Feasibility Study Consultant in Kansas City, MO: SBA and USDA

A feasibility study in Kansas City is read by a lender or a Certified Development Company before anyone else, and the first thing this market does to a model is double it. A state line runs through the middle of one labour market, and almost every variable that matters comes in a pair. **The same machine is taxed on one side and not the other.** Missouri assesses commercial real property at thirty-two percent of true value and taxes business personal property at thirty-three and one-third percent. Kansas assesses commercial and industrial real property at 25 percent, and exempts machinery and equipment acquired after June 30, 2006 outright. For an equipment-heavy SBA deal that is not a rounding difference. It is a different balance sheet. **The earnings tax reaches across the line.** Missouri's statute defines an earnings tax as reaching compensation earned by nonresidents of the city for work done or services performed in the city, and caps it at one percent per annum. A Missouri legislative fiscal note records the Department of Revenue stating that Kansas City assesses the tax on those working in its city limits at a rate of 1%. So compensation earned by a worker who lives in Kansas, for work done at a site inside Kansas City, is within the base the statute describes, where an otherwise identical site a few miles west carries no such line at all. **And the sales tax floor differs before anyone adds anything.** The state rate is 4.225% on the Missouri side and 6.5% on the Kansas side, with Kansas local rates requiring an election under its own statute. Which side of the line the site sits on is a modelling decision before it is a siting one.

The Kansas City, MO-KS metro is home to about 2,253,579 residents per the U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates, led by Jackson County at 727,362; Johnson County at 632,276; Clay County at 263,370; Wyandotte County at 169,418.

This metro has 2,253,579 residents across fourteen counties in two states. A template that treats it as one jurisdiction will be wrong on the tax line, wrong on the assessment base and wrong on payroll, all at once.

Two assessment regimes. Missouri's statutes place commercial real property in subclass three at thirty-two percent of true value and assess all personal property at thirty-three and one-third percent. The Kansas Constitution assesses commercial and industrial real property at 25 percent, and a Kansas statute exempts machinery and equipment acquired after June 30, 2006. This is the sharpest variable in the metro for an SBA borrower, because the 504 programme finances exactly the kind of fixed equipment that one side taxes and the other does not.

An earnings tax with a nonresident limb. Missouri's earnings tax law defines the base rather than just the rate: compensation earned by residents, and separately the same compensation earned by nonresidents of the city for work done or services performed or rendered in the city, together with the net profits of businesses conducted in the city by nonresidents. The statutory cap is one percent per annum, and the city must put the tax back to its voters every five years. The nonresident limb is the part that matters when the labour market straddles a state line.

Two corporate codes. Missouri levies a flat four percent corporate income tax. Kansas builds its corporate tax as a normal tax of 4% plus a 3% surtax on Kansas taxable income above $50,000. The Kansas rate is subject to a statutory adjustment mechanism, and no notice publishing a reduction was found, so the filing-year rate should be confirmed rather than assumed.

Two sales tax floors. Before any city or county adds anything, the state rate is 4.225% in Missouri and 6.5% in Kansas. Kansas local rates require an election under its own statute. This page does not carry a county-by-county rate table for the fourteen counties: Kansas publishes its rate schedule only as a workbook, which MMCG cannot store or quote, so the variable is stated as two state floors plus the local-option mechanism rather than implying coverage it does not have.

One market figure, and it spans the state line the rest of this page divides. Cushman and Wakefield's second-quarter 2026 count for this metro: 5.3 percent of industrial space empty, $5.97 a square foot, across a market the publisher treats as one. Every other variable on this page splits at the border. This one does not, which is worth knowing before anyone reads it as a comment on a specific site. More on the companion post.

Nationally, the U.S. Small Business Administration closed fiscal year 2025 having guaranteed 84,400 7(a) and 504 loans for $44.8 billion. The Kansas City metro cut is computed here from the SBA 7(a) and 504 FOIA release by county membership across the fourteen member counties in both states, never read from a district office total.

In fiscal year 2025 the metro recorded 488 7(a) approvals for $258,376,900 and 28 504 approvals for $22,000,000. The most active 7(a) lenders that year by approval count were Northeast Bank with 46 loans, U.S. Bank, National Association with 45 and The Huntington National Bank with 31. On the 504 side Rural Missouri, Inc. and Heartland Business Capital, Inc. each recorded 11 loans.

Across fiscal years 2010 to 2026 disbursed, the ten asset classes in this record in this count account for 678 7(a) loans and 109 504 loans here. Restaurants carry the largest 7(a) dollar total at $152,806,300 over 313 loans, with hotels and motels close behind at $140,106,200 over 67 loans. The full table is on the Kansas City feasibility market research post.

USDA Business and Industry and 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 of more than 50,000 inhabitants and any urbanized area contiguous and adjacent to such a city or town. The Kansas City urbanized core is therefore out. The 50,000 inhabitant test is the statute's general rule; the statute sets a different, lower threshold for community facility direct loans and grants, so which programme is being used matters as much as where the site is. MMCG's work here is for guaranteed lenders.

This metro's fourteen counties reach a long way past that core on both sides of the line, so more of it sits outside the urbanized area than in most metros of its size. The test still turns on the subject address and the urbanized-area boundary around it rather than on the name of the town, so MMCG verifies eligibility at the address on the USDA Rural Development eligibility map at intake. No town is named on this page as eligible on a model's say-so.

A hotel feasibility study Kansas City lenders can underwrite starts from the metro's own SBA record and from which state the site is in. Across fiscal years 2010 to 2026 disbursed, hotels and motels in the Kansas City MSA drew 67 SBA 7(a) loans for $140,106,200 at a 6.1 percent charge-off rate and 18 SBA 504 loans.

For a lodging project the state line decides more than the tax rate. Furniture, fixtures and equipment in a Missouri hotel sit in a personal property base assessed at thirty-three and one-third percent; the same equipment in a Kansas hotel, acquired after June 30, 2006, is exempt. A city site also carries the earnings tax on payroll, including for staff who commute from Kansas.

These are the points a Kansas City underwriter checks first. Each traces to a government publisher or to the SBA's own file, and almost all of them come in pairs.

MMCG starts from the project address, the asset class and the lender or Certified Development Company contact. The address settles the state first, which decides the assessment base for both the building and the equipment, the corporate code and the sales tax floor. It then settles whether the site is inside Kansas City, Missouri, which decides whether the earnings tax attaches to payroll. From the staffing plan the commute shed is mapped across the line, because the earnings tax reaches workers who live on the other side of it.

The report names its sources the way this page does. Assessment and tax material comes from the Missouri Revised Statutes, the Kansas Constitution and the Kansas statutes as published by their own revisors. The SBA record is computed in house from the FOIA release.

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 Kansas City 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 for 7(a) and 504 files and under 7 CFR Part 5001 for USDA Business and Industry and Community Facilities files, and each one states which schedule, rate and boundary it relied on so a credit officer can check the work rather than take it on trust. 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.