Try explaining a YouTube channel to a loan officer. You have revenue, but it swings from month to month. You have an audience of millions, but it lives on a platform you don’t own. You have a business, but there’s no box on the application that describes it.
On Oct. 15, the U.S. Small Business Administration gave creators that box.
The agency issued guidance stating that creator-led businesses should be classified under NAICS 5121, the federal industry code for motion picture and video industries, when applying for SBA programs. The SBA called it the first federal small-business classification guidance to specifically recognize content creators. It covers filmmakers, video producers, podcasters, streamers, gamers, digital publishers, social media entrepreneurs and creative agencies. The agency says that’s 27 million creator-led businesses.
The guidance doesn’t open a new pot of money, and creators weren’t locked out before. The SBA says creator businesses “have long been eligible for SBA support when they meet applicable program requirements.”
What they lacked was a clear answer to the first question every SBA application asks, which is what industry you’re in. That code decides which size standard applies, and the size standard decides whether a business counts as “small” and qualifies.
Banks have historically struggled with creator income. “One month might be great, and then a few months might be very low,” Jack Ojalvo, founder of creator lender Copyright Capital, told Net Influencer in April. An entire category of fintech startups, including Karat and Fundmates, grew up to fill the space banks left open, offering creators advances against future earnings instead of traditional loans.
Goldman Sachs Research projected in 2023 that the creator economy could approach $480 billion by 2027. YouTube alone says it paid more than $100 billion to creators, artists and media companies over four years. Yet a creator pulling in six figures could still struggle to explain to a bank or a federal agency what kind of business they run.
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Filing creators next to film studios is a statement about how Washington now sees them. A daily vlog, a podcast network and a gaming stream are being treated as production companies, because that’s functionally what they’ve become.
The work isn’t finished. A separate SBA proposal would simplify size standards under NAICS 5121, and the agency said it received requests for a permanent exception for content creators. It will review those after public comments close Nov. 20. Creators who want a say in where that line lands have about a month to weigh in.
The Creators Guild of America pushed for the change. CGA founder and president Daniel Abas credited Shira Lazar, founder of What’s Trending and Creators 4 Mental Health and a CGA advisory board member, along with CGA government advocacy chair Avi Gandhi.
“Content creators are small businesses, and always have been,” Abas said. As of this week, the federal government agrees in writing.
