Financing SMEs and Entrepreneurs 2026

Reader’s guide

Indicators

The SME and entrepreneurship financing trends are monitored through a set of core indicators, listed in Table 1. These indicators are selected based on the criteria of usefulness, availability, feasibility and timeliness (see Annex A on the Methodology for producing national Scoreboards for a detailed description). In detail, the core indicators describe and monitor the following key dimensions:

Table 1. Core indicators in Financing SMEs and entrepreneurs

Core indicators	Unit	What they show
The allocation and structure of bank credit to SMEs
Outstanding business loans, SMEs	Volumes in national currency	SME demand for and access to bank credit. A stock indicator measuring the value of an asset at a given point in time, and thus reflecting both new lending and bank loans that have accumulated over time, along with loan repayments.
Outstanding business loans, total	Volumes in national currency
Share of SME outstanding loans	% of total outstanding loans
New business lending, total	Volumes in national currency	SME demand for and access to bank credit. A flow indicator, measured over one year. It tends to capture short-term developments more strongly than the stock indicator and is therefore more volatile.
New business lending, SMEs	Volumes in national currency
Share of new SME lending	% of total new lending
Short-term loans, SMEs	Volumes in national currency	The structure of SME debt, i.e. the share of outstanding credit with an initial maturity of less than one year and more than one year, respectively. This could be considered as a proxy to gauge the purpose of SME bank loans, i.e. for operational and investment needs.
Long-term loans, SMEs	Volumes in national currency
Extent of public support for SME finance
Government loan guarantees, SMEs	Volumes in national currency	These indicators illustrate the extent and uptake of government programmes and instruments supporting SMEs' access to finance.
Government guaranteed loans, SMEs	Volumes in national currency
Direct government loans, SMEs	Volumes in national currency
Credit costs and conditions
Interest rate, SMEs	%	The cost of SME loans and how it compares to large firms.
Interest rate, large firms	%
Interest rate spread	Percentage points
Collateral, SMEs	% of SMEs needing collateral to obtain bank lending	Proxy the conditions SMEs face when applying for bank credit.
Percentage of SME loan applications	SME loan applications/ total number of SMEs, in %	The (unmet) demand for and utilisation of credit by SMEs, and banks' willingness to lend to SMEs.
Rejection rate	1-(SME loans authorised/ requested), in %
Utilisation rate	SME loans used/ authorised, in %
Non-bank sources of finance
Venture and growth capital investments	Volumes in national currency and year-on-year growth rate in %	Measure the access to alternative sources of finance, including external equity for start-up, early development and expansion stages, as well as asset-based finance, such as leasing, hire purchases, factoring and invoice discounting.
Leasing and hire purchases	Volumes in national currency
Factoring and invoice discounting	Volumes in national currency
Financial health
Non-performing loans, total	% of total business loans	The incidence of late or non-payments for SME loans, compared to the overall corporate sector. This proxies the (relative) riskiness of lending to SMEs.
Non-performing loans, SMEs	% of total SME loans
Payment delays, B2B	Number of days	The occurrence of payment delays in the B2B sector, i.e. the difficulty in paying and being paid. This indicator captures the extent of cash flow problems.
Bankruptcies, SMEs	Number and year-on-year growth rate in %	A proxy for the overall business environment in which SMEs operate and the ability of small firms to survive economic downturns and credit crunches.

Data collection

The Scoreboard data are provided by experts designated by participating countries. Most indicators are derived from supply-side data provided by financial institutions, statistical offices, and other government agencies. Indicators cover access to finance for employer firms, that is, SMEs with at least one employee operating a non-financial business. The data in the present edition cover the period 2007 to 2024. They are complemented by more recent available information. In addition, national demand-side surveys up to 2025 to provide a more comprehensive view of financing trends and needs. In addition, information on government policies to ease SMEs’ access to finance is collected on a systematic basis.

The published print version includes a chapter on emerging trends in SME and entrepreneurship finance, drawing on information provided by participating countries, and a thematic chapter, focusing in this edition on the venture capital landscape for SMEs and the approaches governments are taking to leverage this instrument for a broader set of SMEs in line with the agenda to foster innovation and competitiveness. The print version also includes an annex and a two-page snapshot for every participating country. This snapshot summarises the state of play regarding SME access to finance in each country, while the full country profiles will be available online.

Cross-country comparability

At the country level, the Scoreboard provides a coherent picture of SMEs' access to finance over time and monitors changes in financing conditions for SMEs, as well as the impact of policies. However, there are limits to cross-country comparisons. First, the statistical definition of an SME differs among participating countries; while the European Union (EU) definition is the most commonly used, participating countries outside of the EU usually define an SME differently, which complicates cross-country comparisons (see Annex A for detailed definitions of SMEs across participating countries).

In addition, differences in indicator definitions and coverage impact comparability, with a number of countries not able to adhere to the “preferred definition” of the core indicators. In these instances, a proxy has been adopted. For this reason, all country profiles include a table which provides the definition adopted for each indicator and a reference to the data source. Despite these limitations, it is possible to compare general trends across countries, as the differences in the exact composition of the single indicator are muted when evaluating rates of change. Country profiles in the print edition of this publication are abbreviated to two pages with key facts and the table with core indicators, while the full profiles are available online.

Data adjustments for analysis

Differences in inflation levels across countries affect the comparability of trends over time. Considering this, indicators in the trends chapter have been adjusted for inflation. This adjustment converts nominal (current-price) values into real (constant-price) values, helping to distinguish changes in underlying volumes from those driven by price changes, and improving comparability across countries with divergent inflation paths. For this purpose, the GDP deflator from the OECD Economic Outlook publication is used. The base year used is 2007, as most of time-series graphs in Chapter 1 compare the median growth rate since 2008. For the evolution of the aggregate long term outstanding stock of SME loans, data presented is in nominal terms, given the stock nature of the indicator, and to avoid altering the recorded level through inflation adjustments.

Monetary values reported in national currencies are converted into a common currency for the purpose of aggregating country data and analysing cross-country totals. All available series are converted into US dollars (USD) using the annual exchange rate for each reference year in each country, as provided in the OECD Data Explorer exchange rate database, and from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators for non-OECD countries whose data were not available.

Methodological advances and recommendations for data improvements

There have been important methodological and structural improvements in recent editions of this report. More detailed information regarding the sources and definitions of core indicators has been provided for participating countries. Since June 2016, the Scoreboard data have been available on the OECD.Stat. In 2024, the OECD migrated to the OECD Data Explorer, and significant enhancements were made to improve the user experience. Previously, the database allowed users to filter data only by country and year. The new version now offers additional filtering options, differentiating between company size (e.g. large, small or total), stock and flow data, and unit of measure (e.g., volumes in local currency, percentage, percentage points). Data on core indicators can be consulted, downloaded and put to further use, thereby addressing a longstanding demand to improve access to the data and exposure of the publication to a wider audience.

Furthermore, the Scoreboard now seeks to collect disaggregated data on SME and entrepreneurship finance and financing conditions. Data collection has started by geographical location and by gender of the principal owner, and efforts to improve country and time coverage are being pursued. In particular, more efforts are needed on the collection of gender disaggregated data, as few countries appear to be collecting this information, despite its high policy relevance. In this context, the OECD is is partnering with the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) and its Women Entrepreneurs Finance Code, as part of its efforts to strengthen information on access to finance by women-owned businesses within the Scoreboard.

The collection of additional dimensions (e.g. sector of operation and firm size) is foreseen to be incorporated in the future. Overall, the incorporation of these dimensions will provide a better understanding of SME and entrepreneurship finance trends, would significantly continue to strengthen the usefulness of the Scoreboard, contribute to a better understanding of the heterogeneity of SME segments, enrich the evidence base and support policy efforts focused on SME and entrepreneurship financing.

Finally, efforts are ongoing to increase the coverage of participating countries and to harmonise the data from participating countries.

A summary of recommendations to further improve data collection and reporting of core indicators are outlined in Box 1 (see the Annex for a more detailed discussion). Actions in these areas can enable countries to progress in the harmonisation of definitions and facilitate inter-temporal and cross-country analysis of trends in SME and entrepreneurship finance.

Box 1. Recommendations for improving the reporting of core indicators

1. Improve reporting of SME loan variables by:

• Systematically separating reporting of financial information for non-employer and employer-firms;

• Providing both stock and flow data for SME loans;

• Detailing the loan composition, indicating the different underlying products (e.g. overdrafts / lines of credit / leases / business mortgages or credit cards / securitised loans), and disclose such elements in the loan definition.

2. Fill gaps in available data and work towards more comprehensive information for other core indicators in the Scoreboard, including:

• Offer more comprehensive information on government programmes that ease SME access to finance:

  • Systematically distinguishing between stock and flow data for indicators such as government loan guarantees, government-guaranteed loans, and direct government loans

  • In the context of specific measures to foster innovation or digitalization, provide information on new or expanded government schemes, including information on eligibility criteria and duration, and if possible, amount of total funding allocated to those schemes.

• Provide more comprehensive data on venture capital investments, including trends by stage and sector;

• Compile SME-specific information on the uptake and use of asset-based finance (versus other beneficiaries);

• Collect information on SME loan fees, in addition to interest applied on the loans;

• Detail the definition of collateral and improve reporting, using demand-side surveys to compensate for lack of supply-side data;

• Advance efforts to compile more disaggregated data on the Scoreboard core indicators, notably by gender of principal owner and geographical location.

  • On the collection of gender-disaggregated data, provide figures distinguishing between firms that are primarily owned (not managed) by women (e.g. 51% owned by women), firms primarily owned by men, and “dual-owned”.

  • On the collection of subnational level data, provide figures at the TL2 level.

3. Work to improve data collection on online alternative finance to capture its growing role in the SME financing mix. For example, indicators for future consideration in the Scoreboard may include digital lending (e.g. loans issued by Fintech balance-sheet lending platforms, P2P/Market place lending, invoice trading) and digital capital raised by SMEs (e.g. crowdfunding).