Financing SMEs and Entrepreneurs 2026: An OECD Scoreboard offers valuable international evidence to help governments and financial institutions monitor access to finance, financing conditions and policies for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurs. The 2026 Scoreboard provides official data on SME financing for 48 countries across the OECD and beyond. It covers indicators on debt, equity, asset-based finance and financing framework conditions from 2007-2024, complemented by the latest available data for 2025. It also provides recent information on public policies and private initiatives to support SME finance, along with evidence on the demand for finance.
While this 2026 edition comes at a time when borrowing costs were beginning to ease, they remain historically high, with 34 out of 39 countries having higher SME rates compared to the pre-pandemic, and heightened geopolitical tensions are creating upward pressures. At the same time, bank lending terms and conditions have tightened, with 10 out of 17 countries showing higher shares of SMEs requiring collateral, reflecting persistent economic uncertainty on the part of financial institutions. In the context of the evolving conflict in the Middle East, a prolonged period of higher energy prices would add markedly to business costs and raise consumer price inflation, with adverse economic consequences.
Against this backdrop, while there are tentative signs of recovery in new lending to SMEs, with the Scoreboard median increasing by 5.7% in 2024, it remains fragile. Indeed, lending in 2024 was still 4% down on 2022 and the stock of SME loans as a share of GDP fell in 25 out of 41 countries, driven in part by repayments of COVID-19-era loans and declining maturities of new loans. In fact, long-term loans, often used to finance investments, edged down. Taken together, these developments suggest that economic uncertainty and relatively high borrowing costs continue to contribute to sluggish SME credit growth, holding back investments at a time when it is urgent to boost SME competitiveness.
Finance through other instruments, such as factoring and leasing, also remains subdued with the Scoreboard median growth rate of factoring activities falling by 3% in 2024, and leasing increasing modestly by 1.6% over the same period. Equity financing shows signs of recovery, with 18 countries out of 30 increasing venture capital volumes, but the rebound is uneven and concentrated in few large investments in artificial intelligence.
On the other hand, Fintech-driven finance is playing a growing role in SME access to capital, with an increasing number of Fintech firms indicating SMEs as their primary customers. In addition, non-bank lenders are playing an increasing role.
Governments are working to enable the implementation of tech models in asset-based financing by enacting laws to enable these models to scale and to reach SMEs with limited credit history. This includes digital infrastructures for factoring transactions and centralised invoice registries to allow parties to verify the status of receivables, accurately assess credit risk, and enable AI-driven decision tools to assess financing applications more comprehensively.
In addition, as highlighted in the Scoreboard’s thematic chapter, governments are making significant efforts to support start-ups and innovative SMEs through venture capital (VC) schemes, in line with the OECD Recommendation on SME Financing. Indirect public participation is growing rapidly, with significant public capital invested in fund-of-funds, although direct investments remain widespread. Many of these investments are channelled through public development banks. The VC industry has expanded significantly in the last 15 years, supported by accommodative monetary conditions and greater participation of institutional investors and governments, alongside rising demand from intangible-asset start-ups, particularly in information and technology-intensive sectors.
In recent years, many national (and in some cases regional) governments have been increasingly leveraging some of their VC activities to steer investments toward strategic sectors and technologies, such as green-tech, deep-tech and defence. They are also seeking to address regional concentration and promote better access to VC for women-owned firms. Additionally, public development banks and other government investors are stepping up efforts to mobilise a broad set of investors, including institutional investors, retail investors and family offices, to increase the pool of patient capital much needed for these emerging strategic technologies.
Governments are also increasingly prioritising targeted support for SMEs exposed to international trade tensions, while continuing to work towards promoting SME sustainability investments through both financial and non-financial support.
Looking ahead, SME finance policy should seek to foster SME long-term investments alongside working capital, to boost competitiveness, resilience and growth in a context of continued economic uncertainty. Efforts to strengthen diversification of financing instruments and sources should also continue, including asset-based finance and equity, as well as responsible digital and AI-enabled finance. The Scoreboard will continue to monitor developments in the SME financing and policy landscape in future editions.
