# Plain Language Summary: ACCESS Act of 2025

This bill makes it easier for small businesses and startups to raise money through crowdfunding by relaxing some of the financial reporting requirements they currently face. Right now, when a company uses crowdfunding to raise money from regular people (rather than traditional investors), it has to hire an independent accountant to review its financial statements once it reaches $100,000 in funding. This bill raises that threshold to $500,000, meaning companies can now raise five times as much money before they're required to pay for that independent financial review.

The practical effect is that small businesses can keep more of their crowdfunding money in their pockets instead of spending it on accounting reviews, at least in the early stages of raising capital. This could help startups and small companies grow faster and get their products or services to market more quickly. However, it also means that people investing in these companies through crowdfunding platforms won't have that independent accountant verification of the company's finances until the company has raised significantly more money. Investors will need to rely more on the company's own financial information and the crowdfunding platform's own checks to decide whether to invest their money.

The bill also includes some technical corrections to fix references in the existing crowdfunding law that were pointing to the wrong section numbers. These are minor housekeeping changes that don't affect how the law actually works, but they make sure the legal language is accurate and consistent.

ACCESS Act of 2025

Meuser, Daniel

Amendment for Crowdfunding Capital Enhancement and Small-business Support Act of 2025 or the ACCESS Act of 2025 This bill expands the exemption from certain disclosures applicable to crowdfunding issuers with specified target offering amounts. (Crowdfunding is used to raise capital through a large number of individuals investing potentially small amounts of money.) Under current law, crowdfunding issuers that have target offering amounts of $100,000 or less are not required to make available financial statements reviewed by an independent public accountant. The bill increases that amount to $250,000 and allows the Securities and Exchange Commission to increase this amount to no more than $400,000 upon recommendation of the Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation and the Office of the Investor Advocate.