How to check if your former employer received a PPP loan.

Why this is worth five minutes of your time.

If you were laid off, furloughed, or had your hours cut during 2020 or 2021, there is a reasonable chance your employer received a Paycheck Protection Program loan around that same time. Roughly 11.5 million PPP loans were issued to businesses of all sizes, and the federal government disbursed roughly $800 billion through the program. Most were concentrated in exactly the industries that saw the most pandemic layoffs — restaurants, hospitality, retail, personal services, small healthcare practices.

Knowing whether your former employer took a PPP loan — and if so, how much, when, and whether the loan was forgiven — is the first piece of information anyone considering a whistleblower case needs. It is also, conveniently, public record. Congress required the Small Business Administration to publish this information, and courts required the SBA to publish more of it after early efforts to keep loan details secret were struck down under the Freedom of Information Act.

This article walks through three reliable ways to look up your former employer's PPP history. None of the tools require a login, a payment, or a lawyer. You can do all of this yourself in about ten minutes.

Method 1: The SBA's official PPP database.

The most authoritative source is the Small Business Administration's own public dataset. It is the definitive record because it is the same data the SBA used to administer the loans, and every other public database derives from it.

How to use it

The SBA publishes the PPP loan data at data.sba.gov/dataset/ppp-foia. Click through to the dataset and you will see a filterable table. The columns include the borrower name, address, loan amount, approval date, lender, industry code, and — for most loans — forgiveness status and amount.

What to search for

Search by the exact business name as it appeared on your W-2 or pay stubs. Many businesses operate under different names for legal purposes than for consumer-facing purposes — for example, "Smith Family Holdings LLC" may operate a restaurant as "Smith's Kitchen." The PPP loan is usually under the legal entity name, not the trade name. Your W-2 box (c) "Employer's name, address, and ZIP code" is the most reliable source for the legal name.

What to look at

If you find the loan, note these fields carefully:

• Loan amount — the total funds disbursed.
• Date approved — when the money was released. Compare this to when you were laid off.
• Loan status — whether the loan was forgiven in full, in part, or is still being processed.
• Jobs reported — the number of employees the borrower claimed to have when applying. If that number is higher than the actual headcount you observed, that is a potential red flag.
• Forgiveness amount — how much of the loan the government ultimately forgave. Loans that were forgiven in full were the ones where the borrower certified that all retention and wage-maintenance requirements were met.

Method 2: ProPublica's PPP search tool.

ProPublica — a nonprofit investigative journalism organization — maintains a user-friendly version of the SBA database at projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/. It is often easier to use than the SBA's raw data, especially if you don't know the exact legal name of your former employer.

Why it's useful

ProPublica's search allows you to filter by city, ZIP code, and industry in addition to business name. If you only remember the rough location of your former employer — "a restaurant in the French Quarter" or "a dentist's office in Mid-City" — ProPublica's geographic search lets you browse all PPP recipients in that area. This is particularly useful for small businesses whose legal names differ from what customers know them by.

What to watch for

ProPublica's data runs through June 1, 2021, which covers essentially all PPP loans (the program ended for most borrowers on May 31, 2021). It does not, however, always reflect the latest forgiveness decisions. For current forgiveness status, cross-reference with the SBA database above.

Method 3: Other reliable sources.

A few additional tools can fill in gaps or confirm what you find on the SBA and ProPublica sites:

• The Washington Post PPP search. The Post maintains a searchable database of all PPP loans of $150,000 or more. It is indexed differently from ProPublica and sometimes surfaces records that are harder to find elsewhere.
• The Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS). If your former employer was a government contractor as well as a PPP borrower, FPDS at fpds.gov shows that contracting activity. This matters because businesses that received large government contracts may have had reduced-need arguments against their PPP necessity certification.
• The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee. At pandemicoversight.gov, you can find summaries of pandemic-relief programs by state and by recipient, along with investigative reports that may name specific entities.

What the information tells you — and what it doesn't.

Finding that your former employer received a PPP loan does not by itself prove that fraud occurred. Many businesses received PPP loans, retained their employees honestly, and obtained forgiveness properly. The existence of the loan is a starting point, not a conclusion.

What to look for once you find the loan:

Did the layoffs happen while the loan was active?

PPP loans had a "covered period" — initially eight weeks from loan disbursement, later extended to 24 weeks. During this covered period, the employer was required to use the funds for eligible expenses (primarily payroll) and to maintain employment and wage levels to qualify for forgiveness. If you were separated or had your hours cut during this window, that is the most direct fact pattern for a potential claim.

What did the employer claim as "jobs reported" at application?

If the SBA data shows the employer claimed, for example, 42 employees at the time of application, and you know — as someone who worked there — that there were really only 28, that is a discrepancy worth documenting. Inflated headcount at application was one of the most common PPP fraud patterns.

Was the loan forgiven in full?

Full forgiveness required certification that headcount and wages were maintained. A loan that was forgiven in full despite layoffs is the clearest evidence that a false certification may have been made at the forgiveness stage.

Was it a first-draw or second-draw loan?

Many businesses took two PPP loans: a first draw in 2020 and a second draw in 2021. Second-draw loans required the borrower to certify that the business had experienced at least a 25% revenue decline in a quarter of 2020 compared to 2019. False revenue decline certifications are another category of fraud.

What to record while you're searching.

Screenshots matter because databases change. The SBA has updated its published PPP data periodically, and details sometimes shift. A dated screenshot preserves what the record said when you looked at it.

What to do next.

If you find that your former employer received a PPP loan during the period when you were laid off, had your hours cut, or were furloughed — and especially if the loan was forgiven in full — the next step is to preserve what you have and talk to a qui tam attorney before doing anything else.

The worst move is to contact the employer, confront them, or post about it on social media. None of that accomplishes anything except to alert the target of a potential investigation. The second-worst move is to take no action at all and let someone else file a case based on the same facts, locking you out under the first-to-file rule.

The right move is a confidential consultation. Bring what you have found — your W-2, the SBA database screenshot, a dated summary of the layoff. An experienced qui tam attorney can assess in under an hour whether your facts support a viable case. If they do, you begin the process. If they don't, you have clarity and can move on.