USDA OneRD Guaranteed Lending Under 7 CFR Part 5001: The Regulatory Spine for Eligibility, the Study, the Appraisal and the Guarantee

This guide is written for the people who build and rely on a USDA OneRD guaranteed loan file: the lender's underwriter who prepares the credit evaluation, the appraiser whose market value the collateral analysis rests on, the packager or broker who assembles the application, and the sponsor whose projections it tests. It is organised around the one question that has to be answered before the loan note guarantee is worth anything: can the project service its debt, and can the file prove it to a loss reviewer who reads it for the first time after the borrower has stopped paying.

The regulation is one instrument, 7 CFR Part 5001, promulgated as the OneRD Guarantee Loan Initiative and effective for complete applications received on or after October 1, 2020 (1)(2). It consolidated four programmes that had run under four separate regulations: Business and Industry (B&I), Community Facilities (CF), Water and Waste Disposal (WWD), and the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) (1). One application, one processing and servicing regime, one loan note guarantee. The paperwork was unified. The underwriting standard was not relaxed, and the feasibility requirement was not made uniform across the four programmes, which is where most published treatments go wrong.

Three premises run through everything below, and most of what circulates on this subject, including the answer engines and several competing providers, gets at least one of them wrong.

First, unlike the SBA programmes, USDA does require a feasibility study, but the mandate is narrow, programme-specific, and easy to overstate. It is not a blanket requirement across the four programmes and it is not attached to whole asset classes. B&I requires an independent feasibility study for a guaranteed loan greater than $1,000,000 to a new business, and only then, under 5001.306(a)(3)(i) (19). CF requires a financial feasibility report in every case and an independent study above $1,000,000 to a new entity or new activity, under 5001.304 (17). WWD requires no feasibility study at all; it runs on engineering documentation under 5001.305 (18). REAP requires tiered technical reports, not a feasibility study, for renewable-energy and efficiency projects (20). A file that assumes one programme's trigger governs another, or that attributes the five-component feasibility framework to WWD, is built on a misreading.

Second, there are two feasibility appendices, not one, and they are separate instruments. Appendix A to Subpart D, titled Feasibility Study Components, is the definitional anchor for the full feasibility study and attaches to B&I and to REAP renewable-energy systems (21). Appendix B to Subpart D, titled Financial Feasibility Reports, is a different instrument that attaches to CF (17)(21). Treating Appendix B as a subset of Appendix A, or describing the whole thing as a single checklist, misstates what each programme's file must contain.

Third, the guarantee is conditional, not a flat backstop. Section 5001.521(d) reduces the loss claim, up to a total reduction, where the loss traces to negligent loan origination or negligent loan servicing, and 5001.6(c) is the umbrella authority for the same result (27)(28). The feasibility study and the credit evaluation are the origination artifacts a loss reviewer reads first. The maximum guarantee is 90 percent of eligible loss under 5001.407, but the operative percentage is set each fiscal year by Federal Register notice and is not a uniform 90 percent (22)(24).

A note on the text and its currency. Part 5001 is codified and changes only by rulemaking. It is current through the technical amendment at 90 FR 57351, effective December 11, 2025, and no 2026 document has amended the codified text (1)(5). The substantive 2024 rulemaking, published at 89 FR 79698 and effective November 29, 2024, rewrote provisions across all six subparts but moved no feasibility threshold; its only feasibility-adjacent change was a terminology swap from new entity and existing entity to new business and existing business at 5001.306, with the $1,000,000 trigger intact (3)(19). Anyone quoting the 2020 rule as if it were the live text, or treating the 2024 overhaul as having moved a feasibility threshold, is wrong. This guide cites the regulation by section, the Federal Register by citation and page, and flags every figure that is set by annual notice rather than codified.

Part I. Eligibility and the application: who can even get here

1. The text that governs, and the amendment ledger

The most common error on this subject is to cite the 2020 rule as the live regulation. The live Part 5001 reflects several post-2020 amendment events, and the loss reviewer measures a file against the text in force when the loan was made. The ledger below is the antidote to a stale citation.

Federal Register citation	Published	Effective	What it did	Effect on feasibility practice
85 FR 42494 (codified from 85 FR 42518), FR Doc 2020-13991 (2)	Jul. 14, 2020	Oct. 1, 2020	Created the entire Part 5001, all six subparts, and Appendices A through E	Baseline. Established the B&I trigger (5001.306), the CF financial feasibility report (5001.304), the definition of feasibility study (5001.3), and the appendices
85 FR 62196, FR Doc 2020-21917	Oct. 2, 2020	Oct. 1, 2020	Technical corrections	None
86 FR 70354, FR Doc 2021-26160	Dec. 10, 2021	Dec. 10, 2021	Broad final rule with comment across subparts; amended CF section 5001.304 for clarity	Did not move the B&I trigger or the definition
87 FR 38645, FR Doc 2022-15105	Jul. 15, 2022	Jul. 15, 2022	Technical correction of a paragraph reference	None
89 FR 79698 (source notes at 79704, 79717, 79720), FR Doc 2024-21920 (3)	Sep. 30, 2024	Nov. 29, 2024	Substantive rewrite across all six subparts, roughly 41 instruction blocks, including 5001.202, 5001.203, 5001.205, 5001.304, 5001.306	The only feasibility-relevant change was terminology, new entity to new business at 5001.306; the $1,000,000 trigger and the definition were unchanged. Amended appraisal (5001.203) and servicing (5001.505, 5001.510, 5001.516, 5001.517, 5001.521) provisions
89 FR 97477, FR Doc 2024-28031 (4)	Dec. 9, 2024	Dec. 9, 2024	Correcting amendments; affiliate definition; protective-advance real-estate-tax clarification at 5001.516	None on feasibility practice
90 FR 57351, FR Doc 2025-22567 (5)	Dec. 11, 2025	Dec. 11, 2025	Technical amendments to 5001.3 only: affiliate definition rewritten, Commercially available definition restored	None
90 FR 57675, FR Doc 2025-22660 (6)	Dec. 12, 2025	Confirms Nov. 29, 2024	Final rule; confirmation of the 2024 rule after comment on 5001.127	None; makes no CFR text change

Current as of this writing: Part 5001 is current through 90 FR 57351, with no 2026 codified amendment (1)(5). One CFR-amending action is pending, RIN 0572-AC66, OneRD Guarantee Loan Round 5, listed in the Unified Agenda in Final Rule Stage; the FY 2026 fee notice and any information-collection notices are notices, not codified amendments, and do not change the rule text (38). Anyone building a file near a rulemaking should confirm the governing text before ordering third-party reports.

2. The four programmes, the rurality gate, and who may borrow

A feasibility study is the last document to commission, not the first, because eligibility precedes it and no analysis cures an ineligible file. Three gates decide whether a study is worth paying for: the project is rural, the project type and use of funds are eligible under the specific programme, and the borrower is an eligible entity with no disqualifying condition.

Rurality is address-specific and runs off the latest decennial census. Under 5001.3, a rural area is any area of a State not in a city or town of more than 50,000 inhabitants, and not in the urbanized area contiguous and adjacent to such a city or town, by the latest decennial census (7). The regulation is explicit that applications cannot be approved subject to meeting rural-area requirements, so rurality is confirmed before processing, not during it (7). Three exception routes exist and are where marginal projects live: a project-specific rural-in-character determination by the Under Secretary, available where an urbanized area has two boundary points at least 40 miles apart and is not contiguous or adjacent to a city or town over 150,000, or where an urbanized area adjacent to a city over 50,000 is within one quarter mile of a rural area; a string exception, where an area is attached to an urbanized area only by a band of urbanized census blocks not more than two census blocks wide, which once approved makes any project in that area eligible; and territory-specific rules for Puerto Rico and Hawaii (7). The property eligibility map at eligibility.sc.egov.usda.gov renders ineligible urbanized polygons and now reflects 2020 census data effective October 1, 2023 (FY 2024), but it is advisory: the map's own disclaimer states that viewing it does not constitute a final determination, which Rural Development makes on a complete application (33). A point returning no intersection is presumptively rural; a point near a boundary is resolved only by the point-in-polygon determination, because census blocks do not follow municipal lines.

Borrower eligibility differs sharply by programme and must never be blended. Under 5001.126, CF and WWD are limited to public bodies, Indian Tribes, and non-profit entities, with a for-profit eligible for CF only if operated not-for-profit for the life of the loan; B&I is open to a cooperative, corporation, partnership or other legal entity whether for-profit or non-profit, a Tribe, a public body, or an individual engaged in business, with citizenship and residency rules for individuals; REAP is limited to agricultural producers and rural small businesses, and energy-efficient equipment projects are agricultural-producer-only (10). The ineligible-project, ineligible-use and ineligible-borrower screens run through 5001.115 to 5001.122 and 5001.127, and include the tax-exempt-financing bar at 5001.102(c), which prohibits guaranteeing a project funded with tax-exempt financing except where the taxable portion is separate and distinct (8)(9). None of this is the study's job, and all of it is the reason a study on an unsettled file is a fee spent before the deal is real.

Programme	Statutory base	Eligible borrower types (5001.126) (10)	Loan ceiling (5001.406) (22)
Community Facilities (CF)	7 U.S.C. 1926(a) (37)	Public body, Indian Tribe, non-profit; for-profit only if operated not-for-profit	$100 million per borrower
Water and Waste Disposal (WWD)	7 U.S.C. 1926(a) (37)	Public body, Indian Tribe, non-profit	$50 million per borrower
Business and Industry (B&I)	7 U.S.C. 1932(a) (37)	Cooperative, corporation, partnership or other legal entity, Tribe, public body, or individual engaged in business	$25 million per borrower; Secretary may approve up to $40 million for value-added cooperatives
Rural Energy for America (REAP)	7 U.S.C. 8107 (37)	Agricultural producer or rural small business; energy-efficient equipment agricultural-producer-only	$25 million per borrower

Part II. The study and the credit evaluation: the underwriter's layer

3. When USDA actually requires a study, per programme

Because the mandate is programme-specific, the useful table is not "does USDA require a study" but "what does each programme require, and when." The answer differs across the four, and the residual Agency authority at 5001.303 sits behind all of them.

Programme	Feasibility mandate	Instrument and threshold	Citation
B&I	Mandatory above a bright line	Independent feasibility study by an independent qualified consultant acceptable to the Agency for a guaranteed loan greater than $1,000,000 to a new business; the $600,000 tier governs streamlined versus full application; discretionary at or below $1,000,000	5001.306(a)(3)(i) (19)
CF	Two-tier, always something	A financial feasibility report in every case per Appendix B; an independent feasibility study for a loan above $1,000,000 to a new entity or new activity; the CF financial feasibility study with examination opinion must be prepared under AICPA attestation standards by a preparer carrying professional liability insurance	5001.304 (17)(21)
WWD	No feasibility study	Engineering documentation to the level a lender would require for a standard commercial loan; the Agency expressly does not provide technical oversight or opine on technical feasibility	5001.305 (18)
REAP	Tiered technical reports	Technical reports scaled by total project cost under Appendices C, D and E; a feasibility study for a renewable-energy system where the Agency requires it	5001.307; Appendices C, D, E (20)(21)
All four	Residual Agency authority	Where the Agency cannot determine a basis for successful repayment from the lender's analysis, the business plan or other project information, or where the project will significantly affect existing operations, it may require an independent feasibility study using the applicable Appendix A elements	5001.303(b)(4) (16)

Two points carry through the whole file. The B&I test turns on the definition of new business at 5001.3, a business in operation less than one year, or one that has not achieved full operational capacity or stable operations as determined by the Administrator (7). That last clause is a discretionary hinge, not a bright line, so a two-year-old business that has not stabilised can still draw the study requirement. And the residual authority at 5001.303(b)(4) means the bright lines are a floor, not a ceiling: the Agency can require a study on any file where the repayment case is not otherwise supportable, which is why a lender should treat the study decision as a prudence question rather than a threshold question (16).

4. Appendix A and Appendix B: five components, thirty-seven factors, and two instruments

This is the section nobody else has written correctly, and there is a live dispute in the search results about it, with at least one competing provider asserting that the count in the rule is five and the 37-factor framing is invented. The resolution is that both numbers are right and describe different things: five components, and thirty-seven enumerated factors within them.

The definition sits at 5001.3: a feasibility study is a report including an opinion or finding by an independent qualified consultant evaluating the economic, market, technical, financial and management feasibility of the project in terms of its expectation for success, as outlined in Appendix A to Subpart D (7). Those five feasibility dimensions are the five components. Appendix A, titled Feasibility Study Components, organises the study under those five headings, wrapped by three framing sections (Executive Summary, Recommendation, Qualifications), and under each of the five headings lists the specific factors to consider (21). By direct count of those enumerated factors, there are thirty-seven: five economic, six market, nine technical, twelve financial, and five management (21)(39). The five-component structure and the thirty-seven-factor enumeration are not competing claims; the factors live inside the components. The appendices were codified as page images in the July 14, 2020 final rule at 85 FR 42518, which is why they do not extract as text from the eCFR and why the count has to be taken from the source graphics rather than from a search snippet, and no amending rule has touched either appendix since (5)(21).

Appendix B is a different instrument. Titled Financial Feasibility Reports, it is cited separately in the regulation, attaches to CF under 5001.304, and specifies the content of the CF financial feasibility analysis and the financial feasibility study with examination opinion (17)(21). Appendix A anchors the definition at 5001.3 and attaches to B&I under 5001.306 and to REAP renewable-energy systems under 5001.307; WWD requires neither (7)(18)(19)(20). Treating Appendix B as part of Appendix A is a misreading of 5001.304, which cites only Appendix B, and of the definition at 5001.3, which cites only Appendix A. The practical consequence for a preparer is that a CF financial feasibility report is not the same deliverable as a B&I feasibility study, and a file that supplies one where the programme calls for the other is deficient on the regulation's own terms.

5. The credit evaluation is the study's real client

The feasibility study is prepared for the lender's credit evaluation, not for the borrower, and it is evidence that discharges specific credit-evaluation duties rather than a substitute for the lender's own judgment. Section 5001.202 requires the lender to prepare a written credit evaluation using generally accepted prudent lending practices consistent with the policies it applies to its own non-guaranteed portfolio, addressing the Five Cs of credit at 5001.202(b)(1) through (5), and a Content list at 5001.202(b)(6) that specifies what the written evaluation must physically contain (12). Two items in that Content list bear directly on the study: 5001.202(b)(6)(ii) requires a separate written evaluation of the feasibility study, business plan, technical report and engineering and architectural reports as applicable, and 5001.202(b)(6)(iii) requires spreadsheets and analysis of the financial statements with ratios and industry comparisons (12). The study supplies the demand and revenue assumptions that feed projected cash flow under Capacity (5001.202(b)(2)) and the market and technical conditions under Conditions (5001.202(b)(5)); it does not certify coverage, and a study that purports to certify the lender's coverage conclusion is overreaching in a way a reviewer will notice (12).

Two features of the numeric regime are routinely misstated. First, the debt service coverage ratio is defined at 5001.3 as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, less reasonably expected replacement capital expenditures, divided by annual debt service, and USDA nowhere further defines reasonably expected replacement capital expenditures (7). That is not the conventional market formula, and a study or credit memorandum that runs plain EBITDA over debt service and calls it the USDA ratio has used the wrong numerator. Second, there is no minimum debt service coverage ratio anywhere in the credit-evaluation regime; 5001.202 relies on the lender's own prudent-lending standard and states no floor (12). The only numeric coverage minimums in the entire Part are eligibility tests for refinancing at 5001.102(d): 1.1 times historical for a loan whose majority purpose is refinancing, and 1:1 on current income to demonstrate recovery (8). A file that cites a "1.25x USDA requirement" as if it were codified invites the question of which section, because none states it.

Financial information carries its own rule. Under 5001.9, financial statements must be prepared in accordance with accounting practices acceptable to the Agency, and a tax return is not an acceptable financial statement for underwriting, though tax-return information may be used to prepare statements and to determine REAP eligibility (1). And independence is built into the study at the definitional level: the qualified consultant is an independent third party with the knowledge, expertise and experience for the specific task, and for CF the financial feasibility study with examination opinion must be prepared under AICPA attestation standards by a preparer carrying professional liability insurance (7)(17). The mapping from the study to the credit evaluation is therefore this: management feasibility feeds Character; market and financial feasibility feed Capacity and the Content spreadsheets; financial equity feeds Capital; economic, market and technical feasibility feed Conditions; collateral valuation falls to the appraisal and outside the study.

Part III. The appraisal: the appraiser's layer

6. What 5001.203 requires, and where the appraisal stops

The appraisal and the feasibility study are different instruments serving different credit factors, and collapsing them is the error this section exists to prevent. The appraisal discharges the collateral-value duty at 5001.202(b)(4); the feasibility study addresses repayment viability under the capacity and conditions factors and is triggered separately under 5001.303(b)(4) (12)(13)(16). Neither reaches the other's conclusion.

Under 5001.203, an appraisal of real estate is required when collateral value exceeds $250,000 or the current FIRREA limitation, and of existing chattel when value exceeds $250,000 and it is used to meet loan-to-value requirements; below those thresholds the collateral is evaluated under the lender's primary regulator's appraisal and evaluation policies, or normal banking practice if the lender is unregulated (13). For a construction project the lender must obtain both an as-is market value and a prospective market value as of the date of construction completion (13). The appraisal must be performed by an independent qualified appraiser under USPAP Standards 1 and 2 and must meet FIRREA, and unless the Agency approval official approves an alternative, it must be performed by a State Certified General Appraiser licensed in the State where the real estate is located (13). The lender must file an appraisal review report prepared under USPAP Standards 3 and 4 before loan closing, the appraisal must be no more than one year old, and appraisal fees are an eligible loan purpose that the Agency does not pay (13). The current USPAP edition is the 2024 Edition, effective January 1, 2024, the first edition with an effective date but no fixed expiration, in force until the Appraisal Standards Board publishes revisions (36).

The 2024 rule added two operative provisions to the 5001.203 chapeau, and both are frequently misstated (3)(13). The first is a mandatory going-concern deduction: where an appraisal contains any value attributed to business valuation or a going concern, that value must be deducted from the reconciled market value before discounting (13). This is an operation the lender performs on the appraisal output to isolate real-property collateral value, and it matters most on special-purpose assets, hotels, care facilities, fuel-and-convenience and similar, which are frequently appraised on a going-concern premise. Note the boundary against SBA practice: USDA requires the deduction and locates it before discounting, but it does not require the appraiser to allocate value component by component across land, building, equipment and intangibles, which SBA expressly requires; a commercial appraiser working both programmes should never port the SBA allocation mandate into a USDA report (13). The second addition is a site-visit provision: for appraisals of existing facilities the Agency expects the appraiser to physically visit the property unless prior Agency permission is obtained, the stated rationale being that desktop products are unreliable and raise valuation risk (13). The text is an expectation with an express exception, not an absolute bar, so it should not be paraphrased as a flat prohibition on desktop appraisals.

On whether one firm may perform both the appraisal and the feasibility study on the same project, the regulation is silent, and that silence should be reported as silence rather than filled with an inferred prohibition (13). The nearest constraints are the independence qualifier in each instrument (the independent qualified appraiser of 5001.203(d)(1) and the independent qualified consultant of the 5001.3 definition) and the conflict-of-interest reporting duty at 5001.208, which requires the lender to report the arrangement to the Agency in writing (13)(15). The defensible reading is that nothing categorically bars the dual role, but each engagement must independently satisfy its own independence standard, the lender must report the conflict, and role separation is the conservative default because of the appearance issue and the USPAP objectivity obligations.

Where a study is in the file, it must reconcile to the appraisal. On a special-purpose asset the going-concern appraisal derives value from an income approach that assumes a stabilised operation, and the study tests whether the trade area supports that stabilised operation. If the study's stabilised revenue is materially above the appraiser's, the file carries two inconsistent documents, and the reviewer will read the lower one. The dependency runs one way: the study consumes the appraisal's value conclusion, so the study is commissioned after the appraisal has a number, not before.

Dimension	USDA OneRD, 7 CFR 5001.203 (13)	SBA, SOP 50 10 (contrast)
Governing instrument	Codified regulation; changes only by rulemaking	Standard Operating Procedure; revised frequently
Real-estate appraisal threshold	Value exceeds $250,000 or FIRREA limitation; as-is and prospective for construction	Use-based; commercial real estate above $500,000 by convention, aligned to FIRREA
Going-concern treatment	Business or going-concern value deducted before discounting; no component-allocation mandate on the appraiser	Special-purpose going-concern appraisal must allocate land, building, equipment and intangibles
Appraiser qualification	Independent qualified appraiser under USPAP Standards 1 and 2; State Certified General unless the Agency approves an alternative; no MAI mandate	State-licensed or certified; certified above $1,000,000; four going-concern appraisals in 36 months for special-purpose
Who orders	Lender obtains it; acceptable to the Agency approval official before the guarantee issues	Lender engages directly; borrower-ordered appraisal not usable
Age	Not more than one year old	Within twelve months of the application

Part IV. The lender and the guarantee: the lender's layer

7. Becoming a lender, and losing the status

OneRD lender approval is an institution-level status, entirely separate from any one loan and entirely separate from the borrower's eligibility. Under 5001.130 there are two tracks defined by supervision. A regulated lending entity, one subject to Federal or State supervision and examination, or created by State statute under direct State supervision, qualifies without documenting any financial threshold, the enumerated categories running from Federal and State chartered banks through Farm Credit System institutions, savings institutions, credit unions and State Bond Banks (11). A non-regulated lending entity must clear explicit numeric gates: at least 10 percent balance-sheet equity, a track record of at least five commercial loans totalling at least $1 million annually for each of the last three years, a five-year portfolio delinquency average no greater than 6 percent and commercial loan losses no greater than 3 percent, a regulated line of credit, and a 1 percent loss reserve on the unguaranteed portion, with approval for a five-year term expiring January 31 of the fifth year (11). Every entity, regulated or not, must be domiciled in a State, be free of debarment and Federal-debt delinquency, maintain conflict-of-interest standards and internal controls, and register in the System for Award Management under 2 CFR 25.200 (11)(34).

Approval under one programme is approval for all four, and only one lender's agreement is issued per lending entity, keyed to its tax identification number rather than per branch, on the RD 5001-2 form the lender must execute before any guarantee issues (11). Status is not permanent. Under 5001.132 it lapses automatically for, among other grounds, five consecutive years with no outstanding guaranteed loans, or a regulated lender falling out of good standing with its regulator, and it can be revoked for cause on fourteen non-exclusive grounds (11). On May 12, 2026 Rural Development removed ten lenders under this authority, citing roughly $620 million in delinquent loans, about 47 percent of the agency's delinquencies, identified through desk audits; a removed lender keeps servicing its existing guaranteed loans but cannot seek new guarantees and must reapply under 5001.130 to originate again (11)(30). Institution-level portfolio performance is now public: the Lender Lens dashboard on the Rural Data Gateway, launched January 19, 2026 and refreshed monthly, publishes a named Holding Lender with delinquency data downloadable to the individual loan, which turns each lender's book into a publicly visible record (29). Per-lender delinquency figures circulating in secondary reporting are provisional and subject to pending appeals, and should be treated as unverified at the institution level (30).

Lender eligibility under 5001.130 and borrower eligibility under 5001.126 are two different tests, applied to two different parties, at two different moments, and 5001.201 makes the point directly: lender approval does not constitute Agency approval (11). An approved lender can still originate to an ineligible borrower, which is an origination failure that exposes the guarantee, and an eligible borrower can be stranded if its lender loses status. This is a USDA regime, not the SBA Preferred Lender Program; several removed OneRD lenders are also large SBA 7(a) lenders, but SBA status is legally irrelevant to OneRD eligibility (11).

8. The economics of the guarantee

The economics split across two legal instruments, and merging them is the most frequent numeric error. The regulation fixes only the statutory maxima and the loan ceilings; the operative percentages and fee rates are set each fiscal year by a Federal Register notice under 5001.10 (22)(24). Section 5001.407 caps the guarantee at 90 percent of eligible loss and directs the Agency to set a guarantee percentage by programme each year; 5001.406 codifies the loan ceilings (CF $100 million, WWD $50 million, B&I $25 million with a Secretary-only exception to $40 million for value-added cooperatives, REAP $25 million); and 5001.454 Table 1 codifies only the maximum guarantee-fee rates (CF 4 percent, WWD 3 percent, B&I 5 percent, REAP 3 percent) (22)(23). The FY 2026 annual notice, at 91 FR 11272, effective October 1, 2025, sets the operative figures: a guarantee of 85 percent for B&I under $5 million, 80 percent for B&I of $5 million or more and for CF and REAP, and 90 percent for WWD and for high-cost isolated rural Alaska B&I loans not on a road system, with guarantee-fee and periodic-retention-fee rates by programme (24). These are notice-set figures that will change in future fiscal years, so a file that closes in a later year is priced against a later notice, and a credit memorandum should carry the notice citation and effective date beside every figure it takes from the notice.

The sequence matters for the study. The conditional commitment under 5001.451 is the Agency's conditional undertaking to issue the loan note guarantee subject to stated conditions; it is not an approval of the loan, and 5001.408 separately bars a lender from representing a conditional commitment as a guarantee (23). The loan note guarantee itself issues later, under 5001.453, after the conditions precedent are met and the loan closes (23). The feasibility study must already be in the file at the application and underwriting stage under 5001.303, well before the conditional commitment and long before the guarantee issues; a study commissioned late is a study that arrives after the decisions it was meant to inform (16).

9. Subpart F and the proof that the guarantee is conditional

The guarantee is honoured, reduced, or lost through Subpart F, and this is the highest-stakes lender content because it is where the guarantee actually pays or fails. Servicing is an active, reporting-heavy duty. Section 5001.501 imposes a reasonably-prudent-lender servicing standard and ten enumerated duties; 5001.502 sets a reporting cadence, status reports semi-annually within 30 days of June 30 and December 31, monthly default reports by the fifteenth working day, and fifteen-day notifications of covenant violations, rate reductions, classification downgrades and protective advances; 5001.504 requires borrower financial statements within 120 days of fiscal year-end and annual statements for any borrower with a guaranteed balance over $600,000; and 5001.505 requires prior Agency approval before releasing collateral, with narrow working-asset and pay-down exceptions (27). Nearly every value-moving action is gated by prior written Agency approval: transfers and assumptions (5001.506), subordinations (5001.510), and protective advances that cumulatively exceed $200,000 or 10 percent of the outstanding balance (5001.516) (27).

The default-to-loss path is an ordered, gated sequence: default and the 45-day borrower meeting (5001.515); protective advances (5001.516); a written liquidation plan the lender cannot implement before Agency approval (5001.517); the estimated and final report of loss (5001.521); disposition of acquired property (5001.523); pro rata sharing of future recovery (5001.522); and automatic termination of the guarantee (5001.524) (27)(28). This is USDA's report-of-loss process, not the SBA guarantee-purchase model: the lender files an estimated loss claim after the Agency approves the liquidation plan and a final report of loss within 30 days of completing liquidation, and the Agency audits, reconciles, and pays up to the guarantee percentage of eligible loss (28).

The reduction chain is the proof that the guarantee is conditional. Section 5001.521(d)(1) provides that negligent loan origination and negligent loan servicing will result in a reduction of loss claims payable, and that the extent of the reduction, which could be a total reduction, depends on the extent of the losses caused; 5001.521(d)(2) attaches the same total-reduction exposure to non-compliance with the design requirements at 5001.205(a) and the WWD engineering requirements at 5001.305(a); and 5001.6(c) is the umbrella authority to reduce any loss payment for non-compliance (14)(27)(28). Negligent origination and negligent servicing are defined at 5001.3 as the failure to act as a reasonably prudent lender would in its own unguaranteed portfolio (7). A thin credit evaluation under 5001.202, an inadequate feasibility analysis, or defective collateral perfection is exactly the origination lapse that 5001.521(d)(1) punishes, which is why the credit evaluation and the study are loss-defense documents, not paperwork.

The computation and the cap are two different things. The maximum is 90 percent of eligible loss under 5001.407, but the operative percentage is the notice-set rate written into the loan note guarantee (24). Eligible loss is unpaid principal, plus guaranteed interest to the interest termination date, plus Agency-approved protective advances and the shared liquidation expenses, less net liquidation proceeds and recoveries; the guaranteed payment is that eligible loss times the guarantee percentage, before any 5001.521(d) reduction (28). To make the mechanics concrete, and this illustration is constructed to show the arithmetic rather than drawn from a published USDA example: on a loan with $1,000,000 unpaid principal, $40,000 of guaranteed accrued interest, $20,000 of approved protective advances, $600,000 of net liquidation proceeds and an 80 percent guarantee, eligible loss is $460,000 and the guaranteed payment is about $368,000 before any reduction; a finding that negligent servicing caused half the loss reduces the claim accordingly and can reduce it to zero if the negligence caused the whole loss (28). A lender or a loan buyer should model the downside at both the contractual percentage and at a stressed, negligence-reduced percentage including zero.

Part V. The packager and broker layer

10. What packagers and brokers may do, and where the conflict rules bite

The packager, broker and referral-agent role is permitted under Part 5001, not barred, and the failure mode here is asserting a prohibition the text does not contain. Section 5001.3 defines loan packager to expressly include a loan referral agent, broker, or agent other than the borrower or lender that prepares a guaranteed loan application on behalf of the borrower or the lender (7). The decisive line is packager versus finder: loan packaging is a professional service under 5001.3, whose fee can be an eligible use of loan funds when the Agency agrees the amount is reasonable and customary in the area under 5001.121, while a loan finder fee is expressly not a professional service, and loan finder or broker fees are an ineligible use of loan funds under 5001.122(d) (7)(9). Refinancing debt owned by a loan packager, broker or referral agent or its affiliates is a double lock, treated both as a conflict of interest at 5001.3 and as an ineligible use at 5001.122(e) (7)(9).

The conflict-of-interest section itself is minimalist. The entire operative text of 5001.208 is one sentence: the lender must report all conflicts of interest, in writing, to the Agency (15). It enumerates no conflicts and prescribes no cure procedure beyond that written report, and the 2024 rule did not amend it; the substantive catalogue of conflicts lives in the 5001.3 definition, which names the compensated-agent-of-both-sides conflict, distributions to a borrower's owner or immediate family, and the packager-owned-debt refinancing (7)(15). Two cautions for anyone porting SBA habits: there is no OneRD equivalent of SBA Form 159, so the only disclosure trigger is the lender's written conflict report under 5001.208; and any fixed packaging-fee cap a reader recalls comes from the legacy B&I rule at 7 CFR 1980.414, a different regulation, not from Part 5001, which imposes a reasonableness-and-Agency-approval standard rather than a numeric cap (15)(35). Finally, the lender's credit judgment over a packaged file is non-delegable: 5001.6(b) provides that contracting for services does not relieve the lender of its responsibilities, 5001.201 provides that lender approval is not Agency approval, and 5001.202(a) requires the lender itself to review all applicable contracts and impose risk mitigation (11)(12).

The outcome record and the annual notice

11. What USDA has guaranteed, and what it has lost

Everyone can transcribe the regulation. The outcome record is the exhibit a competitor cannot copy, and it is the figure a county or state page can hang a real number on, which is why it is the analytical core of this spine rather than an appendix to it. It is also the easiest number to get wrong, and one data-hygiene rule governs the whole exhibit: direct loans dwarf guarantees in three of the four programmes, so any figure that mixes direct with guaranteed, or an appropriated allotment with actual obligations, overstates the guaranteed record by multiples. Community Facilities direct lending has run several times its guaranteed volume, and Water and Waste Disposal guarantees are small next to direct loans and grants. The OneRD cohort begins with federal fiscal year 2021, because Part 5001 governs complete applications received on or after October 1, 2020.

USDA publishes guaranteed obligation volume through the Rural Data Gateway and its annual funding fact sheets, and the loan-level Lender Lens portal launched in January 2026, but it does not publish a granular programme-level series of realized default rates, delinquency, loss claims paid and recoveries for FY 2021 forward in a single accessible dataset (29). Section 5001.504 requires financial reports and 5001.521 governs loss calculation, so the agency holds loss data, but the 2026 Lender Lens disclosures are the first time portfolio delinquency has been exposed publicly at scale (27)(29). The nearest published, quantified loss expectation is the credit subsidy rate in the OMB Federal Credit Supplement, a net present value budgetary cost per dollar of guarantee that must not be read as a realized default rate (31).

Programme (Federal Credit Supplement)	FY 2024 subsidy %	FY 2025 subsidy %	FY 2026 subsidy % (est.)	FY 2027 subsidy % (est.)
Business and Industry guarantees	2.29	0.20	1.09	1.93
Community Facility guarantees	-0.86	-1.17	-0.83	-0.98
Water and Waste Disposal guarantees	-0.14	-0.20	-0.19	-0.22
Renewable Energy (REAP) guarantees	-0.69	-0.88	4.54	3.78

Source: OMB Federal Credit Supplement, FY 2025 and FY 2027 volumes; figures are budget commitment estimates, not realized obligations, and the negative rates mean the programme was scored as a net moneymaker for the government (31). Guaranteed obligation volume should be regenerated from the Rural Data Gateway and cross-checked against USAspending.gov by assistance listing number rather than estimated: B&I core obligations have run in the range of $1.8 billion a year (about $1.862 billion in FY 2023 and $1.799 billion in FY 2024), while CF, WWD and REAP guaranteed volumes are far smaller and are best pulled programme by programme from the Gateway for a named state and fiscal year (29)(32). Where a cell cannot be confirmed from a primary published table, it is reported as a gap rather than interpolated.

12. Priority points and the annual notice, in a dated block

The priority-point systems are almost entirely codified and change only by rulemaking: CF scores to a maximum of 55 points under 5001.316, WWD to 150 under 5001.317, B&I to 100 under 5001.318, and REAP to 90 under 5001.319, with the only discretionary points being Administrator and State Director authorities written into the CFR itself (25). The annual fee notice sets guarantee fees, retention fees and guarantee percentages; it does not publish priority point values or a minimum score, and no minimum score has been published for the current cycle under 5001.315 (24)(25). Strategic priority for the current cycle flows through the Strategic Economic and Community Development mechanism under Section 6401 of the 2018 Farm Bill, whose FY 2026 notice at 91 FR 4494 reserves a share of CF and WWD guaranteed funds and adds SECD points scored under a separate regulation (26). This block is the most perishable material in the guide and is replaced wholesale when the next annual notice and NOFO publish, without touching the codified point tables.

The feasibility thread

13. What a study must contain to survive Agency and loss review

USDA prescribes the study's structure through Appendix A, but the appendix is a floor, and a study that satisfies the list can still be a poor one. Two standards actually judge a study: the codified Appendix A components on the front end, and, on the back end, the loss reviewer's reasonably-prudent-lender test under 5001.521(d), which asks whether the document would have supported the repayment case a competent underwriter relied on. The following is the standard MMCG builds to, set out as method so that a lender ordering a study from anyone can hold it to something.

Independence is stated and structural: the study is engaged by or at the direction of the lender, prepared for the lender's reliance, on a fixed fee not contingent on the finding, by a firm with no brokerage, development, financing or equity interest in the project. The 5001.3 definition requires an independent qualified consultant, and the reviewer will test it (7). Every material claim cites a document or is derived analytically; nothing rests on a conversation. A franchisor number comes from the disclosure document, a traffic count from the state transportation department, a lease term from the executed lease, a construction cost from the executed contract or signed budget, and a management assertion from a signed management representation. The primary trade area is drawn by drive time or distance against the asset's demand geography and defended, not asserted as a radius. Demand is estimated from primary data, population, households, income and employment from the Census Bureau, traffic from official counts, industry drivers from the appropriate federal series, each figure carrying its source, vintage and geography. Supply is inventoried facility by facility with the pipeline identified from permits and approvals, and the capture rate is derived from the inventory. The stabilised revenue build reconciles to the appraisal's stabilised income and, on a special-purpose asset, to the going-concern appraisal's value net of the deducted business value. Operating expenses are benchmarked against published industry data and reconciled to the sponsor's budget line by line. The stabilisation curve is explicit, with the absorption assumption supported from the supply inventory and the demand estimate. Coverage is stressed, computed on the 5001.3 basis, EBITDA less reasonably expected replacement capital expenditures over annual debt service, under a base case and downside cases, with the shortfall that breaches coverage stated as a number. The conclusion is one of three, feasible as proposed, feasible subject to stated conditions, or not feasible; a study that reaches feasible on every engagement is not independent. The register is an appraisal report's, short, precise and sourced, without narration of what an exhibit already shows.

14. USDA against SBA against conventional underwriting

The single most common factual error on this subject, including in the answer engines, is to present the feasibility study as an SBA mandate for whole asset classes, and to attribute USDA's five-component framework to the SBA. The two programmes are built on opposite principles, and the difference decides how a study has to be written. Under the SBA 7(a) and 504 programmes the study is discretionary; the only codified authority is a permissive clause under which the agency may require one, there is no template, and the study is judged in hindsight through guaranty purchase review (40). Under USDA Part 5001 the study is mandatory above programme-specific thresholds, prescribed to the five-component Appendix A standard, prepared by an independent qualified consultant, and reviewed by the Agency against the codified content before the guarantee issues (7)(19)(21). Under conventional bank underwriting, project feasibility is a supervisory expectation on acquisition, development and construction lending, with no prescribed document and no trigger. The consequence for a preparer working across programmes is that a USDA study is written to a list and an SBA study is written to a judgment, and a study that would satisfy the USDA Appendix A list is usually the safest way to meet the SBA judgment as well. The companion MMCG spine on SBA underwriting under SOP 50 10 8.1 sets out that side in full (40).

Frequently asked questions

Does USDA require a feasibility study?

Sometimes, and it depends on the programme. B&I requires an independent study for a guaranteed loan over $1,000,000 to a new business under 5001.306(a)(3)(i); CF requires a financial feasibility report in every case and an independent study over $1,000,000 to a new entity or new activity under 5001.304; WWD requires none; REAP requires tiered technical reports (17)(18)(19)(20). The Agency can also require a study on any file under the residual authority at 5001.303(b)(4) (16).

Is it true the rule names five components, not thirty-seven factors?

Both are correct and describe different things. Appendix A organises the study under five components, economic, market, technical, financial and management, and lists thirty-seven enumerated factors within them, five economic, six market, nine technical, twelve financial and five management (21)(39).

What is the difference between Appendix A and Appendix B?

They are separate instruments. Appendix A, Feasibility Study Components, anchors the full feasibility study for B&I and REAP renewable-energy systems. Appendix B, Financial Feasibility Reports, is the CF instrument. Appendix B is not a subset of Appendix A (17)(21).

Which version of the rule governs my file?

Part 5001 is codified and current through 90 FR 57351, effective December 11, 2025, with no 2026 amendment. The 2024 rule moved no feasibility threshold (1)(5).

What coverage ratio does USDA require?

None is stated in the credit evaluation. The debt service coverage ratio is defined as EBITDA less reasonably expected replacement capital expenditures over annual debt service, and the only numeric coverage minimums in the Part are the refinancing eligibility tests at 5001.102(d), 1.1 times historical and 1:1 current (7)(8)(12).

Is the appraisal the same as the feasibility study?

No. The appraisal establishes collateral market value under 5001.202(b)(4) and 5001.203; the study establishes repayment viability under the capacity and conditions factors and 5001.303(b)(4). Neither substitutes for the other (12)(13)(16).

Does USDA require the appraiser to allocate land, building, equipment and intangibles?

No. That is an SBA rule. USDA requires that business or going-concern value be deducted from the reconciled market value before discounting, and places that duty on the lender, without a component-allocation mandate on the appraiser (13).

Can one firm do both the appraisal and the feasibility study?

The regulation is silent. Nothing bars it categorically, but each engagement must independently meet its own independence standard, the lender must report the arrangement under 5001.208, and role separation is the conservative default (13)(15).

Are brokers and packagers barred?

No. They are permitted actors defined in 5001.3. Packaging is a professional service whose fee can be eligible when reasonable and Agency-approved; loan finder and broker fees are an ineligible use of funds, and packager-owned debt cannot be refinanced (7)(9). There is no OneRD equivalent of SBA Form 159 (15).

Is the USDA guarantee a flat 90 percent backstop?

No. The 90 percent at 5001.407 is a ceiling; the FY 2026 notice sets 85 percent for B&I under $5 million, 80 percent for B&I of $5 million or more and for CF and REAP, and 90 percent only for WWD and isolated Alaska B&I; and the loss claim is reduced, up to a total reduction, for negligent origination or servicing under 5001.521(d) (22)(24)(28).

When does the study have to be in the file?

At the application and underwriting stage under 5001.303, well before the conditional commitment and long before the loan note guarantee issues (16).

16. How MMCG uses this

MMCG Analytics is an underwriting data platform for the people who build USDA and SBA files: county and place pages that carry the local rurality status, demographic, traffic, parcel, flood and zoning data a credit evaluation starts from, together with the guaranteed-lending obligation and delinquency figures for the trade area, and asset-class pages that carry the class-specific demand drivers. This guide is the spine those pages hang from. Where a page states a rule, it is the rule stated here, cited to the section, and it is revised when the section is. The neutral posture is deliberate: the platform is a reference and data layer, and it points to the practice rather than competing with it.

The feasibility practice at MMCG Invest prepares lender-facing studies for USDA B&I and Community Facilities, for SBA 7(a) and 504, and for conventional files, built on the platform's data and to the standard in Section 13, and relied on by USDA and SBA lenders and by banks. For a lender with a projection-based file, or a sponsor whose lender has asked for independent support, the conversation starts with the programme, the rurality and eligibility position, and the applicable threshold, in that order, because those decide whether a study is the right document before any question of what it should say.

Sources

1. eCFR, 7 CFR Part 5001, Guaranteed Loans, current text, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-L/part-5001
2. OneRD Guaranteed Loan Regulation, final rule, 85 FR 42494 (codified from 85 FR 42518), July 14, 2020, FR Doc 2020-13991, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/07/14/2020-13991/onerd-guaranteed-loan-regulation
3. OneRD Guarantee Loan, final rule with comment, 89 FR 79698, September 30, 2024, effective November 29, 2024, FR Doc 2024-21920, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/09/30/2024-21920/onerd-guarantee-loan
4. OneRD Guaranteed Loan Regulation, correcting amendments, 89 FR 97477, December 9, 2024, FR Doc 2024-28031, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/12/09/2024-28031/onerd-guaranteed-loan-regulation
5. OneRD Guaranteed Loan Regulation, technical amendments, 90 FR 57351, December 11, 2025, FR Doc 2025-22567, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/12/11/2025-22567/onerd-guaranteed-loan-regulation
6. OneRD Guarantee Loan Regulation, final rule; confirmation, 90 FR 57675, December 12, 2025, FR Doc 2025-22660, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/12/12/2025-22660/onerd-guarantee-loan-regulation
7. 7 CFR 5001.3, Definitions, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-L/part-5001/subpart-A/section-5001.3
8. 7 CFR 5001.102, Project eligibility, general, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-L/part-5001/subpart-B
9. 7 CFR 5001.115 through 5001.122, ineligible projects, uses of funds, and the professional-service and finder-fee provisions, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-L/part-5001/subpart-B/section-5001.122
10. 7 CFR 5001.126 and 5001.127, borrower eligibility and ineligibility conditions, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-L/part-5001/subpart-B
11. 7 CFR 5001.130 through 5001.132 and 5001.201, lender eligibility, the lender's agreement, maintenance of status, and lender responsibility, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-L/part-5001/subpart-B
12. 7 CFR 5001.202, Lender's credit evaluation, https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/7/5001.202
13. 7 CFR 5001.203, Appraisals, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-L/part-5001/subpart-C/section-5001.203
14. 7 CFR 5001.205, design requirements, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-L/part-5001/subpart-C/section-5001.205
15. 7 CFR 5001.208, Conflicts of interest, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-L/part-5001/subpart-C/section-5001.208
16. 7 CFR 5001.303, Applications for loan guarantee, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-L/part-5001/subpart-D
17. 7 CFR 5001.304, Specific application requirements for CF projects, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-L/part-5001/subpart-D/section-5001.304
18. 7 CFR 5001.305, Specific application requirements for WWD projects, engineering documentation, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-L/part-5001/subpart-D/section-5001.305
19. 7 CFR 5001.306, Specific application requirements for BI projects, https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/7/5001.306
20. 7 CFR 5001.307, Specific application requirements for REAP projects, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-L/part-5001/subpart-D
21. Appendix A (Feasibility Study Components) and Appendix B (Financial Feasibility Reports) to Subpart D of Part 5001, codified as graphics at 85 FR 42518, July 14, 2020, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-L/part-5001/subpart-D
22. 7 CFR 5001.401 through 5001.408, loan provisions, including 5001.406 loan amounts and 5001.407 percentage of guarantee, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-L/part-5001/subpart-E
23. 7 CFR 5001.450 through 5001.459, guarantee provisions, including the conditional commitment and fee sections, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-L/part-5001/subpart-E
24. FY 2026 OneRD annual notice of guarantee fee rates, periodic retention fee rates and loan guarantee percentages, 91 FR 11272, March 9, 2026, FR Doc 2026-04581; USDA OneRD program page, https://www.rd.usda.gov/onerdguarantee
25. 7 CFR 5001.315 through 5001.319, application evaluation and the four priority-point systems, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-L/part-5001/subpart-D
26. Strategic Economic and Community Development (Section 6401) FY 2026 notice, 91 FR 4494, February 2, 2026, https://www.rd.usda.gov/onerdguarantee
27. 7 CFR Part 5001, Subpart F, servicing provisions, 5001.501 through 5001.524, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-L/part-5001/subpart-F
28. 7 CFR 5001.521, Loss calculations and payment, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-L/part-5001/subpart-F/section-5001.521
29. USDA Rural Development, Rural Data Gateway and the Lender Lens loan-level portfolio dashboard, launched January 19, 2026, https://www.rd.usda.gov/rural-data-gateway
30. USDA Rural Development, removal of ten OneRD lenders, May 12, 2026, program communications, https://www.rd.usda.gov/onerdguarantee
31. Office of Management and Budget, Federal Credit Supplement to the Budget of the United States Government, FY 2025 and FY 2027 volumes, https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/
32. USAspending.gov, federal assistance obligations by program and assistance listing number, https://www.usaspending.gov
33. USDA Rural Development property eligibility map, https://eligibility.sc.egov.usda.gov
34. 2 CFR 25.200, System for Award Management registration, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/subtitle-A/chapter-I/part-25/subpart-C/section-25.200
35. Legacy Business and Industry rule, 7 CFR 1980.414, packaging-fee schedule (a different regulation, not Part 5001), https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-XVIII/subchapter-H/part-1980/subpart-E/section-1980.414
36. The Appraisal Foundation, Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice, 2024 Edition, effective January 1, 2024, https://www.appraisalfoundation.org
37. 7 U.S.C. 1926(a), 1932(a) and 8107, statutory authority for the four programmes, https://uscode.house.gov
38. Unified Agenda, RIN 0572-AC66, OneRD Guarantee Loan Round 5, Final Rule Stage, https://www.reginfo.gov
39. MMCG Invest, The 37 Factors of 7 CFR Part 5001, Fully Enumerated and Annotated, https://www.mmcginvest.com/post/the-37-factors-of-7-cfr-part-5001-fully-enumerated-and-annotated
40. MMCG Invest, The SBA Feasibility Study Requirement That Does Not Exist (and the Ones That Do), https://www.mmcginvest.com/post/the-sba-feasibility-study-requirement-that-does-not-exist-and-the-ones-that-do

Every Part 5001 citation is to the section, subpart or appendix, which are stable. Figures set by annual notice (the guarantee percentages, guarantee-fee and retention-fee rates, and the SECD reservation) are quoted from the FY 2026 notice at 91 FR 11272 and the FY 2026 SECD notice at 91 FR 4494, and are replaced when the next fiscal year's notices publish; confirm the current-year notice before pricing. The two feasibility appendices are codified as page images at 85 FR 42518 and are transcribed and counted from that source rather than from any secondary transcription. The loss illustration in Section 9 is constructed to show the mechanics and is not drawn from a published USDA example. Per-lender delinquency figures referenced in Section 7 are secondary-source and provisional and are treated as unverified at the institution level. Nothing here is legal or underwriting advice for a particular loan; the operative rule for any file is the codified text in force on the date its complete application is received.