Feasibility Study Consultant in Honolulu, HI: SBA and USDA

A feasibility study in Honolulu is read by a lender or a Certified Development Company before anyone else. In fiscal year 2025 this metro recorded 154 SBA 7(a) approvals for $33,385,300. One rule a lender meets here: Hawaii general excise tax with the Honolulu county surcharge.

The Urban Honolulu, HI metro is home to about 998,747 residents per the U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates, all of them in Honolulu County.

A national template prices this metro on its 998,747 residents and stops there. The rules below come from the State of Hawaii, and each one changes a line of the model before a lender reads it.

Hawaii general excise tax with the Honolulu county surcharge. The Hawaii Department of Taxation states that Hawaii does not have a sales tax and instead has the general excise tax, the GET, which is assessed on all business activities. The published rate is 0.15% for insurance commission, 0.5% for wholesaling, manufacturing, producing, wholesale services and use tax on imports for resale, and 4% for all others. Counties may adopt a surcharge on the 4% rate, and the page lists the City and County of Honolulu at 0.5% effective January 1, 2007 to December 31, 2030. It gives 4.7120% as the maximum pass-on rate for Honolulu, and states that the tax is on the business and not on the customer. For a hotel or restaurant feasibility study inside the City and County of Honolulu, the model should carry the GET and the 0.5% surcharge as a cost on business receipts, treat visible pass-on as the operator's choice, and test any hold period that runs past December 31, 2030.

Hawaii transient accommodations tax rate. The Hawaii Department of Taxation states in its annual transient accommodations tax return instructions that the tax is levied on the gross rental or gross rental proceeds derived from furnishing transient accommodations, and that the rate is 11%. The instructions mark Act 96 of 2025 as effective January 1, 2026. A transient accommodation is a room, apartment, house, condominium, hotel room or similar living accommodation furnished for less than 180 consecutive days, and the instructions state that the term includes vehicles equipped with or advertised as including sleeping accommodations. For a hotel, short-stay or RV park feasibility study in the City and County of Honolulu, the model should apply the 11% state rate to gross rental proceeds for stays under 180 consecutive days. The instructions give the state rate, so any county add-on has to be sourced separately before the all-in lodging tax load is modeled.

Nationally, the U.S. Small Business Administration closed fiscal year 2025 having guaranteed 84,400 7(a) and 504 loans for $44.8 billion. This page computes the Honolulu share from the SBA's own 7(a) and 504 FOIA release, as of June 30, 2026, by member county rather than by district office: in fiscal year 2025 the metro's single county recorded 154 SBA 7(a) approvals for $33,385,300 and 12 SBA 504 approvals for $19,335,000.

In fiscal year 2025 the 7(a) approvals here came from Central Pacific Bank (65 loans, $3,820,800), Northeast Bank (22 loans, $3,309,300), and Newtek Bank, National Association (14 loans, $9,748,000), listed by approval count with the names as the SBA released them. The 504 approvals that year went through HEDCO Local Development Corporation (7 loans) and Mortgage Capital Development Corporation (5 loans). The SBA's district office field reads Hawaii District Office on 153 of the 154 fiscal year 2025 7(a) rows, 99.4%, and San Francisco District Office on 1.

Across fiscal years 2010 to 2026 disbursed, the ten asset classes tracked here account for 299 7(a) loans for $53,029,800 and 13 504 loans for $15,999,000 in this metro. In fiscal year 2025 alone those classes took 23 7(a) and 504 approvals for $8,366,600. The table sets out each class; a cell under five loans is not shown, and a charge-off rate is printed where 30 or more loans have resolved and left blank below that.

USDA Business and Industry and USDA Community Facilities credit runs on a statutory geography rather than on a county line. Under 7 U.S.C. 1991(a)(13)(A) the terms rural and rural area mean any area other than a city or town that has a population of greater than 50,000 inhabitants and any urbanized area contiguous and adjacent to such a city or town. The test turns on the subject address and the urbanized-area boundary around it, not on the name of a county or a metro. For a project in Honolulu the address decides it. The metro is one county, Honolulu County, with 998,747 residents, and an urbanized-area boundary follows the census map rather than any county line. MMCG checks the subject address against the USDA Rural Development eligibility map at intake, before work on the study begins, and this page names no town as eligible.

A restaurant feasibility study in Honolulu starts from the metro's own SBA record. Across fiscal years 2010 to 2026 disbursed, full and limited service restaurants account for 253 7(a) loans for $43,727,900 and 9 504 loans for $10,250,000 here, $53,977,900 in all. Fitness and recreational sports centers come to $5,111,000 over the same years. On the full and limited service restaurants 7(a) loans that have resolved, the charge-off rate is 11.1%.

These are the points an underwriter in Honolulu reads before the rest of the file. Each traces to a government publisher or to the SBA's own file.

MMCG starts from the project address, the asset class and the lender or Certified Development Company contact. The address settles the county and the rules set out above; the asset class sets which part of the SBA record applies.

The report names its sources the way this page does: the State of Hawaii, the SBA FOIA release, and the Census Bureau's population estimates. The method is set out in full in MMCG's feasibility study methodology.

MMCG Invest, LLC is a feasibility study consultancy that specializes in SBA and USDA feasibility studies for lenders, Certified Development Companies, USDA Rural Development guaranteed lenders and the borrowers they serve, with Honolulu among the markets it covers. The practice is led by Michal Mohelsky, J.D., FMVA, Practicing Affiliate of the Appraisal Institute. Reports are prepared under SBA SOP 50 10 8.1 for 7(a) and 504 files and under 7 CFR Part 5001 for USDA files, and each one states which schedule, rate and boundary it relied on so a credit officer can check the work. Pricing starts at $4,900, standard delivery runs 9 to 16 business days, a rush track delivers in 5 business days, and every inquiry receives a response within 12 business hours.