capital while borrowing costs stayed stubbornly high. For small-business owners, it doubles as a quick cheat sheet of who actually got SBA deals done last year.
The ranking, published today, tracks loans approved between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2025, for firms based in Baltimore City and the surrounding counties of Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford and Howard, according to the Baltimore Business Journal. The online version stretches beyond the 20 lenders printed in the magazine to a full 77, and reports that total approved and originated SBA activity across the region topped $237 million. The figures come from federal loan records in the SBA's FY2025 lender activity reports, pulled from SBA releases.
Local Winners: M&T Topped The List
M&T Bank landed in the top slot among 7(a) lenders in the Baltimore district, with 427 loans approved that totaled about $50.7 million in fiscal year 2025. The volume suggests regional banks were still very much in the game on smaller SBA deals even as rates climbed. M&T called out the Baltimore results in its nationwide update, pointing to the district as a standout for sheer number of loans across the Mid-Atlantic. The bank detailed those Baltimore figures in a November 2025 release from M&T Bank.
What The 7(a) And 504 Dollars Actually Fund
Most of the activity on the list runs through SBA's 7(a) program, which is used for working capital, business acquisitions and debt refinancing. The 504 program is aimed at long-term fixed assets and real estate projects. That split helps explain why both traditional banks and Certified Development Companies appear in the rankings, since each type of lender tends to specialize in different deal sizes and underwriting sweet spots. The SBA spells out those product differences and eligibility rules on its loan program pages from the SBA.
Methodology And What To Watch
The BBJ reports that it pulled raw approval data from SBA records, then ranked institutions by total loan dollars approved or originated in Greater Baltimore, breaking ties by number of loans. That wrinkle matters, since community banks often post a big count of smaller deals. The outlet also notes that some approvals on the list may not have been fully disbursed yet, so a loan can show up even if the borrower had not received the cash at the time of publication. For anyone tracking local development or the health of small-business credit, the BBJ and SBA data offer a timely snapshot of who was willing to take on risk in Greater Baltimore in 2025. The full ranking and methodology come from the Baltimore Business Journal.
Observers will be watching to see if the same players dominate in 2026 as interest-rate and policy shifts reshape banks' appetite for government-guaranteed lending. For now, the BBJ list, built on SBA records, remains the clearest public look at which institutions kept the SBA spigot open for Greater Baltimore last year.
