The U.S. Senate, by a vote of 92-7, passed the PPP Extension Act of 2021[1] in identical form to the bill passed earlier by the House, sending the bill on to the President for his signature.

The very short bill has the following provisions:

Applications for both first draw and second draw PPP loans will be accepted through May 31, 2021, resulting in a two-month extension beyond the original deadline enacted in December 2020 of March 31, 2021;[2]
The SBA will be allowed to approve and fund loans for applications submitted by the May 31 deadline through the end of June.[3]

Previously the last day for applying for a loan was also the last day to receive a loan under prior versions of the program, meaning that loan applications submitted in the final few days of the program had little/no chance of being approved before the funding was shut down.

However, the program may end much earlier without additional Congressional action. The Journal of Accountancy reported online that Patrick Kelley, associate administrator for the SBA’s Office of Capital Access, had testified before the Senate Small Business Committee on March 24 that the program would likely run out of funds about a month and a half before the new application deadline:

The PPP Extension Act does not provide any additional funding for the current round of the PPP, which Congress provided with more than $290 billion to make forgivable loans to small businesses and not-for-profits. From the program’s opening on Jan. 11 through March 21, the SBA has approved more than 3.1 million loans totaling nearly $196 billion. In his testimony Wednesday, Kelley said that at the current lending rate, the PPP should have enough funding to last through mid-April.[4]

[1] PPP Extension Act of 2021, Senate passage March 25, 2021, https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1799/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22PPP+extension+act+of+2021%22%5D%7D&r=1&s=2 (retrieved March 25, 2021)

[2] PPP Extension Act of 2021, Act Section 2(a), (c)

[3] PPP Extension Act of 2021, Act Section 2(c)

[4] Jeff Drew, “Senate passes PPP deadline extension,” Journal of Accountancy online site, March 25, 2021, https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/news/2021/mar/senate-passes-ppp-application-deadline-extension.html (retrieved March 25, 2021)