Feasibility Study Consultant in Delaware

What makes a Delaware feasibility study different is that Delaware taxes the seller's receipts instead of the buyer's purchase: there is no state or local sales tax, and the Division of Revenue charges the seller of goods or services a gross receipts tax that allows no deduction for the cost of goods sold, labor or interest expense [15]. A charge that a sales tax state collects at the register and hands to the treasury is, in Delaware, a cost the business pays out of its own revenue, and it rises with sales whether or not profit rises with them. A Delaware study therefore names the Division category each business will file under, applies that category's rate and monthly exclusion, and carries the result through net operating income into the debt service coverage ratio (DSCR).

Only a few Delaware charges reach the customer, and the State sets each one: 8% of the rent for a room in a hotel, motel or tourist home [20], and 4.5% of the rent for a short-term rental of a residential unit [21], a tax that applies to agreements entered into on or after January 1, 2025 [18]. The capital budget carries Delaware lines of its own. The realty transfer tax is 3 percent of value, or 2.5 percent where the municipality or county has enacted the full 1.5 percent local tax, and the statute splits it equally between grantor and grantee; a construction document described in section 5401(9) is taxed at 2% on amounts above $10,000, a cost the building's owner bears [22]. Property is assessed by the counties, of which Delaware has three, each at fair market value as of its own most recent reassessment base year [23][2].

Demand is concentrated in the same small number of places. Delaware had 1,059,952 residents on July 1, 2025, 7.1% more than at the April 2020 estimates base [1], yet Sussex County alone accounted for 56.8% of the residents added in that time [2]. Wilmington is the only Delaware place above 50,000 residents [3], and New Castle County, which contains it, is the Delaware part of the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington metro, holding 9.3% of that metro's residents [4]. This page takes a Delaware file in the order a reviewer reads it: what the lender asks, the demand base, Wilmington and the USDA rural test, the metro, the statutes for each property type, two illustrative models that carry the receipts tax and the transfer taxes through DSCR, and the offices and documents the file depends on. It quotes no county or municipal property tax rate, because a rate is specific to a levy year and a taxing district, and the study takes it from those offices for the year it models.

What does a Delaware lender want to see in a feasibility study?

A Delaware lender wants the gross receipts tax shown as its own line: the Division category the borrower files under, the rate and exclusion of that category, and a projection that treats the tax as the operator's expense rather than a charge passed to customers. The general standards that bank examiners, SBA and USDA apply to any study are collected in FSC's guide to lender feasibility study requirements, and the qualities that let a credit committee rely on one are described in what makes a feasibility study bankable. The questions below are the ones Delaware adds.

Federally, a USDA Business and Industry guarantee above $1,000,000 to a new business requires a study by an independent qualified consultant [12], and SBA may request one when it is needed [13].

A Delaware credit officer then works through the file roughly in this order.

The category comes first. The Division states that business and occupational gross receipts rates run from .0945% to 1.9914% depending on the activity [15], so two businesses with the same revenue can owe very different amounts. A retailer pays 0.7468% of aggregate gross receipts after a $100,000 monthly deduction, and a restaurant retailer pays 0.6472% after the same deduction [19]. The Division's rate list puts commercial lessors at 0.3983% with a $100,000 exclusion and manufacturers at 0.1260% with a $1,250,000 exclusion [17]. A food plant is not a manufacturer for this tax: the statute counts every bakery, poultry processing and cannery business as a food processor, which pays 0.1991% after a $100,000 monthly deduction [19][17]. A wrong category is a wrong rate in every month of a projection, so the reviewer checks the license before the arithmetic.

The base is revenue, not margin. The tax reaches gross receipts with no deduction for cost of goods sold, labor costs or interest expense [15]. A grocer working on a thin margin and a consultant working on a wide one pay their category rates on the same kind of base. A Delaware study therefore reports the tax as a share of cash flow as well as a share of sales, because the first ratio is the one that moves DSCR.

The exclusion is a fixed dollar amount. Exclusions generally begin at $100,000 a month and can reach $1,250,000 [16]. Because the allowance does not grow with the business, the tax grows faster than receipts as sales rise and falls faster than receipts in a weak month. A retailer whose taxable receipts in the lookback period did not exceed $1,500,000 may file quarterly with a $300,000 quarterly deduction, and that threshold is adjusted each year [19]. A seasonal operator who files quarterly sets one allowance against a whole quarter's sales, so the study states which filing pattern it assumes.

Pass-through taxes stay out of revenue. The 8% lodging tax is collected from the guest and remitted to the Division [17], so a hotel study books room revenue net of it. A municipal tax on short-term rentals is collected and remitted to the municipality, separately from the State's 4.5% tax [18][21], and the study confirms with each town whether one applies.

The county roll sets the tax base. All assessable property is assessed at fair market value as of the date of the county's most recent reassessment base year, and every county must reassess at least once every 5 years [23]. A projection that multiplies a current market value by a county rate overstates the tax on a base-year roll; one that ignores the next reassessment can understate it. The appeal calendar is fixed in the statute: in New Castle County an appeal is filed in writing with the Board of Assessment Review before March 15, and the Kent and Sussex boards hear appeals from March 1 to May 31 [23].

Acquisition and construction costs carry State tax. The realty transfer tax and the 2% rate on section 5401(9) construction documents [22] belong in sources and uses, not in operations. Illustrative model B below shows what they do to the loan, the equity and DSCR.

Incentives count only once awarded. Applications to the Delaware Strategic Fund go before the Council on Development Finance [26], EDGE grants are matched $3 of State money to $1 of the business's own [27], and the investment and employment credit requires a qualified investment of at least $200,000 [24]. None of these is in hand when a study is written, so each appears as a sensitivity beside a base case that leaves it out.

One SBA office covers the state. SBA's Delaware District Office serves the whole state and all three counties [14].

Table 1 lists the Division categories that recur in the property types this page covers.

Table 1. Delaware gross receipts categories used in this page

Source: Delaware Code Title 30, chapter 29, sections 2901, 2902, 2903, 2905 and 2906 [19]; Division of Revenue, Detailed List of Licenses and Tax Rates, with the list's decimal rates (for example 0.006472) shown as percentages [17].

How large is Delaware's demand base, and what does each figure do in a study?

Delaware's demand base is 1,059,952 residents living in 422,123 households, a population 7.1% larger than at the April 2020 estimates base [1][7]. The state added 70,002 residents between that base and July 1, 2025 [1]. Table 2 sets out the statewide measures and the use each one has in a Delaware study.

Table 2. Delaware demand indicators and their use in a study

Source: Census Bureau: Vintage 2025 state totals [1]; state population by single year of age [5]; 2025 state annual building permits [9]; ACS 2025 1-year tables B19013, B25003 and B25064 [6][7][8]. The change since 2020, the rent-to-income share and the permit shares are FSC calculations from those files.

Table 3 divides each year's change into net domestic migration, net international migration and the remainder, which holds births less deaths together with the residual in the Census Bureau's estimates.

Table 3. Components of Delaware population change by year

Source: Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 state totals [1]. The remainder column and the five-year row are FSC calculations from that file.

Delaware grows only because people move there. In every one of the five years the remainder was below zero, and across the five years it subtracted 2,538 residents, while net migration from other states added 50,977 and net migration from abroad added 19,623 [1]. Domestic arrivals supplied 74.9% of the five-year gain [1]. The five yearly rows sum to 68,062; the other 1,940 residents of the 70,002 were added between the April 2020 base and July 2020 [1].

The domestic inflow has slowed every year. It was 13,680 in the year to July 2021 and 6,855 in the year to July 2025, about half the earlier level [1]. International arrivals rose to 6,799 in the year to July 2024 and then fell to 3,473 [1]. Total growth fell from 14,769 to 9,829 in the latest year, a drop of a third [1]. A Delaware study that projects population-driven demand is therefore projecting continued arrivals from other states at some rate, and it should say which rate. A lease-up or enrollment ramp built on the 2022 or 2023 pace assumes the inflow recovers; a study that shows a downside year like the latest one is easier for a lender to accept.

Age reinforces the point. On July 1, 2025, 22.8% of Delawareans were 65 or older [5], and the remainder column, where births less deaths sit, was negative in all five years [1]. For care, age-restricted housing and medical office, that is a large statewide frame; for schools, child care and starter apartments, it means new demand depends on who moves in. Neither statewide figure replaces a count of the right ages inside the project's own drive time.

The 2025 permit file shows a state still building houses rather than apartments. Of 6,468 units authorized, 5,422, or 83.8%, were single-family homes, and 876, or 13.5%, were in buildings of five or more units [9]. Those 876 apartment units equal 0.8% of the 106,854 renter-occupied units already standing [9][7]. Statewide, new multifamily supply is thin against the existing stock, which tells a study nothing about a particular corridor; the pipeline count for an apartment or storage project comes from the approvals of the county and town in its market area. The single-family pace matters for the other side of the market: new rooftops are the demand base for neighborhood retail, fuel, self-storage and child care.

Delaware's median household earned $92,520 in 2025 and the median gross rent was $1,614 a month [6][8]. Twelve months of that rent equal 20.9% of that income [6][8]. A ratio of two medians is a screen rather than an affordability finding, but it catches a common error: a projection that borrows a metro rent for a Delaware site and an income from a different geography. Only one occupied home in four was rented, a 25.3% renter share [7], against 33.2% in the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington metro [7], so an apartment study in Delaware draws on a smaller renter pool per household than a study that borrowed the metro's share would assume.

The county is where the statewide numbers stop being useful. Table 4 sets the three counties side by side.

Table 4. Delaware's three counties, 2020 to 2025

Source: Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 county totals [2] and state totals [1]. Changes and shares are FSC calculations from those files.

The three counties tell three different demand stories. New Castle County holds 55.5% of Delaware's residents but produced 24.7% of the gain since 2020 [2][1]; a study there argues for capture of an established base, not for a rising tide. Sussex County holds 26.1% of residents and produced 56.8% of the gain, and 60.1% of the latest year's [2][1]. A Sussex study can cite growth, but it also has to show that its own trade area is where the growth is landing and that the supply pipeline has not already absorbed it. Kent County sits between them, with a share of growth close to its share of population [2][1].

The county matters twice in Delaware. It is the unit that separates one demand story from another, and it is also the body that assesses property on its own reassessment base year and hears appeals on its own calendar [23]. A Delaware study names the county before it projects anything, because the county decides both the growth assumption and the tax line.

County Business Patterns, the Census Bureau's annual count of business locations, gives a first look at the supply side. Table 5 lists the 2023 Delaware counts for the industries behind FSC's property pages, each beside the Delaware rule that shapes it.

Table 5. Delaware establishments by industry, 2023, and the State rule that shapes each

Source: Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023 state file [10]; rules from Title 30 chapters 29 and 62 [19][21], the Division of Revenue rate list [17], Title 4 chapter 5 [30], the Division of Small Business [26], Title 7 chapter 74 [31], Title 25 chapter 49 [40] and Title 16 chapter 11 [42].

These counts measure locations, not capacity. That 56 self-storage lessors operated in 2023 [10] says nothing about their square footage or occupancy, and 12 RV parks and campgrounds [10] says nothing about site counts or seasons; the study takes capacity from its own survey of the trade area. What the counts do show is the field a new entrant joins. Delaware had 2,230 food service and drinking places against 185 hotels and motels in 2023, about 12 for every hotel [10], so a restaurant study names many direct competitors while a hotel study can examine each competitor individually.

Which Delaware places pass 50,000 residents, and where does the USDA rural line fall?

One place does: Wilmington city, with 73,512 residents on July 1, 2025, 3.7% more than its April 2020 estimates base of 70,916 [3]. Every other Delaware place is below 50,000 residents [3], so for any site outside Wilmington the study builds its market area from county figures and its own field count rather than from a place row in the Census list.

Table 6. Wilmington city against its county and the state

Source: Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 subcounty estimates [3], county totals [2] and state totals [1]. Changes and shares are FSC calculations from those files.

Wilmington grew a little faster than its county, 3.7% against 3.0%, and it supplied 15.0% of New Castle County's gain while holding 12.5% of its residents [3][2]. For a study in the city, that is evidence that the core is holding its own inside a slow-growing county. It is not evidence for any particular block, and a Wilmington study still builds its trade area from the streets and competitors around the site.

For USDA business programs, 7 CFR 5001.3 treats as rural any area outside a city or town of more than 50,000 inhabitants and outside the urbanized area contiguous and adjacent to one [11]. The rule counts population with the latest decennial census, not with yearly estimates like those in Table 6 [11]. Excluded fringe areas appear on the Rural Development Property Eligibility Map, an applicant in doubt asks the Rural Development State Office for a determination, and no application is approved subject to meeting the test later [11]. This page makes no eligibility finding for any Delaware site.

What does the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington metro mean for a Delaware study?

For a Delaware study it means New Castle County: the county's 588,026 residents are 9.3% of the metro's 6,329,118, and the metro's other 10 counties lie outside Delaware [4]. Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington is the only metro of more than a quarter of a million residents with a county in Delaware [4], so Kent and Sussex counties are studied on their own county and town evidence, not through a large metro's figures.

Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD

Table 7 sets the metro beside New Castle County and the state. The Census metro file gives the county's population but not its migration, income or tenure, so those cells are marked as not given rather than filled from another geography.

Table 7. The Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington metro, New Castle County and Delaware

Source: Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 metro file [4], county totals [2] and state totals [1]; ACS 2025 1-year tables B19013, B25003 and B25064, metro and state rows [6][7][8]. Changes, the renter shares and the rent-to-income shares are FSC calculations from those files.

New Castle County is growing faster than the metro around it. Its population rose 3.0% from the 2020 base against 1.3% for the metro, and in the latest year it added 2,012 of the metro's 15,960 new residents, 12.6% of the gain from a county with 9.3% of the people [2][4]. A study for a New Castle County site can describe the county as a relative gainer inside a slow-growing metro, a claim that needs both figures to stand.

The metro and Delaware grow by different routes. In the year to July 2025 the metro lost 9,736 residents to other parts of the country and gained 18,116 from abroad, while Delaware as a whole gained 6,855 from other states and 3,473 from abroad [4][1]. A New Castle County study should not borrow the metro's international-migration story, nor assume the county shares the state's domestic one; it takes the county's own components from the Census county file before relying on either pattern.

Incomes and rents in the metro sit close to the state's. The metro's median household income was $95,683 against Delaware's $92,520, and its median gross rent $1,638 against $1,614 [6][8]; a year's rent took 20.5% of median income in the metro and 20.9% statewide [6][8]. Tenure is where they part: 33.2% of the metro's occupied homes are rented, against 25.3% in Delaware [7]. An apartment study for Wilmington or its suburbs takes its renter share from the county or the tracts around the site, not from the metro.

Several Delaware rules apply only to New Castle County, and each one bears on a study's tax line. An assessment appeal there is filed in writing with the Board of Assessment Review before March 15 [23], earlier in the year than the March 1 to May 31 hearing window the Kent and Sussex boards keep [23]. The county's Office of Finance may prepare quarterly supplemental rolls to add property missing from the last assessment or to raise assessed values [23], and building inspectors in the county's cities and towns must report permits for new buildings and improvements to that office once a certificate of occupancy has issued [23]. A new New Castle County building can therefore reach the tax roll soon after it opens, and the study starts the property tax line at completion rather than at the next annual roll.

What the metro position means for each active property type in New Castle County:

• Multifamily and mixed-use. The metro's higher renter share does not transfer to the county, and the State's lease rules (Table 11) apply the same way in Wilmington as anywhere in Delaware. A mixed-use project files under more than one Division category, for example commercial lessor for its shop space at 0.3983% above a $100,000 exclusion [17] and restaurant retailer for an owner-run café, so its tax line is a sum of category calculations.
• Hotels. New Castle County hotels charge the same 8% lodging tax as hotels anywhere in Delaware, and 1 of those 8 points goes to county convention and visitors bureaus [20]. The county sits in a metro of more than six million people [4], so a hotel's competitive set can include properties outside Delaware; the tax a guest pays in a Delaware hotel is still Delaware's.
• Retail and restaurants. A store or restaurant in the county sits in a metro that spans four states, yet it pays Delaware's receipts tax rather than collecting a sales tax [15]. The study prices its menu or shelf without sales tax and books the receipts tax as an expense.
• Industrial, distribution and data centers. A distribution center's wholesaler tax reaches receipts from goods physically delivered in Delaware [19], so a facility that ships mainly out of state pays on a smaller base than its total sales. A large-scale data center, defined as 100 megawatts or more, cannot be shielded by a county nondisclosure agreement [45], and the Title 22 data center chapter carries the same prohibition for municipalities [46], so a New Castle County site search cannot count on confidentiality from the county.
• Self-storage. The lien sale is advertised in a newspaper in the county or on a qualifying public auction website [40], and the study's collections model follows that calendar.
• Care and medical office. A medical office building is outside Certificate of Public Review [41], so its schedule carries no review step; a nursing home or freestanding surgical center is on the reviewed facility list [41].

This page cites no New Castle County or Wilmington market report. A study in the county gathers the county's permit and assessment records and the city's approvals directly, and it states the date of each.

Which Delaware statutes change the study for each property type?

Title 30's tax chapters change nearly every property type, and each family then meets a chapter of its own: Title 4 for alcohol, Title 7 for fuel tanks and subaqueous lands, Title 25 for housing and storage, Title 16 for care, Title 14 for charter schools, and Title 9 with Title 22 for large data centers. The sections below take the families in turn and name, for each, the rule that moves its projection and the document that proves the rule was applied.

Lodging: 8% on rooms, 4.5% on homes, and a five-month line

A Delaware lodging study first sorts its room nights into the three kinds of stay the Code taxes differently. A room in a hotel, motel or tourist home carries an excise of 8% of the rent [20]. The statute calls a business a hotel when it offers sleeping accommodations and meals and has at least 6 permanent bedrooms for guests, and a tourist home when it has at least 5 permanent bedrooms for tourists or transient guests and no cooking facilities for them [20]. A residential dwelling unit rented to a tourist or transient guest for no more than 31 consecutive nights is a short-term rental and carries 4.5% instead [21]. The bedroom count and the kitchen therefore decide the rate, and a study describes the property in the statute's own terms before it applies one.

The third kind of stay is the long one. A person who has occupied, or has the right to occupy, a room for at least 5 consecutive months is a permanent resident and is outside the definition of an occupant [20]. For an extended-stay hotel, that line splits the guest list: nights sold to permanent residents are priced without the 8% tax, and the study keeps those nights in a separate segment with its own rate and length-of-stay assumptions [20].

Collection is what matters for DSCR. The Division states that the 8% tax is collected from the guest and remitted to it [17], so a Delaware hotel study books room revenue net of the tax and shows the tax only as money passing through. A projection that took total guest payments as revenue would overstate room revenue by the full tax; at an assumed nightly rate of $180, that is $14.40 a night [20]. The same discipline applies to short-term rentals, where any municipal tax is collected and remitted to the municipality, separately from the State's 4.5% [18][21].

The two State taxes are divided differently. Of the 8%, 5 points go to the General Fund, 1 to the Beach Preservation Program, 1 to county convention and visitors bureaus and 1 to the Delaware Tourism Office [20]. The short-term rental tax goes 62.5% to the General Fund and 12.5% each to the Beach Preservation Fund, the county bureaus and the Tourism Office [21]. The split does not change a projection, but it identifies the public bodies whose visitor programs the tax pays for, and the county bureaus are where a study looks first for visitor evidence in its own county.

Short-term rentals carry details of their own. The Division applies the tax to agreements entered into on or after January 1, 2025 [18]. A casual and isolated rental is excluded when it meets several conditions, one of them being use as a rental for no more than 10 nights in a calendar year [21]. Campsites, cabins and similar facilities in campgrounds are outside the short-term rental definition [21], and an accommodations intermediary must hold a Delaware business license, which costs $25 [18]. A study of a rental home portfolio therefore states, home by home, whether each unit is taxable, which platform collects the tax, and whether the town adds its own.

Table 8. Delaware lodging taxes and the stays they reach

Source: Delaware Code Title 30, chapter 61, sections 6101 and 6102 [20]; Title 30, chapter 62, sections 6201 and 6202 [21]; Division of Revenue rate list [17] and Short-Term Rental FAQs [18].

Supply is visible in the business count: 185 hotels and motels, casino hotels excluded, operated in Delaware in 2023 [10]. That is few enough for a study to examine each competitor in its market area by name, rate and room count, and a statewide occupancy figure would add little to that.

Food and beverage: a receipts tax on every sale and distance rules on some licenses

A Delaware restaurant prices its menu without a sales tax, because neither the State nor any locality imposes one [15], and it pays its own tax instead: 0.6472% of aggregate gross receipts as a restaurant retailer, after a deduction of $100,000 a month [19]. Food cost, payroll and rent do not reduce that base [15]. At assumed sales of $250,000 a month, the tax is $970.80 a month and $11,649.60 a year [19]; at $100,000 a month or less it is zero [19]. A restaurant study shows the tax beside food and labor cost, because it behaves like them: it rises with every cover sold.

The liquor license is where location decides the projection. The Commissioner may refuse a license on finding that the locality already has sufficient licensed premises, but that ground does not apply to restaurants [30]. A beer garden, taproom or tavern is refused when a similar establishment already operates within 1200 feet by accessible public road in an incorporated city or town, with a longer distance in rural areas [30]. An off-premises store is refused when a similar licensed establishment sits within a ½ mile by road in an incorporated city or town, or within 3 miles outside one, subject to exceptions [30]. An applicant who already holds, or has an interest in, 2 or more package store licenses is refused a license, apart from holders from before April 1, 1992 [30].

These rules sort concepts into two groups. A restaurant study tests the market for food and drink but faces no finding on whether the locality has enough licensed premises [30]. A taproom, tavern or package store study starts with a map of similar licensed premises measured by road distance, and it projects no alcohol revenue until the site passes that screen.

The craft production licenses set hard ceilings on volume and on carry-out. A brewery-pub may brew no more than 4,000 barrels of beer in a calendar year and operate no more than 3 licensed establishments [29], and it must be on the premises of, or physically part of, a restaurant [29]. A craft distillery may make and sell no more than 750,000 proof gallons of spirits a year [29], and its off-premises sales are limited to 1 case (12 750-milliliter bottles) per retail customer per day [29]. A microbrewery's off-premises sales are limited to 5 cases per retail customer per day [29]. A restaurant that sells alcohol for off-premises consumption must sell it with food costing at least $10 [29].

Each ceiling becomes a line in the projection. A brewery-pub study is a restaurant study first, because the license requires the restaurant, so its revenue carries the restaurant retailer rate and its growth plan stops at three locations. A distillery tasting room's bottle sales are a function of visitors, not of demand per visitor above one case. A carry-out alcohol program at a restaurant rides on food tickets of at least $10, which ties its volume to the food business [29].

Table 9. Title 4 limits that shape a Delaware food and beverage study

Source: Delaware Code Title 4, chapter 5, sections 512, 512B, 512C and 512E [29] and sections 543 and 546 [30].

Delaware had 2,230 food service and drinking places in 2023 [10]. In a field that size the study's competitive set is local and specific, and it records for each competitor whether it holds a license that the distance rules would count.

Fuel and auto: the tank file and the petroleum rate

A Delaware fuel study carries two State records that a lender reads closely: the underground storage tank file and the gross receipts category. On the tank side, owners at petroleum marketing facilities must show financial responsibility of at least $1,000,000 per occurrence, against $500,000 for other tank systems [31], and annual aggregate coverage of at least $1,000,000 for owners of 1 to 100 tank systems or $2,000,000 for owners of more [31]. Each tank pays a registration fee of $150 a year due February 1, with a $50 late charge [31], so a station with four tanks pays $600 a year [31].

DNREC adds the operating requirements. Underground tanks over 110 gallons that store petroleum or hazardous substances must be registered with the State and pay an annual fee [32]; the compliance program inspects tank facilities every three years [32]; and every facility must have a certified operator, in Class A, B and C roles [32]. In a projection these become the cost of demonstrating the required financial responsibility, a training and staffing cost for the certified operators, and an inspection date on the compliance calendar.

Two public funds sit behind the tanks, and neither replaces the owner's own coverage. The Delaware Underground Petroleum Storage Tank Response Fund may pay corrective action costs above the owner's minimum financial responsibility, up to $1,000,000 per occurrence per facility [31]. DNREC's Storage Tank Assistance Fund is used where the owner cannot be identified, has abandoned the property or has shown it cannot pay [33]. The first fund begins where the owner's required coverage ends, and the second presumes an owner who has already failed, so a study keeps the full coverage cost in its expenses.

On the revenue side, the Division states that petroleum products carry a variable gross receipts rate that may be as high as 2.4218% [15]. Because the rate varies, the study takes the rate for the operator's actual license from the Division rather than assuming the ceiling, and it applies the retailer rate of 0.7468% after the $100,000 monthly deduction [19] to the convenience store's merchandise if the store files as a retailer. A parking lot or garage operator, the category for a stand-alone parking facility, is listed at 0.3983% with a $100,000 exclusion [17].

Table 10. Delaware underground storage tank rules in a fuel study

Source: Delaware Code Title 7, chapter 74, sections 7409, 7410 and 7418 [31]; DNREC, Underground Storage Tanks [32] and Tank Financing Options [33].

Delaware had 212 gasoline stations with convenience stores and 55 car washes in 2023 [10], a statewide count that says nothing about the gap a new site would fill, so the study counts the competitors inside its own trade area.

Housing: deposit caps, 60-day notices and a rent formula for manufactured home communities

Delaware's apartment rules govern timing more than price. For a rental agreement of 1 year or more, a landlord may not require a security deposit above 1 month's rent, though furnished units are outside that limit [34], and a deposit the landlord is not entitled to keep must be returned within 20 days after the agreement ends [34]. An application fee may not exceed the greater of 10 percent of the monthly rent or $50 [34]; at the statewide median gross rent of $1,614, that ceiling is $161.40 [34][8].

Notice periods set how fast a rent roll can change. Either party may end a month-to-month tenancy with at least 60 days' written notice [35], and a landlord renewing an agreement with a changed rent or deposit must give at least 60 days' written notice before the agreement expires [35]. A rent increase on an in-place Delaware lease therefore reaches the rent roll at renewal and no sooner than 60 days after notice [35]. A study that marks in-place leases to market faster than that is assuming something the statute does not allow.

The State's housing pipeline is mostly single-family. In 2025, 876 units were authorized in buildings of five or more units, against 5,422 single-family units [9], and the renter share was 25.3% [7]. A Delaware apartment project therefore competes with a large new-home market for the same households, and its study's absorption case is strongest where it shows renters the single-family pipeline does not reach.

Manufactured home communities have a rent law of their own. A community owner gives written notice of a lot rent increase at least 90 days and no more than 120 days before it is due, and may raise rent once in any 12 months [36]. Under section 7052A an owner may increase lot rent based on the CPI-U or on market rent, and section 7052B allows further increases for certain expenses [36]. A security deposit is capped at 1 month's rent unless the tenant agrees to more and the amount is in the rental agreement [37]. An owner who changes the community's use in good faith must give affected tenants at least a 1-year termination or nonrenewal notice [38], and an owner who decides to sell must negotiate in good faith with the homeowner association for a sale to it [39]. The Division's rate list adds a trailer park license fee of $10 for each space [17].

For a manufactured housing community study, the rent line follows the statute's path rather than a market survey alone: one increase a year, noticed 90 to 120 days ahead, justified under section 7052A or 7052B [36]. For an acquisition, the homeowner association's negotiation right enters the timetable before closing, and any plan to change the land's use starts with a year's notice to the residents it affects.

Table 11. Delaware landlord and tenant rules in a housing projection

Source: Delaware Code Title 25, chapter 55, section 5514 [34]; chapter 51, sections 5106 and 5107 [35]; chapter 70, sections 7051 and 7052A [36], 7017 [37], 7024 [38] and 7026 [39].

Storage: two 30-day periods and a 60-day towing rule

A Delaware self-storage study models delinquency on the chapter 49 calendar. The owner's lien notice must demand payment within a period of at least 30 days after delivery of the notice [40]. The sale must be advertised once a week for 2 consecutive weeks in a newspaper in the county or on a qualifying public auction website [40], and it may not take place sooner than 30 days after the first advertisement [40]. A motor vehicle, trailer or watercraft in default for 60 consecutive days may be towed under the statute's notice conditions [40], and the sale itself requires no license, being incidental to the storage business [40].

The statute therefore sets two waiting periods of at least 30 days each, one after the notice and one after the first advertisement [40]. The study's bad-debt and unit-recovery assumptions follow the sequence the operator actually uses, not the shortest reading of the text, and they keep a delinquent unit out of rentable inventory until the sale. For a project that rents vehicle, trailer or boat spaces, the 60-day towing threshold [40] is the comparable clock, and the study shows it separately from the unit calendar.

Delaware had 56 lessors of miniwarehouses and self-storage units and 97 warehousing and storage establishments in 2023 [10], and 106,854 renter-occupied homes in 2025 [7]. A storage study converts those counts into square feet and occupancy through its own survey; the State and Census figures frame the market but do not measure it.

Care: a $5.8 million review line and an administrator in every licensed facility

In Delaware, a health facility's capital plan meets the Certificate of Public Review before it meets a lender. A certificate is required for a capital expenditure by or for a health-care facility above $5.8 million, or a greater amount the Board sets after its annual inflation adjustment [41], and for a bed increase of more than 10 beds or 10 percent of licensed capacity, whichever is less, over 2 years [41]. The statute's facility definition covers hospitals, nursing homes and freestanding birthing, surgical, emergency and rehabilitation centers, and it excludes physician offices [41]. A capital expenditure to construct or establish a medical office building is not subject to review [41].

A certificate is valid for 1 year, with a possible 6-month extension [41], so the study's construction and financing timeline begins after approval and closes within that window. The bed rule shapes phasing: an expansion that stays at or below 10 beds or 10 percent over 2 years is outside review, and a study that proposes more shows the certificate as a gating item [41]. Section 9304 also has a second version, effective July 1, 2028, that drops the acute care hospital bar in its subsection (b) [41]; a study whose timeline crosses that date says which version it applies.

Licensing is the second layer. A long-term care facility must be licensed by the State and renewed every year, and operating without a license can draw a civil penalty of up to $10,000 per violation [42]. A nursing facility, assisted living facility or rest residential facility must operate under the direction of a person licensed as a nursing home administrator [42], which puts a licensed administrator's cost into every assisted living budget. The Code defines assisted living as housing, services and personalized assistance for medically stable adults who do not need skilled nursing [42], and caps license fees at $150 plus $250 for facilities under 100 units or $400 for those with 100 or more [42].

The demographic frame is broad. In 2025, 22.8% of Delaware residents were 65 or older [5], and the 2023 business count found 17 assisted living facilities for the elderly [10]. A count of locations is not a count of units or licensed beds, so a senior housing study takes capacity from the facilities themselves and measures demand inside its own market area by age and income.

Table 12. Delaware review and licensing rules for care projects

Source: Delaware Code Title 16, chapter 93, sections 9302, 9304 and 9307 [41]; Title 16, chapter 11, sections 1102, 1103 and 1106 [42].

This page draws no conclusion about whether a particular assisted living project needs a certificate; the study confirms each project's status with the Board in writing and keeps that letter in the file.

Education: four-year charters, a winter filing window and district space

A Delaware charter school study is timed by its charter. An initial charter runs 4 school years and is renewable every 5 school years, and it is granted by a public school district or the Department of Education with the approval of the State Board [43]. New applications are filed between November 1 and December 31 for schools that open on or after the second August 1 after filing [43], so an application filed in the window that closes on December 31, 2026 is for a school opening no earlier than August 1, 2028 [43]. The study's enrollment ramp, staffing plan and facility schedule start from that date, and a lender sees more than eighteen months between filing and the first day of classes.

A first term of 4 school years is short against the life of a building loan, so a lender financing a facility looks at renewal at year four, and the study carries enrollment and finances through at least the first renewal decision. Growth has a ceiling too: a request to raise authorized enrollment by more than 15% is a major modification [43], so a study that projects enrollment beyond the authorized number shows the approval it depends on.

Delaware gives charters two facility routes. A school district must make unused buildings or space available to a charter school and bargain in good faith over the cost [43], and charter schools have the same access to conduit bond financing as any other nonprofit organization [43]. A study compares the cost and timing of district space with a purpose-built or bond-financed building before it sizes any debt.

Demand in Delaware comes from migration rather than natural increase [1], so a charter study counts the school-age children in its own attendance area and the households moving into it, rather than assuming that births alone will fill entering grades.

Recreation: subaqueous lands and the campground line

Delaware's recreation statutes are written for the water's edge. No person may build, modify, repair or occupy a structure on submerged lands or tidelands without a permit, lease or letter of approval from DNREC [44], and the Secretary has jurisdiction over projects on ungranted subaqueous lands owned by the State, with power to convey interests or grant easements [44]. A general permit covers small residential docking structures of no more than 300 square feet at a private residence [44], so a commercial marina is outside it and goes through the full permit or lease. All costs of the proceedings are assessed against the applicant, and the Secretary may require a deposit [44].

For a marina study, those rules belong in two places. The schedule carries the permit or lease proceeding as a step before construction, and the budget carries its costs. Where a structure sits on State-owned subaqueous land, the interest the Secretary conveys is part of the site control a lender reviews, alongside the upland title.

Campgrounds sit outside the short-term rental tax: campsites, cabins and similar campground facilities are excluded from the chapter 62 definition [21]. Whether the 8% lodging tax reaches a particular campground structure depends on the chapter 61 definitions of hotel, motel and tourist home [20], and the study applies those definitions to the structures actually built. Delaware had 12 RV parks and campgrounds in 2023 [10], few enough for a study to survey the whole field.

Industrial and data center: a low manufacturer rate, a jobs credit and open records

Delaware's manufacturer category carries the lowest receipts rate in this page: 0.1260% of gross receipts above a $1,250,000 monthly exclusion [17]. A plant with receipts of $1,000,000 a month owes nothing under that category, while the same receipts in the retailer category would owe $80,654.40 a year [17][19]. A plant with $2,000,000 a month owes $11,340.00 a year as a manufacturer [17]. A food plant does not get that rate. Section 2901 makes every person processing food for resale, and every bakery, poultry processing or cannery business, a food processor, and section 2903 taxes a food processor at 0.1991% of the gross receipts from goods it sells within the State after a $100,000 monthly deduction [19]. The same $2,000,000 a month of in-State sales costs a food processor $45,394.80 a year [19][17]. For an industrial study, the category is therefore the largest State tax decision in the projection, and the study takes it from the license the operator holds or will hold.

Distribution follows a different rule. A wholesaler pays 0.3983% on aggregate gross receipts from goods physically delivered in Delaware [19], so a regional distribution center separates in-state deliveries from out-of-state ones before it applies the rate. The Division lists contractors and developers at the same 0.006472 rate, with monthly returns [17], which reaches the construction and for-sale sides of an industrial park.

The State's development programs reach industrial sites directly. The Site Readiness Fund invests in the development or improvement of commercial and industrial sites, and the Delaware Strategic Fund supports retention and expansion through grants and low-interest loans, with applications going before the Council on Development Finance [26]. The investment and employment credit against corporation income tax requires a qualified investment of at least $200,000 in a qualified facility and 5 or more qualified employees [24], and its amount includes $500 multiplied by the greater of two employee-count differences, for the year of qualification and the 9 following years [24]. The credit reduces income tax, not operating expense, so it reaches after-tax cash flow rather than the net operating income behind DSCR.

Municipal tax increment financing is available for industrial, commercial or residential areas [25]. Before a municipality issues tax increment bonds it must designate a TIF District by resolution and obtain an assessor's certification of the district's original assessed value [25]. A study counts tax increment support only after both steps, and it shows the original assessed value as the baseline the increment is measured from.

Delaware has written a data center statute. A large-scale data center is one that uses, or is able to use, 100 megawatts of power or more [45], and a county may not enter a nondisclosure agreement that restricts it from disclosing information about potential or actual large-scale data center development [45]. Title 22 chapter 21, also titled Data Centers, carries a section headed Nondisclosure agreements prohibited [46]. A data center study in Delaware therefore cannot plan on a confidentiality agreement with the county or municipality, and it builds the approval timeline on the assumption that the project can be disclosed.

Delaware had 97 warehousing and storage establishments in 2023 [10]. Table 13 gathers the incentive programs a Delaware industrial or commercial study meets and the way each is treated in DSCR.

Table 13. Delaware incentives and development rules and their treatment in a study

Source: Division of Small Business, Incentives & Credits [26], EDGE Grant Competition [27] and Delaware Opportunity Zones [28]; Delaware Code Title 30, chapter 20, section 2011 [24]; Title 22, chapter 17, sections 1703 and 1706 [25]; Title 9, chapter 4 [45]; Title 22, chapter 21 [46].

The Division of Small Business states that Delaware conforms to the federal Opportunity Zone program [28]. The dates it gives matter to a study's equity section: deferral for OZ 1.0 investments ends December 31, 2026, and Opportunity Zones 2.0 provisions take effect January 1, 2027 [28]. A study prepared now states which regime its investor assumes and leaves the tax benefit out of the operating projection.

How do Delaware's receipts and transfer taxes move DSCR?

They move it in two different places. The gross receipts tax lowers net operating income every month in proportion to sales above the exclusion, so it acts directly on DSCR; the realty transfer tax and the construction document rate raise the cost of the project, so they act on the loan amount or the equity, and only through the loan on DSCR. A Delaware study keeps the two apart, and Table 14 lists the capital-side and county rules that sit beside the receipts tax.

Table 14. Delaware transfer tax and county assessment rules in a study

Source: Delaware Code Title 30, chapter 54, section 5402 [22]; Title 9, chapter 83, sections 8306, 8311, 8321 and 8338 [23].

The county rules explain why this page states no property tax rate. Because each county assesses at fair market value as of its own reassessment base year [23], an assessed value is a statement about the base year's market, not the current one, and the bill is that value times the rate of each taxing district for the levy year. The study takes the base year, the assessed value of comparable property and each district's rate from the county and municipality, shows them with their dates, and marks the next reassessment, which the statute requires at least every 5 years [23], as the year the tax line can reset. Before an assessment is raised or a new one made, the owner receives 10 days' written notice [23], and a refund follows a successful appeal only when the overpayment reaches $50 [23]; neither is a forecast, and the study treats a pending appeal as a sensitivity.

Illustrative model A: one retail store with the receipts tax in, left out, and in a weak year. The model applies the retailer rate of 0.7468% to monthly gross receipts above the $100,000 monthly deduction [19], with no deduction for the cost of goods, labor or interest [15]. Its other inputs are FSC assumptions, listed under Table 15: the store's monthly receipts, its cash flow before the receipts tax, its annual debt service, and a weak year in which receipts fall by a tenth while variable costs, set at seven tenths of the lost receipts, fall with them. The middle column shows the same store as a template from a sales tax state would show it, with no receipts tax at all.

Table 15. Illustrative model A: a Delaware retail store's DSCR

Source: Delaware Code Title 30, chapter 29, section 2905 [19]; Division of Revenue, Step 4: Learn About Gross Receipts Taxes [15]. Assumptions (FSC model inputs, not market data): monthly receipts of $400,000, cash flow before the tax of $615,000, annual debt service of $480,000, a weak year with receipts 10% lower, and variable costs equal to 70% of the lost receipts. The tax, cash flow after tax, DSCR and shares are FSC arithmetic.

Leaving the receipts tax out overstates DSCR by 0.06 in the base year, from 1.225 to 1.281 before rounding [19]. That gap is the price of using a projection template from a state where the customer pays the tax at the register. The weak year shows why the line matters more than its size suggests. Receipts fall 10%, cash flow before tax falls 23.4% because the store's fixed costs stay put, and the receipts tax falls 13.3% [19]. The tax shrinks faster than sales because the $100,000 monthly deduction is fixed, but it shrinks much more slowly than cash flow, so its share of cash flow rises from 4.37% to 4.95% [19]. A tax on profit would have fallen with the profit; a tax on receipts does not, and DSCR drops to 0.93 [19]. A downside case that models the tax as a flat share of net operating income misses that behavior.

The same arithmetic applies to every category in Table 1 with its own rate and exclusion. A restaurant at the restaurant retailer rate, a landlord at the commercial lessor rate, a plant at the manufacturer rate and a food plant at the food processor rate each produce a different tax on the same receipts, and the study shows the category, the exclusion and the monthly or quarterly filing pattern behind its number.

Illustrative model B: a new building on purchased land, with the State's transfer taxes in the budget. The model applies the 3 percent State realty transfer tax, apportioned equally between grantor and grantee [22], and the 2% rate on a section 5401(9) construction document on amounts exceeding $10,000, borne by the building's owner [22]. It assumes a site where the full local realty transfer tax has not been enacted, so the State rate is 3 percent, and it assumes counsel has confirmed that the construction contract is a section 5401(9) document. The model applies the 2% to the part of the contract above $10,000; applying it to the whole contract would add $200 [22]. Its other inputs are FSC assumptions, listed under Table 16: the land price, the construction contract, other project costs, a loan of three quarters of cost, an annual debt constant and net operating income.

Table 16. Illustrative model B: a Delaware development budget and DSCR

Source: Delaware Code Title 30, chapter 54, section 5402 [22]. Assumptions (FSC model inputs, not market data): land price of $1,200,000, construction contract of $7,500,000, other project costs of $1,300,000, no full local transfer tax at the site, the section 5401(9) status of the contract, a 75% loan-to-cost ratio, a 7.8% annual debt constant and net operating income of $766,000. The taxes, totals, loan, equity, debt service and DSCR are FSC arithmetic.

The two Delaware lines add $167,800 to the project, 1.7% of the budget without them [22]. If the lender finances them at 75% of cost, DSCR moves from 1.31 to 1.29; if the sponsor pays them from equity, DSCR stays at 1.31 and equity rises by $167,800 to $2,667,800 [22]. These are budget and equity questions far more than coverage questions, which is the opposite of the receipts tax in model A. In this model, a budget that left the construction document rate out would pass on DSCR and fail on sources and uses, when the closing statement showed a cost the budget did not carry.

Where the full 1.5 percent local tax is in force, the State rate falls to 2.5 percent [22] and the local tax is added on top. The model leaves that case out because the local rate and the way the parties divide it come from the municipality or county for the site, and the study takes both from there.

Which FSC pages apply to a Delaware project?

FSC has no Delaware property pages and no model study located in Delaware, so a Delaware project starts from the national property pages and brings this page's State rules to them. The pages are grouped below by the Delaware rule that most changes each one.

• Receipts tax categories (Table 1). Retail, restaurant, brewery, mixed-use, car wash and wedding venue projects each file under one or more Division categories.
• The lodging taxes (Table 8). Hotel, glamping and RV park projects decide which stays the lodging taxes reach.
• The tank file (Table 10). Gas station and truck stop projects that store fuel underground.
• Lease and lot rent rules (Table 11). Multifamily, manufactured housing community and senior housing projects.
• The lien calendar. Self-storage and RV and boat storage projects.
• Certificate of Public Review and long-term care licensing (Table 12). Assisted living, skilled nursing, and medical office projects.
• Charter terms and migration-driven enrollment (Table 3). Charter school and daycare projects, whose demand depends on households moving in.
• Subaqueous lands. Marina projects.
• The manufacturer rate and the data center chapter (Table 13). Industrial, cold storage and data center projects.

For financing, FSC's pages on SBA loans, USDA loans and conventional loans describe each program, and SBA versus conventional feasibility studies explains why their files differ. A reviewer who wants to rerun a Delaware projection can use the DSCR and debt yield calculator with the receipts tax as its own expense line, the SBA DSCR calculator to compare current SBA policy versions, and the lender fit finder to place a project among the programs. The SBA feasibility study consultant and USDA feasibility study consultant pages describe the program-specific studies.

Who prepares a Delaware feasibility study, and how is it kept apart from an appraisal?

An independent consultant prepares the study, and in Delaware the boundary with appraisal deserves a careful look because the State defines appraisal broadly. Under Title 24, an appraisal is an analysis, opinion or conclusion about the nature, quality, value or utility of identified real estate, given as a valuation or as an analysis, and an analysis is a study of real estate other than estimating value [47]. The same definition states that a competitive market analysis is not an appraisal [47], and the chapter does not apply to a licensed broker or salesperson preparing a competitive market analysis used only to list a property for sale or lease [49]. No person may hold out as qualified to act as a real estate appraiser, or engage in appraising, without a certificate or license under the chapter [48].

A feasibility study answers a different question from a value opinion: whether a project's demand, operations and costs support its debt, reported as DSCR. Because Delaware's definition reaches analyses of identified real estate as well as valuations [47], a borrower agrees at engagement exactly what the work will and will not conclude. If the lender also needs a value, that comes from a separate appraisal by a licensee, and the two reports cite each other rather than overlap. FSC sets out the difference on feasibility study versus appraisal.

Delaware's Council on Real Estate Appraisers issues licensed, certified residential and certified general appraiser licenses, plus trainee licenses [50], and states that amended regulations on licensing, general appraisal practice and appraisal management companies took effect November 11, 2024 [50]. SBA's Delaware District Office serves the entire state, all three counties [14]. USDA rural determinations come from the Rural Development State Office that 7 CFR 5001.3 names [11].

Table 17. Who does what in a Delaware study file

Source: Delaware Code Title 24, chapter 40, sections 4002, 4007 and 4019 [47][48][49]; Division of Professional Regulation, Council on Real Estate Appraisers [50]; SBA Delaware District Office [14]; 7 CFR 5001.3 [11].

What documents belong in a Delaware study file?

A Delaware study file holds the documents that prove each State rule was applied to this project: the Division category and returns behind the receipts tax, the county assessment behind the property tax, and the license or permit behind each property type's limits. Table 18 lists them; FSC's general feasibility study document checklist covers the rest, and the SBA checklist generator and USDA checklist generator build program-specific lists.

Table 18. Delaware documents a study file should hold

Source: Division of Revenue rate list [17] and Short-Term Rental FAQs [18]; Delaware Code Title 30, chapters 29, 54, 61 and 62 [19][22][20][21]; Title 9, chapter 83 [23]; Title 4, chapter 5 [30]; Title 7, chapters 72 and 74 [44][31]; DNREC [32]; Title 16, chapters 11 and 93 [42][41]; Title 14, chapter 5 [43]; Title 25, chapters 49 and 70 [40][36]; Division of Small Business [26][27]; Title 30, chapter 20 [24].

Which Delaware factors set a study's cost and schedule?

The number of Division categories, the county and the approvals with their own clocks set the scope of a Delaware study. A single-category business on one parcel needs one receipts tax calculation and one county's assessment rules; a mixed-use project with shops, a restaurant and a hotel needs a calculation for each category and a lodging tax line besides. Each additional category adds a rate, an exclusion and a filing pattern to verify.

The county shapes the demand work. A Sussex County study must show where in a fast-growing county the growth is landing and how much supply is already approved there, while a New Castle County study argues capture inside a slow-growing metro, and both rest on county and town records that have to be gathered directly. Kent County studies sit between the two.

Approvals carry their own calendars, and a study that depends on one is scheduled around it: the Certificate of Public Review and its 1-year validity [41], the November 1 to December 31 charter application window [43], a subaqueous lands proceeding whose costs fall on the applicant [44], a liquor license that waits on a distance finding [30], and a large-scale data center whose county cannot agree to keep it confidential [45]. Incentive applications to the Council on Development Finance [26] add a further step when the borrower wants them shown in the file.

FSC's feasibility study cost guide for 2026 explains how scope translates into cost, and the feasibility study cost estimator produces a range for a specific project. FSC's cost page and the guides to feasibility versus market studies and feasibility studies versus business plans help a borrower decide which report the lender actually needs; the market versus feasibility decision tree walks through the same choice.