On March 21, Governor Kay Ivey announced that Alabama has qualified with the Small Business Administration for Alabama small businesses hit by the coronavirus crisis to apply for loans under the agency’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan program.
SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loans offer up to $2 million in assistance for an eligible small business. These loans can provide vital economic support to small businesses to help overcome the temporary loss of revenue they are experiencing.
These low-interest loans may be used to pay fixed debts, payroll, accounts payable and other bills that can’t be paid because of the disaster’s impact.
A week before, on March 19, only 17 states and the District of Columbia had qualified for COVID-19 relief under the SBA’s EIDL program, and Alabama was not then among them.
Individual businesses still must qualify for EIDL assistance, following this qualification by the state. For more information, the Alabama Department of Commerce directs them to go to the SBA’s COVID-19 disaster assistance web page.
The Department of Commerce worked with the Alabama Emergency Management Agency and the Alabama Small Business Development Center to prepare Alabama’s application for the SBA’s EIDL program.
According to data from the SBA’s Office of Advocacy, there are nearly 400,000 small businesses in Alabama, employing nearly half of all Alabama workers.
