On this page
Australian small businesses committed to $14.0 billion in new fixed-term loans excluding refinancing in the June quarter of 2026, down 6.9% from a year earlier. Working-capital commitments fell 1.2% to $631.3 million. The latest quarter no longer supports the previous edition’s headline of sharply rising working-capital borrowing.
These are commitments recorded in the quarter, not the amount of debt outstanding or cash already drawn. They cannot tell us whether businesses borrowed less because demand weakened, credit conditions changed or a particular project moved between quarters.
New small-business commitments by purpose
| Purpose | June 2025 ($m) | June 2026 ($m) | Year-on-year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total excluding refinancing | 15,030.6 | 13,996.1 | -6.9% |
| Construction | 931.3 | 849.3 | -8.8% |
| Property purchase | 5,822.4 | 5,344.0 | -8.2% |
| Plant and equipment | 5,952.0 | 5,540.3 | -6.9% |
| Working capital | 638.9 | 631.3 | -1.2% |
| General business purposes | 1,261.7 | 1,180.3 | -6.5% |
| External refinancing | 1,952.3 | 1,830.0 | -6.3% |
| Internal refinancing | 2,432.0 | 1,907.9 | -21.6% |
Source: ABS Table 30, original quarterly values. External and internal refinancing are shown separately and are excluded from the total above. The ABS suppresses some detailed purpose cells; the displayed components therefore need not add to the total. Suppressed values are not zero.
| Measure | m |
|---|---|
| Construction | 849.3 |
| Property purchase | 5344 |
| Plant and equipment | 5540.3 |
| Working capital | 631.3 |
| General business purposes | 1180.3 |
Property-related borrowing varied by state
The state table has a narrower scope than the national purpose table: it combines construction and property-purchase commitments. It does not measure each state’s total small-business borrowing, working capital or approval rate.
| State | June 2025 ($m) | June 2026 ($m) | Year-on-year |
|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | 1,875.0 | 1,585.0 | -15.5% |
| Victoria | 1,892.3 | 1,796.5 | -5.1% |
| Queensland | 1,589.5 | 1,436.7 | -9.6% |
| South Australia | 455.0 | 439.4 | -3.4% |
| Western Australia | 641.5 | 612.8 | -4.5% |
| Tasmania | 60.4 | 136.3 | +125.7% |
Source: ABS Table 31. Northern Territory and ACT totals are not calculated because the required construction cells are suppressed. Tasmania’s percentage change comes from a small dollar base; compare the amounts alongside the percentage.
The direction changed since the March edition
The earlier report found a 36.9% annual increase in March-quarter working-capital commitments. June’s annual comparison is −1.2%. Both can be true because they describe different quarters and comparison bases. The new figure should not be substituted into the old chart without changing its period and denominator.
The original March-quarter CSV remains available for checking the prior edition. The current download adds explicit observation, source and coverage fields. The new and old extracts may also differ when ABS revises the underlying series.
Borrowing can finance opportunity or cover pressure
A working-capital loan may fund a profitable order, a seasonal stock build, late customer payments or an operating loss. Aggregate commitments do not distinguish those reasons. An increase in borrowing is therefore not proof of confidence, and a decline is not proof that lenders have stopped lending.
To judge a business’s own requirement, identify the transaction that will repay the facility. Map expected collections against wages, rent, tax and existing debt. Then test a delayed receipt and a weaker-sales case. Our working-capital finance guide explains this method, while the industry buffer model shows how waiting time changes the cash requirement.
Refinancing is a separate decision
External refinancing replaces credit with another lender. Internal refinancing restructures it with the existing lender. Neither necessarily finances new equipment, employment or inventory, which is why the ABS total used here excludes both.
A business considering refinancing needs a payout figure and a complete replacement schedule. Smaller monthly payments can result from a longer term rather than a lower total cost. Compare fees, interest, guarantee and security changes over the remaining life of the debt before interpreting a refinance as a saving.
Long-run context and changes in measurement
The older access-to-capital article used a 2007–2020 new-SME-lending series assembled from RBA/OECD material. That series is not spliced onto this ABS commitment series: source definitions and coverage differ. A change across the break could reflect collection methods rather than borrowing behaviour.
The COVID-era finance schemes discussed in that article are historical. They do not establish an available guarantee or subsidy today. Use the government support guide to find the responsible programme administrator and current conditions.
Method and limits
We downloaded ABS Lending Indicators Tables 30 and 31 on 10 October 2026 and compared June 2026 with June 2025. Annual change equals the June 2026 value divided by the June 2025 value, minus one. Dollar values are millions of Australian dollars. The data are original, not seasonally adjusted; year-on-year comparison reduces seasonal mismatch but does not remove every compositional effect.
State totals combine construction and property purchase only when both source cells are published. No value is estimated for a suppressed cell. Commitments are different from approvals, application counts, credit balances and lending to all business sizes. These distinctions limit what the figures can say about access to finance.
Sources, citation and reuse
Data period: June quarter 2025 and June quarter 2026. State comparisons cover construction and property purchase only.
Download the data and source notes (CSV). Original downloads used by earlier editions have been retained where available. Keep each file’s observation period with any citation.
Cite: SMBLoan, “Small Business Lending Growth: June 2026”, revised 10 October 2026, /research/small-business-borrowing-growth. For source questions or a correction, contact hello@smbloan.com.au.
Original SMBLoan charts may be reproduced with attribution and a link. Government and other third-party data remain subject to the original source’s terms; this page does not grant rights over third-party material. Please keep the observation period and methodological limits with any excerpt.