How ERC Claims Are Valued

How are ERC claims valued?

An ERC claim is valued as a receivable, which means the question is how likely the IRS is to pay it, in full, and how long that is likely to take. Buyers work through the filing, the documentation behind it, and anything that could reduce or delay payment. Every claim is priced individually through underwriting.

There is no rate card. Two claims of the same face value can be valued very differently depending on who filed them, how well they are documented, and what correspondence the IRS has sent.

Who buys multi-quarter ERC claims?

Specialist ERC receivable buyers, including SFG Capital, which reviews claims covering several quarters together while assessing each quarter on its own filing and documentation. Multi-quarter claims are common and are not inherently harder to transact. Terms are case by case and subject to underwriting.

Where one quarter is well documented and another is not, the stronger quarters can sometimes proceed while the rest is resolved.

What percentage of my ERC claim will I get if I sell it?

There is no standard percentage, and any buyer quoting one before reviewing your claim is quoting a number they cannot stand behind. Terms come out of underwriting on your specific claim and vary with claim size, structure, filing history, documentation and risk. Pricing is always case by case.

What you can do before any review is get the documentation in order. Claims that arrive with the filed return, the supporting calculation and clean payroll records are faster to underwrite than claims that arrive as a number in an email.

What affects the price of an ERC claim?

The main factors are how the claim was filed and by whom, how completely it is documented, whether IRS transcripts confirm the filing, the age of the claim, its size and structure, and whether the IRS has sent any notice or correspondence about it. Each of these is assessed individually.

None of these factors is a threshold that passes or fails on its own. They are weighed together. A claim that is weak on one point can be perfectly fundable if it is strong elsewhere, which is why claims are underwritten rather than scored.

Why do ERC claim buyers offer less than face value?

Because the buyer takes on both the waiting and the risk. They are paying now for money the IRS may take years to release, and may reduce or challenge along the way. The difference between face value and what is offered covers that time and that uncertainty.

The buyer also carries the cost of verification, of holding the position, and of whatever happens if the claim is examined. A business selling a claim is transferring those problems along with the receivable.

How do buyers price the risk on a delayed ERC claim?

By working out what could go wrong and how likely it is. That means examining who prepared the claim, whether the eligibility basis is documented, whether the figures reconcile to payroll records, and whether the IRS has raised anything. The stronger the evidence, the lower the assessed risk.

Delay itself is a separate question from validity. A claim can be entirely sound and still be sitting in a backlog. Buyers assess those two things separately, because a long wait on a well-documented claim is a different proposition from a long wait on a thin one.

Does the age of my ERC claim affect what it is worth?

It affects the assessment, though not always in the direction people expect. An older claim has waited longer and may be closer to payment, which can help. It may also sit inside a period the IRS has scrutinized more heavily, which is weighed alongside everything else in underwriting.

Age also raises practical questions. Records get harder to retrieve, preparers go out of business, and the people who put the claim together move on. Those are often the real obstacles on an older claim rather than the age itself.

Are larger ERC claims worth more per dollar?

Not automatically. Size changes the analysis rather than improving it. A larger claim justifies more verification work and attracts capital sources that will not look at smaller files, but it also carries more exposure, so it is examined more closely. Terms remain case by case.

Larger claims are also more likely to involve a PEO filing, multiple quarters or a Schedule R allocation, all of which add verification work. Many funders decline large claims for that reason rather than because of the amount.

Can I sell ERC claims for multiple quarters?

Yes. Most businesses filed across several quarters, and a claim covering multiple quarters can generally be reviewed and transacted together. Each quarter is assessed on its own filing and documentation, because eligibility and the supporting evidence can differ from one quarter to the next.

Do all my ERC quarters have to be funded together?

No. Quarters can be handled separately where that makes sense, though most businesses find it simpler to deal with them as one transaction. Whether they are split depends on the documentation for each quarter and what comes out of underwriting on the claim as a whole.

Splitting sometimes makes sense where one quarter is clean and another is waiting on documents. Rather than hold everything up, the stronger quarters can move while the rest is sorted out.

What if only some of my ERC quarters have been paid?

That is common and it is not a problem. Quarters the IRS has already paid are simply outside the transaction, because there is no longer a receivable to sell. The review covers the quarters still pending. Partial payment can also be useful evidence that the filing is sound.

If the IRS has paid some quarters and gone quiet on others, that pattern is worth raising early in the review. It sometimes points to a specific issue on the outstanding quarters that is better identified up front.

Can I sell just one quarter of my ERC claim?

Generally yes. A single quarter can be treated as its own receivable, provided the filing and supporting documentation for that quarter can be verified. Businesses sometimes do this when they need less than the full amount or when one quarter is much better documented than the others.

How are multi-quarter ERC claims valued?

Each quarter is assessed on its own filing, documentation and risk, and the results are then considered together. A claim is not valued as a single lump divided by quarters. One weak quarter does not necessarily affect the others, and the overall structure is settled in underwriting.