Building on the literature on individualistic culture and entrepreneurship, we use variation in a US county’s frontier experience (rugged individualism) as a proxy for local individualism to explain variation in SBA loan default rates. For every 10-year increase in frontier experience in a county (ranging from 0 to 63 years between 1790 and 1890), the hazard of default was 0.964 times lower, a small but economically meaningful effect. The effects are more salient for sole proprietors and robust to economic shocks from neighbouring shale boom counties and placebo tests. The results indicate that expanding the eligibility requirements for SBA loans to include individuals from US counties with individualistic cultures may be beneficial.