Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) Advance application submission number MUST begin with the number “3” to be valid. Check your application immediately.

Last night NSA reached out to the Small Business Administration (SBA) to clarify confusion caused by the redraft of the form required to apply for the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) Advance through SBA’s online portal. The confusion comes from initial applicants NOT being asked for their number of employees.

Initially it was thought that the Advance was for up to $10,000 regardless of the number of employees of the applicant. However the SBA then clarified this position saying that the Advance was in fact for $1,000 per employee, up to $10,000 for qualified applicants.

On the redrafted application form an additional “field” was added requiring the applicant give their total number of employees in order to submit their application.

NSA was told expressly last night by the SBA’s Office of Disaster Assistance that if NSA members or your clients have applied for the EIDL Advance and DID NOT use the updated form then your application WILL NOT be processed. You will not be contacted, your application will simply not move forward.

The SBA representative told NSA in an email that the simple way to tell if your application was submitted on the correct form is as follows:

“The EIDL Advance applications can only start with a 3…so any application numbers that start with a 2 are not being processed for the Advance and the business needs to reapply using the new streamlined application.”

The email went on to state that …

“Unfortunately, as of last night, the streamlined application portal is not accepting any new applications due to a lapse in appropriations. Once that is resolved the portal will resume accepting new applications.”

And continued …

“The business will not lose their place in line because the streamlined application will be matched up with the date/time stamp from the original application and will be prioritized accordingly.”