ELFA's 2026 Survey of Equipment Finance Activity, released in October 2026, reported that new business volume grew 6.8% in 2025, up from 3.1% in 2024, among nearly 100 equipment leasing and finance companies. It describes the industry's past year; it is not a quotation, an approval rate or a forecast for any single buyer.
What the 2026 survey measured
The Survey of Equipment Finance Activity (SEFA) is the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association's annual survey of its member companies, administered by PricewaterhouseCoopers with ELFA's Research Committee. The edition released on October 14-15, 2026 covers activity in 2025. Keep both dates when you use a figure: the publication year is 2026, the activity year is 2025.
According to ELFA's release, new business volume grew 6.8% in 2025, up from 3.1% in 2024, and 62.4% of surveyed companies reported higher volume, against 50.5% the year before. By type of provider, banks reported an 8.7% increase, captives a 0.1% decline and independents, a much smaller group, a 17.0% increase. By deal size, volume rose 5.4% in small ticket, 5.3% in middle ticket and 19.9% in large ticket. A companion Small-Ticket SEFA reported 0.6% growth for that space.
- Publication: October 2026; activity year: 2025
- Respondents: nearly 100 equipment leasing and finance companies
- Measure: growth in new business volume, not a dollar total for the buyer's market
Which equipment and industries led
The release names the five most-financed equipment types as construction, agriculture, trucks and trailers, office machines and material handling, and the five largest end-user industries by share of volume as agriculture, construction, other services (including real estate leasing, professional and repair services), wholesale and retail, and finance and insurance.
For a buyer, that ranking says where providers are already active, not whether a particular machine or business will be accepted. A contractor replacing an excavator, a farm adding a combine or a distributor expanding its forklift fleet still goes through a case-by-case review of the business, the equipment and the project around it.
Portfolio quality, read carefully
The survey reports that 98.5% of receivables were current, gross charge-offs declined slightly to 68 basis points from 69, and net full-year losses fell to 52 basis points of average receivables from 54. Those are measures of how providers' existing portfolios performed in 2025.
They are not an approval rate and not a price. The release also reports provider profitability, funding costs and yields; these are averages across the respondents' books and do not tell a business what a proposal for its own project will contain. Compare actual written proposals for that.
How the earlier survey compares
The 2024 SEFA, published in August 2024, reported 1.1% growth in new business volume for 2023. Read in sequence, the surveys describe growth of 1.1% in 2023, 3.1% in 2024 and 6.8% in 2025. Each edition is a separate annual survey of a group of member companies; check the participants and methodology before treating the series as a precise trend.
Before your next equipment-financing conversation
Use industry data as background, then build the project itself. These are practical planning points, not eligibility criteria or an offer; the financing provider decides what it can consider after reviewing the applicant and the equipment.
- The legal entity that would sign, and what stands behind the project
- An itemized supplier quote with delivery and installation scope
- The intended use period and end-of-term outcome
- Current written proposals for any comparison of cost
Sources & further reading
Published September 19, 2026. This is a project-preparation guide, not an eligibility decision, financing offer, or individualized legal, tax or accounting advice.
