The Paycheck Protection Program has a problem. It will likely run out of money before May 31 deadline

Small businesses are realizing they might not have much time to tap the Paycheck Protection Program as they thought.

That’s because the money is running out.

Lawmakers overwhelmingly supported extending the PPP last month, moving the deadline to May 31 from March 31. The program, which was established by the CARES Act last year to provide small businesses with loans that are forgivable if mostly spent on payroll, reopened in January for a second round with more than $284 billion in funding.

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The American Rescue Plan passed in March appropriated an additional $7.25 billion to the PPP, bringing the total to nearly $292 billion.

As of April 5, the Small Business Administration, which oversees the program, has approved nearly 4 million PPP loans worth about $224 billion, according to the agency. That means about $68 billion is left.

The idea of money running out hadn’t been top of mind, at least in this round of the program, until just before the extension passed. In a March 24 hearing before the Senate Committee on Small Business Entrepreneurship, Patrick Kelley, associate administrator at SBA’s Office of Capital Access, noted that the PPP had about $79 billion left, which would be exhausted by mid-April if applications continued at a similar pace.