SBA Withdraws Proposal to Redefine 'Small'

The Small Business Administration recently withdrew its proposal to restructure small business size standards, according to the July 1 Federal Registrar. The SBA plans to review comments it has received regarding the proposed rule and obtain more data before revamping and re-proposing new size standards.

The proposed rule, published March 19, sought to simplify size standards by reducing the number of size categories from 37 to 10 and establishing number of employees as a unified standard for all industries. Currently, standards are based on either annual receipts or on number of employees.

The proposed rule would have affected nearly 70,000 businesses. While 35,000 businesses would have gained “small business” status, 34,100 would have lost it.