On Tuesday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a ruling that would extend the compliance deadlines for the small business lending rule.
In March 2023, the CFPB issued the small business lending rule, which required financial institutions to compile, maintain, and submit to the CFPB data regarding applications for credit from women-owned, minority-owned, and small businesses. The interim final rule issued Tuesday will extend compliance deadlines by 290 days. Lenders with the highest volume of small business loans must begin collecting data by July 18, 2025, the bureau said, while moderate volume lenders must start on Jan. 16, 2026, and small volume lenders must start by Oct. 16, 2026. The deadline for reporting small business lending data to the CFPB remains June 1 following the calendar year for which data was collected, meaning high volume lenders will submit their data on June 1, 2026.
The interim final rule comes after a federal court in Texas stayed the rule pending the Supreme Court’s decision in CFPB v. CFSA last month. The extended deadline is the amount of time that elapsed between the Texas court’s issuance of the stay last year and the Supreme Court’s decision last month.
The CFPB said lenders may choose to start collecting data earlier and that the rule permits lenders to collect demographic data up to one year before their compliance date to test their data collection procedures and systems. CFPB said it did not plan on assessing penalties for reporting errors in the first year of data collection and that it intends to conduct examinations only to help lenders diagnose compliance weaknesses.