Emergency Business Funding: What to Do in the First 72 Hours

Hours 0 to 12: size the emergency before you borrow

Panic borrowing usually means borrowing the wrong amount. Before you apply anywhere, write down every payment due in the next 30 days and every dollar you can count on receiving in that time.

Example: a restaurant that lost its walk-in cooler and a week of sales

Decision rule: borrow the gap plus a modest cushion, here roughly $20,000, not the largest amount someone offers you. Emergency money tends to be expensive, and you pay for every dollar of it, used or not.

Then rank the bills: Payroll and the taxes withheld from it come first. The IRS can hold the people who control a business's payments personally liable for unpaid withheld payroll taxes, and it treats paying other creditors while those taxes go unpaid as a sign of willfulness. Never borrow from that money to cover something else.

Hours 12 to 24: call the people you owe and the lenders you have

The cheapest emergency money is a bill you don't have to pay this week. Landlords and suppliers who hear from you early, with a date and a plan, may agree to split or delay a payment; hearing about it after a missed due date gives them less reason to help.

• Your current lender: ask about a short payment deferral, interest-only months or a temporary extension. Call before the payment date.
• Your landlord: ask to split this month's rent across the next two or three.
• Key suppliers: ask for longer payment terms on the next few orders instead of a pause in deliveries.
• Your bank: if you have a relationship, ask what it can do quickly. In the Federal Reserve's 2025 survey, applicants at small banks were more likely to be fully approved (57%) than applicants at other kinds of lenders.

Draw an open line of credit now: if you have one and the gap is short. It's already approved, so there's no new application. Use it for the gap you sized in step one, and repay it from the recovery so it's there for the next emergency. Our guide to the business line of credit covers how draws and repayment work.

Hours 24 to 72: match the emergency to the right money

With the gap sized and the calls made, pick the funding that fits what actually happened. This triage table is the order we'd work through.

Invoice factoring: cash from work you've already done

If your emergency is a timing problem, with customers who owe you but pay in 30 or 60 days, factoring turns those invoices into cash now. The factor mainly checks whether your customers are good for the money, so a rough month for you matters less than it would on a loan. Read how invoice factoring works for the costs and recourse terms to compare.

SBA disaster loans: low cost, not fast

If a disaster has been declared for your area, SBA lends directly. Check the current declaration and terms on SBA.gov before you rely on any summary, including this one.

• Physical damage loans: up to $2 million to repair or replace real estate, equipment, inventory and fixtures, for businesses of any size.
• Economic Injury Disaster Loans: working capital for bills you can't pay because of the disaster, even without property damage, for businesses that can't get credit elsewhere. A sales decline alone doesn't qualify.
• Published terms: a fixed rate of no more than 4% on economic injury loans (up to 8% on physical loans if you can get credit elsewhere), up to 30 years, and no payments or interest for the first 12 months. Combined loans are capped at $2 million.
• How to apply: online at lending.sba.gov or by calling SBA at 800-659-2955. SBA inspects the damage after you apply, so plan other money for the meantime.

How fast can emergency business funding actually arrive?

Speed depends on whether the money is already approved. An open line moves as fast as your bank processes a draw. New money takes longer, and true same-day funding from a lender you've never used is rare; our page on whether same-day business loans are real explains why.

• Online lenders reached through a broker like Quordx: those lenders advertise decisions in 24 to 48 hours and funding 3 to 7 business days after that.
• SBA 7(a) loans: SBA lists a turnaround of 5 to 10 business days for a standard 7(a), and the lender still has to underwrite the loan.
• SBA disaster loans: SBA reviews the application and inspects damage first. Plan to bridge the gap with other money while it processes.

How to spot a predatory emergency business loan

Emergencies are when bad offers look best. The FTC has sued merchant cash advance providers over practices that land hardest on a business in a hurry. In one case it alleged that the funding shown on contracts didn't reflect fees deducted from it, and that withdrawals continued after customers had paid in full. In another, it alleged that a provider advertised no personal guaranty while its contracts included one, and required confessions of judgment that let it go straight to court for a judgment.

Red flags to walk away from

• Pressure to sign today, or an offer that expires within hours.
• No total repayment figure in writing, or a funding amount that shrinks once fees come out.
• A fee you pay before you're funded.
• Marketing that says no personal guarantee when the contract has a guarantee section.
• A confession of judgment in the contract.
• Daily debits you can't cover on a slow day.

Example: test a fast offer against your slowest day

Say a provider offers $20,000 now and takes back $26,000 through 120 business-day debits (hypothetical terms). That's about $217 every business day. If your slow days bring in $600, the debit takes about 36% of that day's sales before you pay a single other bill.

Costs surprise people: In the Fed's 2025 survey, 60% of firms that borrowed from online lenders said the actual cost was higher than expected, against 37% at small banks and 32% at large banks. Before you sign, compare the total repaid, not the payment. Our page on what a merchant cash advance really costs shows how to do that.

Where Quordx fits in a business emergency

Quordx is a broker, not a lender, and it can't make anyone's emergency same-day. What it can do is send one application, about 10 minutes, to lenders for term loans, lines of credit and working capital advances at once, and most options can be explored without a hard credit pull. Those lenders generally look for around $17,000 a month in revenue and, in most cases, a year in business.

If your emergency is unpaid invoices: Quordx also works with factoring lenders for business-to-business companies, including trucking firms and construction subcontractors. If you're newer or smaller than that, your open line, your current lender and a CDFI will usually get you further. Quordx doesn't serve Virginia, Connecticut, Missouri or North Dakota, and the lender, not Quordx, makes every decision. The application is at apply.quordx.com.