Despite moderate growth in the U.S. economy toward the end of last year, small businesses were more likely to face rejection by lenders in 2011, according to a study released today by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB).

For each of the past three years, close to the same number of small companies — between 1.6 million and 1.7 million businesses — were able to obtain credit from a financial institution. But small businesses made more tries at getting a loan or line of credit in 2011, meaning more got turned away. “Demand rose relatively substantially . . . but we didn’t see any net new people getting credit,” says William Dennis, NFIB senior research fellow.

Part of the reason, of course, is that some small businesses are still hurting financially. Last year lenders received more requests from small-business owners with shakier credit profiles than from those likely to pay back their loan on time.

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