Business financing in San Francisco County.
County-by-county financing guides. No paperwork. No social. No ID.
12 institutions are headquartered inside the San Francisco County line, and 4 more keep a branch here. Below, we say which is which.
Not this lane? Home FinancingPersonal Financing
The doors in San Francisco County.
The CDFIs, credit unions, and microlenders that actually say yes — county by county, in two languages. We are not a lender. Nobody paid to be listed. And where a county has no good doors, we say so.
- 16
- DOORS HERE
- 12
- BASED HERE
- 49
- CA COUNTIES WITH DOORS
- Lane
- Business Financing
- People
- 874Kresidents of San Francisco County
- Elsewhere in CA
- Los Angeles County →66 doors — the biggest list of any other county in California
- State
- California →49 of 58 counties hold a door in this lane
Certified by the U.S. Treasury to lend where a bank will not. Nonprofit, patient, and used to a file that is not clean.
Community Vision Capital and Consulting · Feed the Hunger FundOwned by their members, not by shareholders. They look at your whole story rather than a score, and that is the difference when a bank says no.
I.l.w.u. Credit Union · Northeast Community Credit Union- Community Vision Capital and ConsultingCommunity lending · Business capital
- Feed the Hunger FundCommunity lending · Business capital
- Low Income Investment FundCommunity lending · Business capital
- Mission Asset FundCommunity lending · Business capital
- Mission Community Loan Fund LLCCommunity lending · Business capital
- IN THIS LIST
10 of the 16 doors inside the county line are CDFI-certified.
The U.S. Treasury certifies them to lend to the people banks pass over. It is a loan, not a favour.
- Northeast Community Credit UnionCDFI-certifiedMinority depositoryPersonal · Home · Business capital
- REDF Impact Investing FundCommunity lending · Business capital
- San Francisco Credit UnionMinority depositoryPersonal · Home · Business capital
Show the other 4Show fewer
- San Francisco Housing Accelerator Fund, TheCommunity lending · Business capital
- Southeast Asian Community CenterBusiness capital
- Working Solutions CDFISBA microlenderCommunity lending · Business capital
- San Francisco Lee Credit UnionMinority depositoryPersonal · Home
Based elsewhere, with a member-facing office inside the San Francisco County line. You can walk in.
- I.l.w.u. Credit UnionPersonal · Home · Business capital
- Redwood Credit UnionPersonal · Home · Business capital
- Self-Help Credit UnionCDFI-certifiedMinority depositoryPersonal · Home · Business capital
- The Golden 1 Credit UnionMinority depositoryPersonal · Home · Business capital
- Accion Opportunity FundAccepts ITIN
Nonprofit small-business lender. Accepts ITIN in place of SSN. Serves most states, in English and Spanish.
Business capital - Grameen AmericaAccepts ITIN
Microloans for women entrepreneurs. Requires photo ID and proof of address — no SSN requirement. Branches in major metro areas.
Business capital - Mission Asset FundAccepts ITIN
Zero-interest lending circles and credit building. SSN or ITIN accepted. Works through nonprofit partners across the country.
Personal
Nobody paid to be on this list.
The 16 doors inside the county line come off public data, and 7 of them are owned by their own members. We do not ask for your name, and we earn nothing if you knock on one door rather than another.
How to read this list.
We do not ask for your name, your email, or your number. Nothing on this page changes based on who you are.
A door is headquartered here when its head office sits inside the county line. The rest are based elsewhere and keep a branch you can walk into. We list both, and we label which is which.
Every institution on this page comes from public federal data — the CDFI Fund certified list (Aug 2026), NCUA credit union data (Jun 2026), and the SBA microloan intermediary list (Sep 2026) — plus a short national tier we verified by hand. We refresh each list as its agency publishes. No listing is paid.
San Francisco is a city and a county in the same boundary, and it holds one of the densest concentrations of mission lenders in the country — community development financial institutions built specifically to lend where banks stop. For a taquería owner in the Mission, a painting contractor in the Excelsior, a corner store in Visitacion Valley, or a one-person cleaning company, that matters more than any national advertisement. This guide explains the financing that exists, who qualifies, what to bring, which doors are actually based inside the county, and what to avoid.
It's a process, not a rejection.
Business financing is borrowed money — occasionally granted money — used to start, steady, or grow work you already do. The shapes worth knowing:
- A term loan: one lump sum, fixed payments, a known end date. A van, a hood system, a build-out.
- A line of credit: an approved limit you draw on and repay as you go. The tool for the gap between invoicing a building manager and being paid by one.
- A microloan: a smaller loan from a nonprofit or mission lender, usually paired with free coaching in your language. The most realistic first loan for a young or cash-based business.
- Equipment financing: the equipment is the collateral, so the machine carries part of the decision.
- Grants: real, rare, competitive, slow. A bonus, never a plan.
San Francisco is a consolidated city and county, which means one set of offices handles business registration, permits, and local programs for the entire county. Its small-business economy is a storefront economy: restaurants, taquerías, bakeries, cafés, and corner markets along Mission Street and in the Excelsior, Chinatown's shops and suppliers, Bayview auto and trades yards, nail salons and barbershops in every neighborhood.
Around them is a large contracting and services layer — janitorial and building maintenance crews, painters, home care workers, movers, food-truck operators, and drivers doing delivery and for-hire work. The waterfront and the hotel and convention trade sit behind much of the rest.
Two local facts shape financing more than anything else. Commercial rent is the single largest fixed cost most of these businesses carry, so lenders read your lease as carefully as your revenue.
And a great deal of this economy handles cash — which is not a problem, unless the cash never touches a business bank account.
Money that does not pass through an account you can document is money a lender cannot count.
Forget what the banks say.
Institutions weigh five things: whether you can repay, what your credit file shows or what substitutes for it, how long you have done this work, what collateral or guarantee exists, and whether the plan makes sense in this market.
Work that reads clearly to a San Francisco lender includes:
- Restaurant, café, bakery, and food-truck owners, including businesses taking over an existing space
- Janitorial, building maintenance, and window and pressure-washing contractors billing property managers
- Painting, flooring, tile, electrical, and plumbing subcontractors working under general contractors
- Corner stores, markets, and small retail carrying inventory
- Salons, barbershops, and personal-service businesses renting chairs or stations
- Home care and childcare providers operating as sole proprietors
- Moving, courier, and for-hire drivers financing a vehicle
- Small landlords and owners of one commercial space
How you are actually paid changes what to bring. If you invoice property managers or general contractors, your accounts receivable and your 1099s are the story. If you run a register, your point-of-sale reports and monthly deposits are the story.
If you drive, your platform earnings statements are the story.
In all three cases the underlying requirement is the same: the money has to flow through a business bank account where someone can see it.
If you file with an ITIN, you are not disqualified. Several institutions in this county work with ITIN borrowers and several do not, and this is rarely posted publicly. Ask it first. If your credit file is thin, mission microlenders and credit-building programs exist for exactly that situation, and this county has an unusual number of them.
Get your papers in order.
Get this into one folder. It shortens every conversation and it makes you much harder to pressure.
- 01Government photo ID
California issues driver's licenses regardless of immigration status; ask each institution what it accepts.
- 02Your ITIN or Social Security number
- 03City and county business registration certificate
In San Francisco, registering the business is a real step and institutions ask for proof of it
- 04Fictitious business name (DBA) filing
Or LLC and corporation papers from the Secretary of State
- 05Trade or health permits
A state contractor license if your work requires one, a health permit for food, a seller's permit if you sell goods
- 06Two years of personal tax returns with Schedule C, plus business returns if you file them
- 07Three to six months of business bank statements from the business account
- 08Point-of-sale or platform reports if you run a register or drive
- 091099s from property managers, general contractors, and platforms
- 10A one-page profit-and-loss sheet, even one you typed yourself
- 11Commercial lease
The full document, including any personal guarantee
- 12Certificates of insurance and workers compensation if you have employees
The doors worth knowing.
This county has a deep bench of mission lenders. Do not treat the list as a menu to shop randomly — work it in order, because the first group is built for businesses of your size.
ALL 16 DOORS, BY NAME AND BY TOWN- 16
- DOORS HERE
- 155
- ACROSS CA
Based in San Francisco, California. A community development financial institution, certified by the U.S. Treasury to lend where a bank will not, and used to a file that is not clean.
BEST FORCommunity lending where a bank has already said no, and working capital, equipment and payroll for a small business.Based in San Francisco, California. Treasury-certified as a CDFI, which is a mandate rather than a courtesy: reaching borrowers the mainstream market passes over is the job.
BEST FORWorking capital, equipment and payroll for a small business, and community lending where a bank has already said no.Based in San Francisco, California. A CDFI — a mission lender, not a branch network. It is measured on who it reaches, which is why a thin file is not the end of the conversation.
BEST FORCommunity lending where a bank has already said no, and working capital, equipment and payroll for a small business.Based in San Francisco, California. A credit union — owned by its members rather than by shareholders, which is exactly what changes the conversation after a bank has said no. It is CDFI-certified, and it is a minority depository.
BEST FORA personal loan, or building a credit file from nothing, and buying, repairing or refinancing a home.
Don't fall into these traps.
Not loans. A funder buys your future sales at a discount and debits your account daily or weekly, and those debits keep landing when business slows. This product does more damage to San Francisco storefronts than any other. Treat it as the last option.
Legitimate institutions do not collect a large fee before you have funds. If someone wants payment to submit an application, walk away.
Taking a second advance to service the first is how a repairable gap closes a business. If a funder offers money specifically to pay another funder, that is an alarm.
Read what you are pledging. Some agreements let a funder collect without a court, or attach every fixture and piece of equipment you own to a small amount of money.
A financing offer that depends on you signing a longer commercial lease deserves outside eyes. Ask a nonprofit business advisor to read both documents together.
If you asked for Spanish, Chinese, or any other language and the documents arrive only in English, that is a sales tactic, not a clerical accident. You have the right to understand every line.
Nobody legitimate asks for a fee, an ITIN, or a bank login by text or social media to release grant money or a certification.
Real institutions are still open next week. Any offer that expires today is selling the deadline, not the money.
Everything below is set by California, and it reads the same in every county in it. The 16 marks above are this county's own doors — who opens one is decided by them, not by the state.
The rules where you are.
San Francisco requires businesses operating in the county to register, and institutions ask for that certificate. A DBA at the county clerk or an entity filing with the Secretary of State is the other half of being a business on paper.
A health permit, a state contractor license, or a seller's permit is what makes your revenue legible. Lenders check them, and so do the property managers and general contractors who hire you.
California requires many commercial financing offers — including merchant cash advances — to come with a written disclosure of the total cost and an annualized rate. If a funder will not hand you that sheet, you have learned what you need to know.
once you have employees, and buyers of your services will ask for the certificate before they issue a contract.
Most small commercial leases in this county include a personal guarantee. Know whether yours does before you take on other debt, because a lender will want to know too.
The state-funded technical assistance centers and the city's small-business programs cost you nothing and do not obligate you to borrow.
The short version.
- 01
San Francisco holds roughly 874,000 people in a single consolidated city and county, and it has something most places do not: a dense cluster of mission lenders headquartered inside its own line. Four of them are the realistic first calls for a small business — Working Solutions CDFI, Mission Asset Fund, Mission Community Loan Fund LLC, and Community Vision Capital and Consulting — plus three credit unions based here and a nonprofit resource center.
- 02
Do it in this order. Register the business with the city and county. Open a business bank account and run your money through it. Pull two years of returns, six months of statements, your 1099s or point-of-sale reports, and your full lease into one folder. Then call the closest mission lender first, and ask every institution the same two questions: do you lend to ITIN borrowers, and do you report my payments to the credit bureaus?
- 03
Compare at least two offers. Demand the written cost disclosure on any commercial financing offer. If what you get back is urgency instead of paper, that is your answer.
- 04
Origen Capital is a directory, not a lender. We do not collect your information, we do not sell it, and using this guide costs you nothing. When you are ready to apply, work directly with a licensed institution or a nonprofit lender.
Same county, another question.
Home FinancingPurchase, renovation, HELOC, and bridge loans for homeowners and investorsSEE IT IN SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY →
Personal FinancingPersonal loans, credit building, and ITIN-friendly financing optionsSEE IT IN SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY →49CA COUNTIES WITH DOORSThe whole stateEvery county in California, in this same lane.155 institutions fund small businesses inside California county lines.OPEN THE STATE →Still don't see your situation?
Ask Iris. She'll explain it the way it should have been explained the first time.