SVB and Government Relief Programs Frequently Asked Questions

You can apply at any time. Forgiveness applications are available through SVB Online Banking.

No. You will need to apply for forgiveness through SVB Online Banking.

The SBA has opened a portal to accept forgiveness applications and you may have received an invite from the SBA to apply directly by mistake. However, for SVB’s PPP loans, you must apply for forgiveness directly to SVB via SVB Online Banking.

Updated: 2/7/2022: Apply for Forgiveness of your PPP 2021 Loan ahead of your deferral period end date. If your organization used any of your PPP loan funds on eligible expenses, you may be able to get at least a portion of your PPP loan amount forgiven. If we do not receive your application by your deferral period end date, monthly payments will be automatically debited from your account. As per SBA regulations, submitting your forgiveness application after the deferral period end date will not extend the payment deferral.

Please note, payroll is capped at the equivalent of $100K annual salary per FTE (for example, $15,385 for the 8-week period; $30,770 for 16-week period; and $46,154 for the 24-week period).

For Owner Employees there is a different payroll limit that is capped at the lower of: a) $20,833 or b) the 2.5-months of salary from your 2019 or 2020 payroll (whichever was used to calculate your loan). Employer contributions to expenses such as healthcare, retirement, state/local tax may be added in addition to the capped amount depending on the entity type of the organization. 

Your Covered Period

Your covered period is the span of time you chose to have available for spending your loan proceeds. The SBA has allowed a time period from 8 weeks (56 days) to 24 weeks (168 days), beginning on the date you received your loan proceeds.

Expenses that Can Be Forgiven

• • At least 60% of the PPP loan funds need to be used for payroll costs. Payroll costs include:
    • Salaries, wages, tips or commissions (max. $100,000 per employee gross earnings), employee benefits (i.e. vacation/sick pay, healthcare/retirement benefits, life/vision/disability/dental insurance, state and local taxes).
  • No more than 40% of the funds can be used for other non-payroll eligible expenses. These include:
    • Mortgage interest, rent, utilities, worker protection costs related to COVID-19, uninsured property damage costs caused by looting or vandalism during 2020, and certain supplier costs and expenses for operations.

Supporting Documentation

For forgiveness, you will want to be sure you collect and retain the supporting documentation of eligible expenses. While we require various levels of documentation based on application type, you may be asked to provide documentation in the future by the SBA. We have developed a Documentation Guide to help you identify and gather the necessary documents and prepare for forgiveness.

A full list of the SBA documentation, submission and retention requirements can be found on the PPP Forgiveness Application (SBA Form 3508) instructions, the SBA Form 3508EZ Application instructions and the SBA Form 3508S Application instructions. In addition, each form’s application instructions list the documents that each borrower must maintain but is not required to submit. These documents may be requested if the SBA selects your application for a detailed review. If your loan amount was less than or equal to $150,000, you may qualify for the SBA Form 3508S Application. The 3508S application does not require supporting documents to be provided during the loan forgiveness process. Our Forgiveness Team will inform you in the case we need any documents prior to submitting your application to the SBA.

We encourage our clients to provide Silicon Valley Bank with Professional Employer Organization (PEO) or payroll service company reports to evidence these items. In many cases, these providers are creating specialized reports that correspond to a client’s covered period.

Additional Information

If you would like to learn more about the program and frequently asked questions regarding different aspects of the PPP Loan Forgiveness, please visit our PPP Loan Forgiveness FAQ Page.

To be eligible for loan forgiveness, PPP loan proceeds must be used for specified purposes, and at least 60% must be used for payroll costs, as defined by the SBA. Not more than 40% of the loan proceeds may be attributable for non-payroll costs.

Payroll costs include:

• • Cash compensation: For employee salary, wages and tips, the maximum allowed will be $46,154 per individual for a 24-week covered period and $15,385 for an 8-week covered period – both based on an annual $100,000 maximum, including costs for vacation, parental, family, medical or sick leave
  • Taxes: Payment of state and local taxes assessed on compensation of employees, including unemployment insurance taxes (Federal taxes and FICA cannot be included)
  • Health insurance: Payment for employee health insurance, including employer contributions to a self-insured, employer-sponsored group health plan, but excluding any pre-tax or after-tax contributions by employees
  • Retirement plan: Payment for employee retirement plans, excluding any pre-tax or after-tax contributions by employees
  • Owner compensation: the maximum allowed will be $20,833 (equivalent to 2.5 months of the annual maximum of $100,000) for a 24-week covered period and $15,385 for an 8-week covered period. For additional guidance on owner-employees, please review question eight on the Loan Forgiveness Payroll Costs FAQs from the SBA's FAQ on PPP Loan Forgiveness dated August 4, 2020.

Generally, PPP borrowers must maintain their employee headcount and compensation levels during the 8-24 week Covered Period after loan disbursement or provide an applicable safe harbor or exemption statement.

If a PPP borrower experiences reductions in salary/wage and/or FTE, commensurate reductions will be applied to the forgiveness amount.

Borrowers will NOT be penalized if any reductions are due to employee-requested separation or employees fired for cause.

Non-payroll costs include:

• • Mortgage interest and rental expenses
  • Utility payments (electricity, gas, water, telephone, transportation, or internet access)
  • Refinancing an SBA EIDL loan made between January 31, 2020 and April 3, 2020
  • Covered operations expenditures (payments for any business software or cloud computing service that facilitates business operations, product or service delivery, the processing, payment, or tracking of payroll expenses, human resources, sales and billing functions, or accounting or tracking of supplies, inventory, records and expenses)
  • Covered property damage costs (included property damage and vandalism or looting due to public disturbances that occurred during 2020 that was not covered by insurance or other compensation)
  • Covered supplier costs
  • Covered worker protection expenditures including capital expenditures to facilitate the adaptation of the business activities of an entity to comply with requirements established or guidance issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, the Center for Disease Control, or the Occupational Safety and Health Administration related to the maintenance of standards for sanitation, social distancing or any other worker or customer safety requirements related to COVID-19

Loan payments will be deferred for ten months following 24 weeks after your loan disbursement date, but interest will continue to accrue, even if the loan is not forgiven, in part or in full. The borrower will be responsible under the loan for any amounts not forgiven. The SBA may limit the timeframe by which you’ll need to ask for forgiveness.

The SBA requires documents supporting payroll expenses, non-payroll expenses, and FTE counts. SVB has developed a Documentation Guide to help borrowers identify and gather the necessary documents and prepare for forgiveness.

A full list of the SBA documentation, submission and retention requirements can be found on the PPP Forgiveness Application (SBA Form 3508) instructions, the SBA Form 3508EZ application instructions, and the SBA Form 3508S application instructions. In addition, each form’s application instructions lists the documents that each borrower much maintain but is not required to submit. These documents may be requested if the SBA selects your application for a detailed review. If your loan amount was less than or equal to $150,000, you may qualify for the SBA Form 3508S Application. The 3508S application does not require supporting documents to be provided during the loan forgiveness process. Our Forgiveness Team will inform you in the case we need any documents prior to submitting your application to the SBA.

We encourage our clients to provide Silicon Valley Bank with Professional Employer Organization (PEO) or payroll service company reports to evidence these items. In many cases, these providers are creating specialized reports that correspond to a client’s covered period.

SVB is not providing a forgiveness calculator. Once open, the online application will perform the basic arithmetic required to calculate the eligible forgiveness amount based on inputted covered expenses.

Unfortunately, SVB cannot provide guidance on how to complete FTE calculations. If you have a payroll provider, many of them are providing a PPP specific report to help in this manner. 

The reduction calculation would be the difference between the Average FTEs for your Covered Period compared to the Average FTEs in your reference period. For non-seasonal employers, the two reference periods that can be used for comparison are: 1) February 15 to June 30, 2019 or 2) January 1 to February 29, 2020.

In the case of a seasonal employer, the reference periods that can be used for comparison are between February 15 to June 30, 2019; between January 1 and February 29, 2020; or any consecutive 12-week period between May 1, 2019 and September 15, 2019.

Yes, Primary Administrators are able to reassign the application to a different User at the company by selecting “Re-Assign Task” in the application. If the User you would like to assign the application to for completion is not listed, update the User's permissions to provide access to the PPP loan.

Silicon Valley Bank recommends borrowers refer to the SBA.gov and Treasury.gov for additional information, as forms and guidance related to the Paycheck Protection Program continue to rapidly evolve and are subject to frequent changes. At a minimum, please make sure you have reviewed the latest information prior to submitting a forgiveness application. It is your obligation, as the borrower, to make sure you understand the SBA’s rules and that your application is true, complete and correct, and complies with the SBA’s requirements for forgiveness. Loan forgiveness is not automatic and must be requested through Silicon Valley Bank. Other eligibility requirements may apply.

On October 2, 2020, the SBA published an official procedural notice detailing the requirements for PPP borrowers who wish to make changes to their equity ownership.

Under this new guidance, PPP borrowers who wish to make any equity ownership change must notify SVB of all transactions. If you are considering any transaction which will change your equity ownership, please find instructions and a complete list of required information here.

Please note that while SVB will submit consent requests that require SBA approval in a timely manner, the SBA may take up to 60 days to respond.

Yes. SVB and the SBA are accepting forgiveness applications for PPP loans funded in 2021.

Apply for Forgiveness of your PPP 2021 Loan ahead of your deferral period end date. If your organization used any of your PPP loan funds on eligible expenses, you may be able to get at least a portion of your PPP loan amount forgiven. If we do not receive your application by your deferral period end date, monthly payments will be automatically debited from your account. As per SBA regulations, submitting your forgiveness application after the deferral period end date will not extend the payment deferral.

On the forgiveness application borrowers will have the option to update the signor of the application by entering their email. This will route the final signature to them prior to submission of the application.

Yes, Primary Administrators are able to reassign the application to a different User at the company by selecting “Re-Assign Task” in the application. If the User you would like to assign the application to for completion is not listed, update the User's permissions to provide access to the PPP loan.

Form 3508S: For loans of $150,000 or less
The SBA requires borrowers with PPP loans of $150,000 or less to use SBA Form 3508S, an updated form designed to make the forgiveness process easier and more streamlined. Borrowers using this form:

• Do not have to provide detailed calculations of their requested forgiveness amounts
• Do not have to upload supporting documents as part of their application
  • However, borrowers should keep payroll and non-payroll documents in hand in case they are requested by the SBA as part of your forgiveness application review
• If the borrowers loan amount is less than $50,000 they are exempt from reductions in forgiveness based on reductions in FTE employees or reductions in wages

Form 3508EZ: For borrowers with loans more than $150,000 that did not significantly reduce employees and wages
In order to use SBA Form 3508EZ, one of the following must apply to your business:

• You have not reduced the number of employees at all since January 1, 2020 AND have not reduced salary/wages more than 25% during the Covered Period for employees earning less than $100k in 2019, OR
• You are not able to operate at the same level of business due to COVID-related requirements AND you have not reduced salary/wages more than 25% during the Covered Period for employees earning less than $100k in 2019.

Form 3508
If your business does not meet the eligibility requirements for the 3508S or 3508EZ form, you will need to complete SBA Form 3058. If you are unsure, we recommend completing SBA Form 3508.

If you are using the SBA Form 3508, complete the PPP Schedule A Worksheet before starting your online forgiveness application with SVB.

Borrowers may apply for forgiveness at any time during the term of their PPP loan. As long as a borrower submits their loan forgiveness application within ten months of the completion of the Covered Period, the borrower is not required to make any payments until the forgiveness amount is remitted to the lender by the SBA.

The 8-week and 24-week covered periods refer to the time period during which costs must be incurred or paid to be eligible for forgiveness. The covered period starts immediately following the disbursement of the loan to the borrower.

Accrued interest on the portion of the PPP loan that is forgiven will not be owed. The amount of loan forgiveness may be up to the full principal amount of the loan plus accrued interest.

To be eligible for loan forgiveness, PPP loan proceeds must be used for specified purposes, and at least 60% must be used for payroll costs, as defined by the SBA. Not more than 40% of the loan proceeds may be attributable for non-payroll costs.

Payroll costs include:

• • Cash compensation: For employee salary, wages and tips, the maximum allowed will be $46,154 per individual for a 24-week covered period and $15,385 for an 8-week covered period – both based on an annual $100,000 maximum, including costs for vacation, parental, family, medical or sick leave
  • Taxes: Payment of state and local taxes assessed on compensation of employees, including unemployment insurance taxes (Federal taxes and FICA cannot be included)
  • Health insurance: Payment for employee health insurance, including employer contributions to a self-insured, employer-sponsored group health plan, but excluding any pre-tax or after-tax contributions by employees
  • Retirement plan: Payment for employee retirement plans, excluding any pre-tax or after-tax contributions by employees
  • Owner compensation: the maximum allowed will be $20,833 (equivalent to 2.5 months of the annual maximum of $100,000) for a 24-week covered period and $15,385 for an 8-week covered period. For additional guidance on owner-employees, please review question eight on the Loan Forgiveness Payroll Costs FAQs from the SBA's FAQ on PPP Loan Forgiveness dated August 4, 2020.

Generally, PPP borrowers must maintain their employee headcount and compensation levels during the 8-24 week Covered Period after loan disbursement or provide an applicable safe harbor or exemption statement.

If a PPP borrower experiences reductions in salary/wage and/or FTE, commensurate reductions will be applied to the forgiveness amount.

Borrowers will NOT be penalized if any reductions are due to employee-requested separation or employees fired for cause.

Non-payroll costs include:

• • Mortgage interest and rental expenses
  • Utility payments (electricity, gas, water, telephone, transportation, or internet access)
  • Refinancing an SBA EIDL loan made between January 31, 2020 and April 3, 2020
  • Covered operations expenditures (payments for any business software or cloud computing service that facilitates business operations, product or service delivery, the processing, payment, or tracking of payroll expenses, human resources, sales and billing functions, or accounting or tracking of supplies, inventory, records and expenses)
  • Covered property damage costs (included property damage and vandalism or looting due to public disturbances that occurred during 2020 that was not covered by insurance or other compensation)
  • Covered supplier costs
  • Covered worker protection expenditures including capital expenditures to facilitate the adaptation of the business activities of an entity to comply with requirements established or guidance issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, the Center for Disease Control, or the Occupational Safety and Health Administration related to the maintenance of standards for sanitation, social distancing or any other worker or customer safety requirements related to COVID-19

Loan payments will be deferred for ten months following 24 weeks after your loan disbursement date, but interest will continue to accrue, even if the loan is not forgiven, in part or in full. The borrower will be responsible under the loan for any amounts not forgiven. The SBA may limit the timeframe by which you’ll need to ask for forgiveness.

The SBA requires documents supporting payroll expenses, non-payroll expenses, and FTE counts. SVB has developed a Documentation Guide to help borrowers identify and gather the necessary documents and prepare for forgiveness.

A full list of the SBA documentation, submission and retention requirements can be found on the PPP Forgiveness Application (SBA Form 3508) instructions, the SBA Form 3508EZ application instructions, and the SBA Form 3508S application instructions. In addition, each form’s application instructions lists the documents that each borrower much maintain but is not required to submit. These documents may be requested if the SBA selects your application for a detailed review. If your loan amount was less than or equal to $150,000, you may qualify for the SBA Form 3508S Application. The 3508S application does not require supporting documents to be provided during the loan forgiveness process. Our Forgiveness Team will inform you in the case we need any documents prior to submitting your application to the SBA.

We encourage our clients to provide Silicon Valley Bank with Professional Employer Organization (PEO) or payroll service company reports to evidence these items. In many cases, these providers are creating specialized reports that correspond to a client’s covered period.

Borrowers can check the status of their application in Silicon Valley Bank’s Online Banking within the My Tasks area. The forgiveness process can take up to 150 days.

SVB has 60 days to review the application and supporting documents upon receipt of a complete application. The accuracy and completeness of the information provided will impact how quickly the application can be processed. If SVB has questions about the application, we will contact you directly.

Once the application has been reviewed and deemed to be complete, SVB will submit it to the SBA. The SBA has 90 days to review and respond to SVB. SVB will inform the borrower once the SBA has provided its decision with respect to forgiveness.

In addition to Online Banking, as the status of the application changes, the primary admin can expect to receive updates via email.

SVB has 60 days to review the application and supporting documents upon receipt of a complete application. The accuracy and completeness of the information provided will impact how quickly the application can be processed. If SVB has questions about the application, we will contact you directly. We are reviewing all forgiveness applications in the order they were received. Our current processing time from receiving a forgiveness application to requesting additional information from the client and submitting it to the SBA is approximately three to four weeks. The SBA has 90 days to review and respond to SVB. SVB will inform the borrower once the SBA has provided its decision with respect to forgiveness. We appreciate your patience.

Yes, it is possible to apply/be approved for partial forgiveness. The remaining PPP loan amount and any interest accrued on such amount will be payable according to the terms of the PPP Promissory Note.

Borrowers will be notified by Silicon Valley Bank if the SBA determines that all or part of the loan is not forgivable. If the borrower does not agree with the SBA’s decision, they may appeal. We expect that the SBA will provide further guidance with respect to the appeals process. Borrowers will be required to start repayment of any portion of the PPP loan that is not forgiven.

Borrowers will need to start making payments at the end of the deferral period with respect to any portion of the PPP loan that is not forgiven.

For borrowers that apply for forgiveness, their deferral period will end on the date SVB receives the forgiveness decision and payment from the SBA.

For those that do not apply for forgiveness, the deferral period will end 10 months after the end of the covered period (24 weeks past your loan disbursement date).

An appeal petition must be filed at https://appeals.sba.gov/ within 30 calendar days from the day you received the final SBA loan review decision. Please note that the SBA manages the appeals process directly. SVB is not involved. Additional details on the appeal process, including the steps on completing the form, can be found on the SBA website.

If you wish to keep your loan payments deferred while the appeal is being processed, you must submit a request with a copy of your appeal submission to pppservicing@svb.com.

PPP loans disbursed prior to June 5, 2020 have a maturity of two years, starting from the date the loan was disbursed, and have an annual interest rate of 1%. Payments are deferred until after your deferral period ends (10 months after the borrower’s chosen 8-week or 24-week Covered Period or once the SBA provide a forgiveness decision, whichever is earlier), but the loan has been accruing interest since it was disbursed. Please keep in mind that the use of the loan funds remains the same regardless of whether the borrower receives forgiveness. Eligible use of funds includes payroll, mortgage interest, rent and utilities.

If you would like to repay your PPP loan, please follow the process on SVB Learning Central and send an email to PPPRevokeRequest@svb.com with the required information. Repayment of your PPP loan is final and may not be revoked.

What matters to us is listening to your needs, being flexible with our solutions and being patient in our approach. SVB’s venture debt relief initiative, launched on April 1, has enabled more than 1,000 startups to defer their principal payments on a combined $2.1 billion in funded debt for six months. The Premium Wine Division is enabling a majority of clients to defer principal payments for three or six months, and SVB Private Bank clients are given the option to defer mortgage payments for 90 days.

SVB also participated in the Paycheck Protection Program under the US CARES Act, and we are in the process of applying to become an accredited lender in the UK under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS).

The venture debt principal deferral program was launched on April 1, 2020 and is an SVB-only program, not under the auspices of any government agency. The program is applicable to SVB venture debt borrowers with a funded term loan balance or aggregate term loan commitment of $10M or less. The program defers all principal payments for six months. Eligible borrowers were notified by SVB directly. The program has enabled more than 1,000 startups to defer their principal payments on a combined $2.1 billion in funded debt for six months.

This is a fluid situation and we intend to communicate with our clients frequently. Please be patient as we try to get back to your calls and questions as quickly as we can. In addition to your Relationship Managers, Relationship Advisors and Client Service, please seek information from our COVID-19 Relief website here: www.svb.com/covid-relief

We have the financial capacity and willingness to lend. We have a highly liquid balance sheet, and we have the capability meet our clients’ needs now and invest for the future. As with any major financial decision, we recommend that you consult your advisors before accessing credit. If you have cash and don’t need to borrow now, you may want to wait instead of incurring additional debt service costs.

Yes, we are an approved SBA lender and are able to process PPP loan applications.

Please visit www.svb.com/paycheck-protection-program to review the process.

The PPP program is specifically designed for those companies who can certify that they need the funds under the PPP requirements. We ask that you carefully consider how the COVID-19 crisis has actually impacted your ability to fund payroll, rent, mortgage interest or utilities before you sign your loan certification.

In addition to the eligibility requirements of the PPP program, there are a number of SBA rules and requirements that may apply to your application. Also, all PPP applications are subject to a verification process to ensure that the payroll costs and other inputs required to determine the eligible loan amount as well as the know-your-customer review that banks are required to conduct by law. These and a number of other factors may have bearing on whether an application is accepted or declined.

As of now, the affiliation rules are in force, which means venture-backed companies will need to consider them when determining their eligibility for a PPP loan. As part of the application process, we will ask you to make additional representations set forth below. We will not require you to provide a legal opinion in connection with your application.

In order to ensure that you take the SBA's affiliation rules into account and to help you consider some of the scenarios that might trigger affiliation under these rules, we will ask you to make these additional certifications when you complete your application. Please consult your legal counsel as you review them:

1. No business which, when combined with the Applicant, would have more than 500 employees (or any higher number provided in SBA standards for the relevant industry): (a) owns or controls more than 50% of the Applicant's equity, or (b) has, pursuant to the Applicant's charter, bylaws or shareholder agreements, the ability to prevent a quorum or otherwise block action by the Applicant board of directors or shareholders, or (c) has the ability to control day-to-day activities of the Applicant through its Board or Shareholders (including for example, setting employee compensation, hiring and firing of executives, and purchasing or selling equipment);
2. The Applicant is not one of the types of businesses ineligible for SBA business loans (see 13 CFR 120.110), nor is any owner of 20% or more of the business;
3. The Applicant has considered the SBA's affiliation rules and included the employees of its affiliates (at any level) when determining its eligibility for this program; and
4. The Applicant has considered existing options, convertible securities, and agreements to merge when determining its eligibility for this program.

We are currently assessing the updated program framework and details that were announced by the Federal Reserve on April 30, 2020. As we evaluate the changes to the program, we are also continuing to listen to our clients to understand their needs and aiming to be flexible with our solutions.

In the UK, SVB is an accredited lender under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) as well as the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS).*

We continue to accept applications until 11:59 pm GMT on 22 March 2021 for the CLBILS program and 11:59 pm GMT on 31 March 2021 for the CBILS program.

We remain open for business for innovation companies and investors of all sizes and are dedicated to continuing to support our ecosystem. More information on CBILS and CLBILS.

SVB is targeting philanthropic efforts in three primary areas: health, food security and shelter, and small business relief. The bank has committed $5.5 million to COVID-19 charitable relief initiatives across the eight countries and 15 US states where the bank operates. This includes corporate contributions to global, national and regional charities, direct community-based giving and a 3:1 match for SVB employees’ donations to relevant causes. In addition, SVB will contribute net PPP loan origination fees it receives from the SBA to relief efforts.

The COVID-19 Global Impact & Innovation Fund, in partnership with Founders Pledge on March 30, 2020 was established to identify and consolidate into a single fund high-impact organizations that are creating solutions to the pandemic crisis. The fund is now focused on activities to help slow COVID-19’s spread and provide immediate relief to those affected. Looking ahead, it will target initiatives to better prepare for future pandemics. SVB made an initial $1 million investment in the fund, and we invite you to join us. Learn more and donate at https://www.founderspledge.com/svb-covid-19.

As part of our regional effort, SVB offices have supported many health, food security and shelter organizations. In the UK, for example, SVB has partnered with Meals for the NHS, a tech ecosystem initiative to provide much needed meals to frontline hospital staff that are dealing directly with COVID-19. Meals for the NHS is now operating across 75 hospitals in 21 towns and cities across the UK. Learn more at mealsforthenhs.com. In the US, SVB is supporting a similar effort nationwide led by Frontline Foods.

SVB is also supporting emergency small business grants through our partner Hello Alice's Business for All initiative. Hello Alice provides grants and guidance to small, women- and minority-owned businesses and hosts a free COVID-19 Business Resource Center to link these businesses to relief programs, funding opportunities, mentors and other support programs designed for New Majority entrepreneurs. To learn more and apply for emergency grants, visit www.covid19businesscenter.com/.