By Jason L. Cassidy and Patrick Degnan, Attorneys at Ryley Carlock & Applewhite Whether your business employs 20 people or 200 people, you should be aware of a big (albeit temporary) change to the Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”). If your business employs between 21-300 people, you won’t be able to apply for a PPP loan starting Wednesday morning (2/24/21) and lasting through March 9. During that time, only businesses that have 20 employees or fewer will be able to apply for a PPP loan. The PPP exists to help businesses—particularly small businesses—keep their workforce employed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, one of the significant complications in the PPP’s first round was that larger businesses were better able to obtain loans, while many smaller businesses were not. The applications were complex, and many banks had run out of their PPP allotments by the time small businesses applied, which forced qualifying small business owners to go hunting for a bank to fund their PPP loan. The second round of PPP opened up in January, and will expire at the end of March 2021. Round two includes a lot of money dedicated to small businesses, but barely 15% of that has actually been deployed. To help address this, the Biden Administration announced that small businesses with 20 employees or fewer will have an exclusive, 14-day PPP application period. Beginning at 9 a.m. (Eastern) on Wednesday, February 24, 2021, and going through March 9, 2021, any business with more than 20 employees won’t be able to submit its PPP application. This will allow banks and lenders to focus on helping small businesses through the application process so they can get the PPP loans that they need. After March 9, all qualifying businesses, large and small, may submit their applications, including businesses that received a PPP loan in 2020 and
