COVID Fraud Transparency Act of 2026

Key Points

• This bill requires the Small Business Administration's watchdog to give Congress regular updates on fraud involving pandemic relief loans. Every three months, officials would have to report how many people or businesses cheated the system to get COVID-19 relief money.
• The reports must include the total number of loans handed out, how much money was involved, and how many new fraud cases were discovered. It also tracks how many of those cases were actually solved and what kind of scams were used to steal the money.
• This plan focuses on major programs that gave out hundreds of billions of dollars during the pandemic. There have been many concerns about people using fake information to get the funds, and this bill aims to make those crimes more transparent to the public.
• The reporting requirement would last for two years once the bill becomes law. The goal is to give the public and lawmakers a clearer picture of how much taxpayer money was lost to fraud and what is being done to get it back.
• No new taxpayer money is being spent to create these reports. The agency is expected to use its existing budget to gather the data and share it with the Small Business committees in the House and Senate.

Impact Analysis

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