Small Business Grants Open Now — November 2026

Find grants open in your state and industry

Filter the 100 highest-priority open programs by state, industry, and funding type — sorted by closing date, soonest first. This covers the top 100 of the 170 open programs by urgency and award size; every one of the full 170 is in your free GrantCompass report.

SourcesUSDA Farm Service Agency — Organic Certification Cost Share Program (OCCSP)·North Carolina Film Office — North Carolina Film Incentives·Washington State Department of Commerce — STEP Export Voucher Program·Wyoming Business Council — Business Ready Community Grant and Loan Program·Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation — Funding Criteria for Early-Stage Social Enterprises·City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development — Neighborhood Opportunity Fund HomeChecked 5 September 2026.

Closing in the next 60 days

These 42 programs have a firm deadline between now and January 2, 2027, sorted soonest first. Apply to the 25 closing this month before anything else on this page.

Grants of $50,000 or more: government cost share or private prize

Short answer: most small business grants with a top award of $50,000 or more come from federal, state and city programs, and only a handful of companies and private foundations give that much. The two work differently. A government grant of that size usually pays for a defined project, such as research, worker training, a storefront or export costs, and often covers a share of money you spend first. A private grant of that size is usually one competitive prize paid as cash.

Private funders that give $50,000 or more

Which large grants are taking applications, by state and industry: $50,000 business grants open now

How grants from banks work, and how to apply for one

Short answer: banks, credit unions and card issuers do fund small business grants, but most run one short window a year, often through a partner organization, so the usual way in is to watch for the window rather than to apply year-round. The Federal Home Loan Bank grants work differently: a business cannot apply on its own and has to go through a member bank, so the first step is asking your own bank whether it takes part.

Big-company grants that run through a partner

Corporate grant money usually reaches small businesses through a nonprofit or a small business platform. Each program page below carries the funder's current deadline.

Not sure which of these fits your business? See which grants you qualify for

How “open now” is defined, and what it isn't

A program counts as open on this page only if its GrantCompass catalog status is active and one of two things is true: it accepts applications on a rolling, year-round, or continuous basis (111 programs), or it has a published deadline on or after November 3, 2026 (59 programs). We excluded 24 active grant-type programs whose next intake is described only in general terms (“opens next spring,” “quarterly, dates vary”) without a specific tracked date, and 0 more whose last tracked deadline has passed without a new round being published — they may well reopen, but we won't claim “open now” for a program without a concrete open window. 18 of the 170 open programs publish no numeric award ceiling (formula- or payroll-based awards); they still count toward the totals here and appear in your full match report.

The numbers behind “open now”

Of the 795 US funding programs in the GrantCompass catalog, 466 are structured as grants (as opposed to loans, tax credits, or other program types). 194 of those 466 grant programs are currently active, and 170 of the 194 are verifiably open today by the definition above.

Monthly and quarterly microgrants: how the rounds work

Short answer: most private microgrants of about $10,000 or less pick winners in repeating rounds, monthly, quarterly or a few times a year, so missing one cutoff usually costs you weeks, not a year. The rule that matters is whether your entry carries over to the next round, and funders answer that differently.

Which microgrants are taking applications, with current cutoffs: microgrants open now

The SBA does not give grants to start or grow a business

Short answer: there is no SBA grant application for an ordinary small business. The SBA's own grants page says it “does not provide grants for starting and expanding a business.” Federal grant money reaches most small businesses through two narrower doors: research grants (SBIR and STTR) for companies doing R&D, and export grants that the SBA funds and each state hands out (STEP).

Federal grants taking applications, with current deadlines: federal small business grants open now

Key takeaways

• 170 of 795 catalog programs are open today. “No deadline listed” on a search engine doesn't mean nothing is open — it means you need a source that tracks status, not just dates.
• Rolling beats deadline-chasing. 111 of the 170 open programs have no fixed cutoff at all — apply on your schedule, not a countdown.
• 13 programs close within the next two weeks — Rhode Island Innovation Voucher Program (Nov 3), SBIR Phase II — NSF (America's Seed Fund) (Nov 4), SBIR Phase I — NSF (America's Seed Fund) (Nov 4), STTR Phase I — NSF (Nov 4) — if one fits your business, that's today's priority, not this page.
• State programs dominate the open list (85 of 170) — check your state's economic development agency even if you've already ruled out federal grants.
• This page refreshes monthly. Bookmark grantcompass.co/small-business-grants-open-now rather than a dated search result — the URL stays the same, the data doesn't.

Frequently asked questions