Feasibility Study Consultant in Nashville, TN: SBA and USDA

A feasibility study in Nashville is read by a lender or a Certified Development Company before anyone else, and the first thing that reader needs here is a line inside a county, not around it. **Davidson County has two property tax rates.** The Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County is a consolidated city-county, and its Metro Council sets one rate for the Urban Services District and another for the General Services District: $2.814 per hundred of assessed value against $2.782. Six named satellite cities sit inside the General Services District and pay that rate plus their own. Assessment runs at 25 percent for residential and farm property, 40 percent for commercial and industrial and 30 percent for personalty. Which district a site falls in is therefore a rate question, and it is settled inside one county rather than at a county line. **Tennessee charges a tax on net worth as well as on income.** The franchise tax runs at 0.25% of Tennessee net worth alongside a 6.5% excise tax on Tennessee taxable income, with a minimum franchise tax of $100 payable whether the company is active or inactive. A pro forma built only on profit misses a line that is owed on the balance sheet, and owed in a year with no profit in it. **And the business tax is a gross receipts tax by class.** It attaches once a business grosses $100,000 or more, at a rate turning on its classification and on whether it is a retailer or a wholesaler, with a minimum of $22. A separate city business tax is owed only where the city has enacted one, which across fourteen counties is a siting variable rather than a constant.

The Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro--Franklin, TN metro is home to about 2,150,553 residents per the U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates, led by Davidson County at 729,505; Rutherford County at 376,996; Williamson County at 269,136; Sumner County at 211,721.

This metro has 2,150,553 residents across fourteen counties, an unusually wide footprint. What a template gets wrong here is not the size but the assumption that a county is a single tax jurisdiction.

Two rates inside Davidson. The Metro Council sets the Urban Services District rate at $2.814 per hundred of assessed value and the General Services District rate at $2.782. The Metro Trustee records that a rate is not final until certified by the State Board of Equalization, and the Metro Assessor records the assessment ratios: 25 percent for residential and farm, 40 percent for commercial and industrial, 30 percent for personalty. Six named satellite cities inside the General Services District levy their own rate on top of the GSD rate. For a commercial project the 40 percent ratio and the district question together decide the tax line, and neither is visible from the county name alone.

A franchise tax on net worth. Tennessee's franchise tax is 0.25% of Tennessee net worth, charged alongside the 6.5% excise tax on Tennessee taxable income, with a $100 minimum payable active or inactive. For a capital-intensive SBA 504 project, where the whole point of the programme is to put fixed assets on the balance sheet, a tax measured on net worth behaves differently from one measured on profit, and a model that carries only the excise tax understates the state line.

A gross receipts business tax, by class. The business tax attaches at $100,000 of gross receipts, with the rate set by classification and by whether the business is a retailer or a wholesaler, and a minimum of $22. The city layer is the part that matters across a fourteen-county metro: a city business tax is owed only where that city has enacted one, so two otherwise identical sites can carry different obligations.

And one county carries a surcharge the others do not. Davidson County voters approved a 0.5% surcharge on the local option sales tax to fund Metro Nashville's transit improvement programme, effective 1 February 2025, taking the local rate in that county to 2.75%. Seven named cities collect it. The Department also publishes a single-article cap of $44 on the first $1,600 and a state single-article rate of 2.75% between $1,600.01 and $3,200. This page does not carry local rates for the other thirteen counties: the Department publishes them only through a mapping application.

One published market figure, moving the other way. New supply pushed Nashville's industrial vacancy up to 5.1 percent during the second quarter of 2026, with space at $9.06 a square foot. That is a supply story about warehouses, and this page is about restaurants, hotels and day care, which is where the metro's SBA dollars actually go. No retail segment is published for Nashville. Detail sits 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 Nashville metro cut is computed here from the SBA 7(a) and 504 FOIA release by county membership across the fourteen member counties, never read from a district office total.

In fiscal year 2025 the metro recorded 455 7(a) approvals for $235,016,100 and 9 504 approvals for $19,676,000. The 504 count is strikingly low for a metro of this size, which is itself worth a borrower knowing when choosing between programmes.

Across fiscal years 2010 to 2026 disbursed, the ten asset classes in the SBA table account for 485 7(a) loans and 32 504 loans here. Restaurants carry the largest 7(a) dollar total at $146,842,600, more than double the next class. The full table is on the Nashville 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 Nashville 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.

With fourteen member counties this metro reaches a long way past that core, and the outer counties are among the least urbanised in any metro MMCG has covered. 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.

A hotel feasibility study Nashville lenders can underwrite starts from the metro's own SBA record and from the district the site is in. Across fiscal years 2010 to 2026 disbursed, hotels and motels in the Nashville MSA drew 27 SBA 7(a) loans for $69,735,300, the resolved cohort being too small for a charge-off rate to be shown, and 7 SBA 504 loans.

For a lodging project in Davidson County the Urban Services District question comes first, because it sets the rate before the 40 percent commercial assessment ratio is applied. The franchise tax on net worth then sits alongside the excise tax, which matters more for a hotel than for a service business because the asset base is the business.

These are the points a Nashville underwriter checks first.

MMCG starts from the project address, the asset class and the lender or Certified Development Company contact. In Davidson County the address settles the service district and therefore the rate, and whether a satellite city adds its own. Elsewhere in the metro it settles the county and whether a city business tax has been enacted. The asset class settles the assessment ratio and the business tax classification.

The report names its sources the way this page does. The two district rates, the certification point and the assessment ratios come from the Metropolitan Government's own Trustee and Assessor. The franchise, excise and business taxes come from the Tennessee Department of Revenue. The Davidson surcharge comes from the Department's own notice. Where the Department publishes a figure only through a mapping application or a code-keyed file with no names attached, this page states the gap rather than filling it from a hand-typed map. 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 Nashville 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.