Commodity loan: what a CCC marketing loan costs to hold grain
Sigurd Lindquist, Certified Crop Adviser (CCA), Chetek, Wisconsin
A marketing assistance loan from FSA puts cash in hand at harvest on grain you keep. You borrow your county's loan rate on each bushel for up to nine months and pay interest at the CCC rate. This page figures that interest per bushel, and sets it next to the carry you would earn by storing.
Carry: what a later delivery bid pays over today's. Sell now or store? figures it from your elevator's bids; bring that number here.
Enter the bushels and the loan rate.
Not an eligibility check. Loans are made at your county FSA office. The office decides whether you and the grain qualify, sets the rate on your loan and figures the payoff. Call them before you count on any number here.
Show the math
How the interest adds up
interest a bushel a month = loan rate x interest rate / 12 corn at $2.42 and 5%: 2.42 x 0.05 / 12 = 1.01 cents soybeans at $6.82 and 5%: 6.82 x 0.05 / 12 = 2.84 centsThe 5% is only an example to show the arithmetic; it is not the current CCC rate. The page uses FSA's posted rate once it has read it, or the one you type.
2026 national loan rates, cents a bushel a month of interest
| Interest rate | Corn, $2.42 | Soybeans, $6.82 |
|---|---|---|
| 3% | 0.60¢ | 1.70¢ |
| 4% | 0.81¢ | 2.27¢ |
| 5% | 1.01¢ | 2.84¢ |
| 6% | 1.21¢ | 3.41¢ |
| 7% | 1.41¢ | 3.98¢ |
Multiply by the months you hold the loan, up to nine. Your county rate is a little above or below the national one.
Questions
What is a CCC marketing loan?
A loan from USDA's Commodity Credit Corporation, made through your county FSA office, with your grain as the collateral. For the 2026 crop the national loan rate is $2.42 a bushel for corn and $6.82 for soybeans, and each county has its own rate near those. The loan runs up to nine months.
What does the loan cost a bushel?
The loan rate times the CCC interest rate, divided by 12, for each month. At an example rate of 5%, corn at $2.42 costs about 1 cent a bushel a month (2.42 x 0.05 / 12), 9.1 cents for nine months. Soybeans at $6.82 cost about 2.8 cents a month.
When does it pay to take the loan and store?
When the carry, what a later delivery pays over today's bid, is more than the interest plus what storing costs you. Sell now or store? figures the carry from your elevator's bids; put that number in the carry box here.
Is it cheaper than my operating line?
Put your operating line's rate in the calculator and it shows both on the same dollars for the same months. The CCC rate is set by FSA each month; your lender's rate is whatever your note says.
Where do I get the loan?
At your county FSA office. This page does not check eligibility; the office decides whether you and the grain qualify. Corn and soybean loans for the 2026 crop are available through May 31, 2027.
Where do the county loan rates come from?
FSA posts a loan rate for every county each crop year. The page reads FSA's files on a schedule. Until the first read it uses the national rate and says so. Your county office has the official number.
Sources
- FSA news release, Apr 8, 2026: USDA announces 2026 marketing assistance loan rates. National rates, corn $2.42 and soybeans $6.82 a bushel; corn and soybean loans available through May 31, 2027; county rates on fsa.usda.gov.
- FSA: Commodity loan rates, where the county loan rate files are posted.
- FSA: Current FSA loan interest rates and the monthly lending rate releases, for the CCC commodity loan rate.
- 7 U.S.C. 9032: marketing assistance loans run nine months.
FSA's pages are read by a scheduled job; the date read shows beside each number. Until the first read, the page says so and asks you for the rate.