Check a Florida merchant cash advance offer (2026)

A Florida merchant cash advance offer can be checked from six items the provider has to put in writing. The Florida Commercial Financing Disclosure Law (sections 559.961 to 559.9615, Florida Statutes) requires a covered provider to disclose the funds provided, the funds actually disbursed, the total to be paid, the total dollar cost, the payments, and whether paying early carries costs or discounts, with a reference to the contract provision. The disclosure is due at or before consummation of the transaction (s. 559.9613).

The disclosure gives dollar totals. It does not have to give a factor rate, a number of payments or an annual rate, and all three can be worked out from what it does give. The checker on this page does that arithmetic for the offer in front of you, and the sections after it say what each result means.

1.30

Factor rate in this page's example: $78,000 to be paid on $60,000 provided.

$18,000

Total dollar cost of the same example, the figure item (d) of the Florida disclosure calls for.

about 61%

What the example works out to a year on the $58,200 disbursed, paid weekly over 52 weeks.

The example is an illustration with round numbers, not an offer or a typical deal. Its inputs are listed under the checker.

Type in the figures from the written disclosure. The checker returns the total dollar cost, the factor rate, the cost of each dollar you actually receive, the number of payments, an annual rate equivalent and the share of your deposits the payment takes. It opens on an example, and nothing you type is sent anywhere or stored.

The example, worked by hand

A provider offers $60,000, withholds a $1,800 fee at disbursement and is to be paid $78,000 at $1,500 a week. The business deposits $65,000 in an average month. Every figure in the table is computed from those five numbers.

An illustration, not an offer, a quote or a typical deal. The annual rate equivalent is a comparison figure, not a rate the agreement charges.

Six items. Section 559.9613(2) of the Florida Statutes requires a provider to give a business a written disclosure of the items below in connection with each commercial financing transaction, and section 559.9613(1) requires it at or before consummation of the transaction. The paragraph letters are the ones the statute uses. The last column says where each item goes in the checker.

Read in the 2026 Florida Statutes on the Florida Legislature's site on November 12, 2026. Each subsection links the section.

The statute never uses the words merchant cash advance. An advance is generally written as what the law calls an accounts receivable purchase transaction: a business forwards or otherwise sells all or a portion of its accounts or payment intangibles to a person, at a discount to their expected value (s. 559.9611(1)). The same six items are required for the other kinds of commercial financing transaction the law names, a commercial loan and a commercial open-end credit plan (s. 559.9611(6)), so the checker reads those disclosures too.

One disclosure, once

Only one disclosure is required for each transaction, and none is required as a result of a modification, forbearance or change to a transaction already consummated (s. 559.9613(1)). The statute does not define consummation. This page reads it as the point at which the deal becomes binding, which is why the figures are worth checking while you can still decline.

If your disclosure is built on a $10,000 example

That is the form the statute allows for a commercial financing facility, which it defines as a provider's plan for purchasing multiple accounts receivable from the recipient over a period of time (s. 559.9611(5)). For a facility, the provider may base the six items on an example of a transaction that could occur under the agreement, and the example must use an account receivable total face amount owed of $10,000 (s. 559.9613(3)). Typed into the checker, those figures describe the example and not your own account.

When no disclosure is owed

The duty falls on a provider. The main definition is a person who consummates more than 5 commercial financing transactions with a business located in Florida in any calendar year (s. 559.9611(10)). The law applies to transactions consummated on or after January 1, 2024, a date set in the opening words of the scope section (s. 559.9612), and does not apply to a transaction of more than $500,000 (s. 559.9612(7)). Section 559.9612 lists other exemptions, among them a provider that is a federally insured depository institution and a transaction secured by real property. If an offer arrives with no written disclosure, ask the provider why.

Read the dollars first and the time second. The total dollar cost and the factor rate say what the offer costs. The number of payments and the annual rate equivalent say how long you pay for it, and the share of deposits says what it leaves you to run the business on.

What is a factor rate?

A factor rate is the total to be paid divided by the funds provided. At 1.30, the provider is paid back $1.30 for every $1.00 it provides. It is a single multiplier on the whole amount, so it is the same number whether repayment takes a few months or more than a year. Florida's six items do not include it, but items (a) and (c) are its two halves.

Do not count on having seen a price before the offer. The Clearwater Published Requirements Check (November 2026) found that 5 of 9 national funding companies publish no factor rate range, starting rate or APR on their own websites. Clearwater Capital Group states the factor rates on the advances it arranges as 1.05 to 1.44. The count is from Clearwater's statistics page. Neither figure says what any business will be offered.

Why does the amount disbursed matter?

Because you pay back the full total but only have the use of what reaches your account. In the example, $1,800 is withheld, so $78,000 is paid back on $58,200 received. That moves the cost of each dollar from $0.30 to $0.34, and the annual rate equivalent from about 54% to about 61%.

Why is the same cost over fewer weeks a higher annual figure?

Because an annual rate measures cost against time, and a dollar cost does not. The example costs $18,000 on any schedule. Collected over 26 weeks instead of 52, the same $18,000 works out to about 120% a year instead of about 61%. The cost is identical. The time you have the use of the funds is not.

An illustration computed from the example. Every row repays $78,000 on $58,200 disbursed.

A December 2019 report issued by the Federal Reserve Board, Uncertain Terms, makes the same point: depending on the speed of repayment, equivalent annual percentage rates on merchant cash advances may exceed 80% or even rise to triple digits. In focus groups the report describes, small business owners were shown a sample $50,000 advance with $60,000 to be repaid, a factor rate of 1.2, and asked to guess the yearly rate if it were repaid in one year. Their guesses ran from 10% to over 50%. The report's authors put it on the order of 40%, assuming daily payments and steady sales. Table 3 of the report estimates approximately 70% APR for a 1.15 factor rate when $50,000 is repaid in 6 months of daily payments with a 2.5% set-up fee and a $50 monthly administrative fee, $59,000 in all.

The Federal Reserve's 2025 Small Business Credit Survey found that 60% of firms that borrowed from online lenders said their actual borrowing costs were higher than expected, against 44% at finance companies, 37% at small banks, 32% at large banks and 31% at credit unions. The survey reports cost and satisfaction by type of lender, not by product. Online lenders include, but are not limited to, merchant cash advance companies. The figures are from the Federal Reserve Banks, 2026 Report on Employer Firms.

What does the share of deposits tell you?

What the payment takes out of an average month. The checker multiplies the payment by the number of payments in a month, 21 business days for a daily payment and 4.3 weeks for a weekly one, and divides by your average monthly deposits. In the example, $1,500 a week is $6,500 a month, 10% of $65,000. The six sections of the Florida law set no limit on this share, and this page does not set one either. It is the figure to hold against your rent, payroll and suppliers.

An annual rate is not one of the six items in section 559.9613(2). Neither is a factor rate, the number of payments, a breakdown of the deductions or what a broker is paid. Each one is something to ask for in writing.

• An annual rate. Not on the list. Ask the provider for the annual rate equivalent in writing, or work it out with the checker.
• A factor rate. Not on the list. Divide item (c) by item (a).
• The number of payments, or the date of the last one. Item (e) covers the manner, frequency and amount of each payment. For a fixed payment, divide item (c) by the payment. For a payment that varies with sales there is no fixed count, so ask for the estimated term in writing.
• Each deduction by name. Item (b) is one total. Ask for the list behind it: every fee, every payoff and every payment to a third party, with the amount of each.
• A payoff figure for a given date. Item (f) asks whether prepayment carries any costs or discounts and for a reference to the provision in the agreement. A schedule of payoff amounts is not on the list. Ask what you would owe if you paid the balance on a date you choose.
• What a broker is paid. Not one of the six items. If a broker brought you the offer, ask what it is paid and who pays it. Clearwater Capital Group, which publishes this page, is a broker and is paid when a business it helps is funded.
• A second disclosure if the deal changes. One disclosure is required per transaction, and a later modification, forbearance or change does not call for a new one (s. 559.9613(1)).

Do other states require an annual rate?

Some do. As of November 2026, at least 12 states have enacted commercial financing disclosure laws that reach merchant cash advances, and 3 of them require an annual rate to be disclosed. Florida is one of the states whose law does not. The table sets Florida's row beside the states that require one.

Rows and the count of states are from Clearwater's merchant cash advance statistics, updated November 10, 2026. Each state links the statute or act the row was read in. The count is Clearwater's own, and a state it did not find would raise it.

The Attorney General, and nobody else. Section 559.9615(1) of the Florida Statutes gives the Attorney General exclusive authority to enforce the law and names three things the office may do: receive and act on complaints, take action designed to obtain voluntary compliance, and commence administrative or judicial proceedings to enforce compliance.

$500

per incident, and not more than $20,000 for all aggregated violations arising from the use of the transaction documentation or materials found to be in violation of the law: the fine for a violation (s. 559.9615(2)(a)).

$1,000

per incident, and not more than $50,000 for all aggregated violations arising from the use of the transaction documentation or materials found to be in violation of the law, when the violation follows a written notice of a prior violation from the Attorney General (s. 559.9615(2)(b)).

What that means if your disclosure is missing or wrong

• The agreement is not undone by it. A violation of the law does not affect the enforceability or validity of the underlying commercial financing transaction (s. 559.9615(2)(c)).
• The law gives a business no case of its own. It does not create a private right of action against any person or entity based upon compliance or noncompliance with it (s. 559.9615(3)).
• The route the section names is a complaint. The Attorney General may receive and act on complaints (s. 559.9615(1)(a)). The section does not say how one is filed or what follows.

Put together, the disclosure is a tool for the days before you sign. Section 559.9615 punishes a violation with a fine and leaves the agreement in place, so the figures are worth checking while the choice is still yours. This section describes one Florida law and is not legal advice. Whether any other law applies to your agreement is a question for a lawyer.

Eight questions, each tied to an item on the disclosure or to something the disclosure leaves out. Ask for every reply in writing.

1. How much reaches my account, and what is each deduction? Item (b) gives the total. Ask for the list behind it.
2. What is the one total I pay back? Item (c). Ask whether anything can be added to it later, and where the agreement says so.
3. How many payments are there, and when is the last one? The disclosure does not have to say. For a fixed payment it is item (c) divided by the payment.
4. Can the payment change? If it can, item (e) requires the estimated initial payment, the method for calculating a variable payment and the circumstances under which it varies. Read all three.
5. What would I owe if I paid it off early? Item (f) points to the provision in the agreement. Ask for the payoff amount on a date you pick.
6. What does this work out to a year? Ask the provider, or take the annual rate equivalent from the checker, and hold it against any loan or line of credit you could get instead.
7. Does any of it pay off a balance I already have? If so, how much, to whom, and what the new deal costs on those dollars.
8. Is anything due before closing? On a transaction the law covers, a broker may not assess, collect or solicit an advance fee, meaning any consideration assessed or collected by a broker before the closing of the transaction (s. 559.9611(2), s. 559.9614(1)). The one exception is payment for actual services necessary to apply, made by check or money order payable to a party independent of the broker. Clearwater Capital Group charges nothing before funding.

The disclosure is a summary and the agreement is the contract. Clearwater's guide on how to read an advance contract covers the clauses behind these questions.

• Publisher. Clearwater Capital Group, a business funding broker and the trade name of Clearwater Capital Solutions LLC. It takes funding applications on this site and is paid when a business it helps is funded. Read the page with that in mind.
• The law. Sections 559.961, 559.9611, 559.9612, 559.9613, 559.9614, 559.9615 of the 2026 Florida Statutes, read on the Florida Legislature's site on November 12, 2026. Every statement about the law cites its section and is meant to say no more than the text does. None of it is legal advice.
• The checker. Total dollar cost is item (c) minus item (a). The factor rate is (c) divided by (a). Cost per dollar received is (c) minus (b), divided by (b). The number of payments is (c) divided by the payment. The annual rate equivalent is the periodic rate at which the scheduled payments equal the amount disbursed, multiplied by the periods in a year: 252 business days, 52 weeks or 12 months. It is the method of the repayment calculator on Clearwater's own site. If the amount disbursed is typed as more than the funds provided, or as less than 20% of them, the checker shows no annual figure and asks you to check items (a) and (b).
• What the annual figure assumes. Equal payments, each made on schedule, and no early payoff. A payment collected as a share of sales finishes sooner or later than that, and the figure moves with it. It is a comparison figure, not a rate written in any agreement.
• A check on the method. The authors of the Federal Reserve Board report cited above put their $50,000 sample at an effective rate on the order of 40%. Run on the same sample as 252 business-day payments, this page's method returns about 38%. For the first row of the report's Table 3, $59,000 repaid on $50,000 over 126 business days, it returns about 68%, where the report says approximately 70%. The report was read on November 12, 2026.
• The example. $60,000 provided, $1,800 withheld, $78,000 to be paid at $1,500 a week, $65,000 in monthly deposits. The numbers were picked to divide evenly. They are an illustration, not an offer, a quote or a typical deal, and no real file is behind them.
• Other figures. The survey figure is from the Federal Reserve Banks' report linked beside it. The count of state laws and the count of companies that publish no price are Clearwater's own research, published on its statistics page. That page links the statute or act behind each state's row, and gives the date the company websites were read. It names none of the companies.
• Why a Florida page. Clearwater is a Florida company, and Florida is one of the three states it hears from most. Clearwater 2026 Applicant Data shows that Texas, California and Florida together accounted for 32% of applications.
• What this page cannot tell you. Whether the offer suits the business, what the agreement says beyond the disclosure, or whether a law other than this one applies to it.
• Corrections. Write to efras@clearwatercapitalgrp.com.