The U.S. Small Business Administration will more than triple the maximum amount that small businesses and nonprofit organizations can borrow through the COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program. The loan limit will increase from $150,000 to $500,000 starting the week of April 6, and the time frame for economic injury will increase from six months to 24 months.

“More than 3.7 million businesses employing more than 20 million people have found financial relief through SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loans, which provide low-interest emergency working capital to help save their businesses,” SBA Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman said in a statement. “However, the pandemic has lasted longer than expected, and they need larger loans. Many have called on SBA to remove the $150,000 cap. We are here to help our small businesses and that is why I’m proud to more than triple the amount of funding they can access.”

The SBA said businesses that receive a loan subject to the current limits do not need to submit a request for an increase at this time. Instead, the SBA will email loan recipients and provide more details about how businesses can request an increase in the coming weeks.

Any new loan requests or those in process when the new loan limits are implemented will automatically be considered for loans covering 24 months of economic injury up to a maximum of $500,000, the SBA said.

The new guidelines follow the SBA’s announcement earlier this month that the agency would extend deferment periods for all disaster loans, including COVID-19 EIDLs, until 2022. To shift all EIDL payments to 2022, the SBA said it would extend the first payment due date for disaster loans made in 2020 to 24 months from the date of the note and to 18 months from the date of the note for all loans made in the calendar year 2021.