11.4 Million PPP Loans: Where Pandemic Relief Money Actually Went

In 2020 and 2021, the federal government distributed over $800 billion through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), the largest emergency business lending program in American history. The program was designed to keep workers on payroll during COVID-19 shutdowns — but the speed of distribution, the volume of applications, and the limited oversight created conditions ripe for fraud, misallocation, and abuse. PPPLoanLookup.com makes all 11.4 million+ PPP loan records searchable, giving the public the tools to see where the money went.

The Scale of the Program

The PPP operated in multiple rounds, first under the CARES Act and then under subsequent legislation. The Small Business Administration (SBA) approved over 11.4 million individual loans to businesses across every industry, every state, and nearly every ZIP code in the country. Loan amounts ranged from a few hundred dollars for sole proprietors to millions for large companies with hundreds of employees.

PPPLoanLookup.com indexes every one of these loans with data sourced directly from the SBA's public disclosure files. Each record includes the borrower's business name, address, industry code (NAICS), loan amount, lender name, number of jobs reported, loan approval date, and forgiveness amount. Users can search by business name, lender, location, industry, or loan amount range — finding specific businesses or analyzing patterns across the entire program.

Following the Money

The PPP data tells multiple stories, depending on how you explore it. At the macro level, it reveals how emergency funds were distributed across industries, geographies, and business sizes. Did the money reach the small businesses it was designed to help? Or did larger, better-connected companies capture a disproportionate share? The data allows users to investigate these questions directly.

Key patterns that emerge from the data include:

• Industry concentration: Certain industries — hospitality, food service, healthcare — received a large share of loans, reflecting the sectors most affected by pandemic shutdowns. But the data also reveals loans to industries that were less obviously affected, raising questions about targeting.
• Geographic distribution: Loan distribution by ZIP code shows significant variation in how effectively the program reached different communities. Some areas received far more per capita than others, correlating with access to banking relationships and awareness of the application process.
• Lender patterns: The data reveals which banks and fintech lenders processed the most loans, how average loan sizes varied by lender, and which lenders specialized in particular business sizes or industries.
• Forgiveness rates: The vast majority of PPP loans were forgiven — meaning taxpayers absorbed the cost. The forgiveness data shows which loans were fully forgiven, partially forgiven, or required repayment.

The Fraud Problem

PPP fraud became one of the biggest financial crime stories in American history. The Department of Justice has charged thousands of individuals with PPP fraud, recovering billions in stolen funds — yet prosecutors acknowledge they've only scratched the surface. Estimates suggest that between $64 billion and $117 billion in PPP loans were fraudulent.

PPPLoanLookup.com doesn't make fraud determinations — that's the job of federal investigators and prosecutors. But the platform provides the transparency that makes public scrutiny possible. Journalists have used PPP loan data to identify businesses that received loans but appeared to have no employees. Community members have flagged loans to addresses that turned out to be vacant lots. Researchers have analyzed patterns consistent with organized fraud rings operating across multiple states.

The ability to search any business and see its PPP loan details creates a basic layer of accountability that the program originally lacked. When loan recipients know that anyone can look up their loan, there's at least a deterrent against the most brazen forms of abuse.

A Historical Record

Beyond its immediate accountability function, the PPP loan database serves as a historical record of an unprecedented moment in American economic policy. Future researchers studying the pandemic response, emergency lending programs, or small business economics will need access to this data. By making it permanently searchable and accessible, PPPLoanLookup.com ensures that the lessons of the PPP — both its successes in saving businesses and its failures in preventing fraud — remain available for study and analysis.

The PPP experiment also offers critical lessons for future emergency programs. When the next crisis demands rapid fund distribution, policymakers can study the PPP data to understand what worked, what was exploited, and how to design better safeguards without sacrificing the speed that emergencies require.

Search the Database

Visit PPPLoanLookup.com to search any business, lender, or location. See loan amounts, forgiveness status, jobs reported, and industry classification for every PPP loan approved in the United States.

PPPLoanLookup is one of the government transparency platforms built by TheDataProject.AI — making pandemic relief data searchable, transparent, and accessible to everyone.