You probably know that the federal government’s definition of a small business is based on either the number of people that a company employs or the amount of revenue it earns annually. The number-of-employees or the gross-revenue standards are applied to individual North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) codes. One or more NAICS codes apply to every business.
Thus, in order to determine whether a company is a small business in the eyes of the government, one must first determine which NAICS code or codes apply to the business, and then see what size standard (employees or revenue) applies to each NAICS code. If a business has fewer employees or earns less annual revenue (averaged over the past three years) than the standard, then that business can represent itself to the federal government as a small business. This is an important determination to make since the federal government sets an annual goal of awarding 23 percent of its contract dollars to small businesses.
It’s been more than five years since the Small Business Administration (SBA) updated the revenue size standards for small businesses. Therefore, as of July 14, 2014, the SBA is adjusting virtually all of its size standards that are based upon revenue, to account for the years of inflation since the last adjustment.
The forthcoming adjustment affects almost half of all NAICS code categories. In all, 476 industrial categories will be affected by the update, including most service, construction, retail, agricultural and transportation industries.
With these increases, the new small business size standards range between $5.5 million and $38.5 million.
Using the Gross Domestic Product price index to obtain the most comprehensive measure of inflation, the SBA determined that the amount of inflation that occurred between the first quarter of 2008 and the last quarter of 2013 was 8.73 percent. The SBA then calculated the new size standards by multiplying the current size standards by 1.0873 and then rounding that total to the nearest $500,000. After these adjustments,
This latest adjustment of the revenue-based size standards for inflation is separate from the comprehensive review of all size standards that the SBA is supposed to perform at least every five years.
The new size standards can be found at: http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=SBA-2014-0009-0001. Busineeses have until August 11, 2014 to submit any comments on these rules which technically are “interim final rules” at this point.
Because these new size standards will apply to certificates of small business size status signed on or after July 14, 2014, small (and near-small) businesses should review the new size standards to determine whether they now qualify as a small business concern. Businesses also should visit the System for Award Management (SAM) and verify that their profile and certifications are up to date based on the revised size standards.
See more details on the SBA’s website at: http://www.sba.gov/content/what%27s-new-with-size-standards.
