At the last possible minute, SBA extended the comment period on proposed increases to small-business size standards by 60 days. Comments are now due Friday, November 20, two weeks after the midterm elections. SBA had received 2,117 comments as of Monday night, over 85% of them opposing the proposals as drafted.
The extension was signed by Ryan Lambert, Associate Administrator of the newly rebranded SBA Office of Industrial Base Resilience & Contracting. Lambert presided over a virtual public forum on Thursday. The 46 speakers at the public forum went against SBA’s proposed size-standard changes 40 to 6.
The extension was filed with the Federal Register at 6 p.m. It will not be officially published until Thursday—three days after the original Monday deadline for comments.
Veterans’ comments are mostly against
A GovCon Intelligence analysis of 1,841 comments filed as of Monday morning found that 87% of comments were against SBA’s proposals—nearly 60% outright and another 27% with some support, mostly for modest increases.
The comments had become increasingly negative as the docket progressed. Whereas the first 200 comments included 14% that supported, the most recent 200 comments as of Monday morning had been over 90% against.
A large number of comments come from participants in SBA’s socioeconomic programs. The docket includes 172 comments from veteran-owned firms, 92% against.
Several veterans organizations had filed comments. The D’Aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) opposed the standards, writing that “addressing the challenges faced by graduating businesses should not come at the expense of those still working to gain a foothold in the federal marketplace.”
The National Veteran Small Business Coalition filed against large increases, stating that they could be “so broad that the protected market becomes a competition between firms that share a label but not a comparable economic scale.” NVSBC recommended that SBA finalize moderate changes but phase in large increases.
One veteran with a 100% service disability remarked on the difficulties that veterans face in building their businesses. “No veteran leaves the service and builds a large company on day one,” the veteran wrote.
SBA recently revised its annual procurement scorecard to add a “Serving Our Veterans” element for all Federal agencies.
SBA Advocacy revealed new data
The extension follows new developments late last week. SBA sharply lowered its estimate of the number of mid-size contractors that would be small businesses under the agency’s size standard proposal. The estimate previously was 37,002, but it is now 4,000 to 6,000, according to a press release from the SBA Office of Advocacy issued Thursday.
That 4,000 figure is less than the decline in small-business contractors last year. The government lost 4,226 small-business primes in FY 2025. Since FY2010, the number of small-business prime contractors has declined by over 60,000.
Conversely, the number of typical small-business new entrants under the current size standards is far more than the 4,000 that SBA’s proposal could add. GSA’s Supplier Base Dashboard counted 7,200 small-business new entrants in FY 2025.
Regarding the two diverging estimates, the U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce wrote, “the agency has published two incompatible descriptions of the rule’s effect and has the basis for neither in the docket.”
New entrants could face challenges if SBA ultimately hikes the size standards. Increases in the size standards accelerate small-business exits, according to research by the Census Bureau and Carnegie Mellon University. In “How Big is Small? The Economic Effects of Access to Small Business Government Support,” Matthew Denes and collaborators found that firm exits rise 9% after a size-standards increase. The creation of new firms is unchanged, resulting in a net loss, the researchers concluded
Commenters on the proposed size standards now have until November 20 to address the updated data and its effects.
With over 20 years of Federal legal experience, Sam Le counsels small businesses through government contracting matters, including bid protests, contract compliance, small business certifications, and procurement disputes. His website is www.samlelaw.com. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.
Interesting…..the wait continues.