Business Debt Relief in Dallas-Fort Worth

A Dallas-Fort Worth owner with merchant cash advance debt can start by putting every contract, three months of bank statements and each daily or weekly debit on a single page, then talking with a Texas attorney and taking a free, confidential first conversation to see the options. Texas wrote new rules for these advances in 2025, but they did not erase one existing balance. The worry is the same at 6 a.m. as at midnight: the debit hits whether the week was good or bad.

Take Dale, a composite owner who runs a fourteen-person drywall and framing crew out of a shop in Garland. Two years ago a slow stretch between builder payments pushed him to take an advance for $60,000. A second one came the next spring to cover a delayed draw, and a third followed when a supplier changed its terms. Today the three debits add up to $1,200 every business day, and his deposits in a decent month run about $180,000. Dale is not careless. He is a good tradesman who borrowed against next month to cover this month, and he has not looked at all three contracts side by side yet.

This page is for owners like Dale in Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington, Plano, Irving and the towns around them. It covers what Texas changed in 2025, what it left alone, where a lawsuit would be filed, which local costs come ahead of a funder, and what a sensible week looks like. Hamilton & Merchant is based in Orlando, Florida, has no office in North Texas, and holds its first conversations by phone.

How big is the Dallas-Fort Worth economy, and which businesses feel a daily debit first?

Dallas-Fort Worth is the fourth-largest metro in the country, and the businesses that feel a fixed debit first are the ones whose cash arrives in lumps: contractors, restaurants and freight operators. The Census Bureau estimated 8,477,157 residents in the metro on July 1, 2025, a gain of 123,557 in one year. Growth like that can bring customers, and it can also bring more competitors and higher costs.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics put the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington area at 4,352,100 nonfarm jobs in September 2026, up 1.0% over twelve months, with unemployment at 4.1%. Mining, logging and construction accounted for 274,600 of those jobs, up 2.8% over the year. Leisure and hospitality, the sector that holds most restaurants, stood at 433,700, up 1.2%, and trade, transportation and utilities, where trucking and warehousing sit, was 894,400, up 1.1%. The Fort Worth-Arlington-Grapevine division, counted separately, had 1,217,700 jobs and 91,300 in construction, up 4.5%.

The statewide picture is softer than the metro numbers suggest. The Dallas Fed's October 19, 2026 forecast has Texas adding 0.9% more jobs in 2026, with growth through September at 0.8%. September itself showed a loss of 18,900 jobs, led by government and construction, and the Dallas Fed tied the slowdown to labor supply constraints connected to lower immigration. For an owner, that can mean a crew that is harder to staff while the work is still there, so payroll rises before the invoices clear.

Each of these trades has its own pressure points. A builder or trade contractor waits on draws; the contractor page covers that pattern. A restaurant sees cash every night but carries food, labor and rent against it, as described on the restaurant page. A carrier faces fuel and insurance bills long before a shipper pays, which the trucking and logistics page explains. An owner who also runs a location in the Phoenix area can find that metro on the Phoenix page.

What did Texas pass in 2025 about merchant cash advances?

Texas passed House Bill 700, which the Governor signed on June 20, 2025 and which took effect September 1, 2025. It added Chapter 398 to the Texas Finance Code, titled for commercial sales-based financing, and it covers three things: disclosures before a signing, registration of providers and brokers with the state, and two prohibitions on specific contract features.

The statute uses the phrase “sales-based financing” rather than “merchant cash advance.” It defines the term as repayment tied to a percentage of sales or revenue, either directly or through a fixed payment with a reconciliation process that adjusts to a percentage of sales or revenue. That wording matters for Dale, because a daily debit that is later reconciled against actual deposits may fall within the definition, and a Texas attorney can read his contracts against the words. The product is still sold as a purchase of future receivables, and a court decides how to treat a given contract by reading its actual terms; the state MCA laws study lays out how other states have approached this.

Texas is one of several states that moved on commercial financing around the same time, and more changes are pending elsewhere. The 2027 laws guide tracks which states have rules in force and what is scheduled. Here, the rest of this page stays with Texas.

Who does Chapter 398 cover, and what must a provider disclose?

Chapter 398 covers providers and brokers of commercial sales-based financing, with exemptions that include banks, credit unions and their subsidiaries or affiliates, along with several narrower categories of transaction that an attorney can check against a given contract. A provider is a business that offers the financing; a broker is a business that, for pay, arranges it for the recipient. Disclosure is triggered when a provider extends a specific offer of less than $1 million to a recipient in Texas.

The disclosures cover the amount of financing, the amount actually disbursed, the finance charge, the total repayment amount, the timing and size of payments, other fees, prepayment costs, any collateral, and whether the provider pays a broker directly and how much. If the offer requires paying off an existing balance, the provider must also disclose the part of the new money that goes to prepayment charges and unpaid finance charges, and the exact dollar amount by which the payoff reduces what the owner receives. The rules adopted by the Office of Consumer Credit Commissioner add that a provider must promptly give updated disclosures if the first ones turn out to be inaccurate.

This is where Dale’s stack gets interesting. His third advance included a payoff of part of the second, and the money he received was smaller than the number on the front page. Under the new law, a specific offer made on or after September 1, 2025 is covered by the disclosure rule, which calls for the disbursed amount and the payoff effect to appear on the page. For contracts signed before that date, whether any of this applies is not settled, and Dale’s own Texas attorney is the person to ask. The chapter also reaches brokers, the people who arrange an advance for a fee, and Dale’s third advance came through one. Whether the provider pays a broker directly, and how much, is among the items a specific offer must disclose, so a page that leaves it out is a question for the attorney. Either way, reading a contract line by line is worth the hour; the contract-reading guide shows which clauses to find first.

What does the Texas rule on automatic debits say?

Section 398.056 says a provider or broker may not set up a mechanism for automatically debiting a recipient’s deposit account unless it holds a validly perfected, first-priority security interest in that account under Chapter 9 of the Business & Commerce Code. That is the exact trigger, and it is narrower than it first sounds.

Two other Texas provisions give the sentence its meaning. Under Business & Commerce Code 9.312(b)(1), a security interest in a deposit account may be perfected only by control. Under 9.104(a), a secured party has control if it is the bank holding the account, if the owner, the secured party and the bank agree in an authenticated record that the bank will follow the secured party’s instructions without further consent from the owner, or if the secured party becomes the bank’s customer on the account. Whether a particular funder’s arrangement meets that test turns on documents Dale has to read, and a Texas attorney can read them with him.

A statute tells the funder what it may set up. It does not tell you what to do with the paperwork you signed last spring.

Nothing in the section says an owner may cancel an authorization on his own. Stopping a debit can put an advance in default under its contract, and a default carries four risks: a lawsuit, added fees, damage to credit, and a claim on any personal guarantee. Some owners also have a lien notice on file against their receivables, and the guide to UCC liens and bank freezes explains what that notice does and does not do. Any step touching the bank account should come after advice from the owner’s own attorney.

Can a Texas funder use a confession of judgment?

Section 398.055 uses the words “void and unenforceable” for a commercial sales-based financing contract that contains a confession of judgment provision or any similar provision. What those words mean for a given contract is a question for a Texas attorney. A confession of judgment is a clause that lets a funder obtain a court judgment without a trial if the owner defaults. Texas had already limited the device: Civil Practice and Remedies Code 30.001 says a person cannot, in a document signed before suit is brought, confess judgment, accept service and waive process, or enter an appearance.

For a Dallas or Fort Worth owner, the practical point is where the advance contract was written. Some contracts name another state’s law and courts, and the contract itself shows which. The statute’s words are all this page repeats; how a court treats a contract that contains such a clause, and whether the whole agreement or only the clause is affected, is for a Texas attorney to read against the specific document. The confession of judgment guide explains the clause in plain terms.

Who must register, what are the penalties, and who enforces the law?

The Office of Consumer Credit Commissioner administers and enforces Chapter 398. Providers and brokers already doing business when the Act took effect must register no later than December 31, 2026, and the OCCC began taking applications through the NMLS system on September 1, 2026. Its rules for commercial sales-based financing took effect on July 9, 2026. We keep the statute's date and the regulator's renewal window side by side on our HB 700 deadline page.

Chapter 398 says it does not create a private right of action, which means the statute itself gives an owner no separate claim against a provider; the state regulator is the body that acts on it. An owner who thinks a provider broke the chapter can raise it with the OCCC, and an attorney can say whether the facts also matter in any other dispute. No published enforcement action under the chapter had surfaced as of October 29, 2026, and the registration deadline had not yet arrived, so how the office will use its powers is still unknown.

The rules also call for a contract to carry a notice with the OCCC’s contact information. If Dale’s newest paper has that notice and his older papers do not, the difference is worth pointing out to his attorney.

The dates in one place, for an owner building a timeline:

• June 20, 2025: Governor signs House Bill 700.
• September 1, 2025: the Act takes effect.
• July 9, 2026: OCCC commercial sales-based financing rules take effect.
• September 1, 2026: registration applications open on NMLS.
• December 31, 2026: registration deadline for existing providers and brokers.

What did House Bill 700 not change?

House Bill 700 did not cancel any existing advance, did not turn an advance into a loan, and did not give owners a lawsuit against a provider for breaking it. It also does not say what happens to debits that were already running before September 1, 2025. Those gaps are why the myths below spread so easily.

What does a fixed daily debit do to a Dallas-Fort Worth business over a year?

A fixed daily debit takes the same dollars out of a business whether sales are up or down, so a slow week costs a larger share of the week’s deposits than a strong one. DFW owners can hit slow stretches for reasons that have nothing to do with how well they run the shop: a hail storm, a freeze, a delayed draw, a lost crew.

Weather is a real source of interruption here. The National Weather Service Fort Worth office recorded a 5.25-inch hailstone on April 11, 2016, the largest in its forecast area, and in Wylie 80% of homes were affected with over $300 million in damage. In February 2021, a University of Houston survey found that 69 percent of Texans lost power at some point between February 14 and 20, with an average outage of 42 hours among those who did, and trucks and rail could not move goods in that weather. Neither event repeats on a schedule, but both show how fast a week of revenue can disappear while a debit schedule stays put.

Here is a hypothetical, with round numbers, for Dale’s crew. His three advances debit $1,200 each business day. With 21 business days in a month, that is $25,200.

• Normal month: $180,000 in deposits. The debits take 14% of what comes in.
• Freeze month, jobs delayed two weeks: $120,000 in deposits. The same $25,200 takes 21%.
• A month when a builder pays late and deposits fall to $90,000: the debits take 28%, and payroll for fourteen people lands in the same window.

A restaurant shows the same curve with a different calendar. Picture a 60-seat place in Fort Worth that takes in $90,000 in a normal month and carries a $600 daily debit over 30 days, or $18,000, which is 20%. A rainy, slow week in a month that totals $65,000 raises that to about 28%, and the rent, the produce order and the Friday payroll are all still due. Leisure and hospitality is one of the larger employers in the metro, at 433,700 jobs, so a squeeze of this shape can reach many owners in the metro.

Payroll, materials, the truck payment and rent do not shrink with deposits either. When the leftover cannot cover them, the next move is usually another advance, and that is how stacking starts. The slow-season guide walks through a month like this, and the MCA cost calculator lets an owner enter a real factor rate and debit to see the true cost of a stack.

Where would a funder sue a Dallas-Fort Worth business, and what do the courts handle?

A funder suing a Dallas-Fort Worth business could file in a Texas district court or county court at law in the county where the business is based, or in a court in the state named in the contract. This page covers Dallas County and Tarrant County; an owner in Plano or another suburb would check the court sites for the county that holds the business address. Which court depends on the amount claimed and on the venue clause.

For Dale, the shop in Garland sits in Dallas County, where the county lists thirteen civil district courts: the 14th, 44th, 68th, 95th, 101st, 116th, 134th, 160th, 162nd, 191st, 192nd, 193rd and 298th. A Fort Worth or Arlington owner would look to Tarrant County instead, which lists civil district courts and civil county courts. Because a funder can name the court in its contract, the first thing to read in a petition is the court and the county printed at the top. A Dallas County business sued in a distant court is dealing with a different set of rules and deadlines from the ones described here, and that is a reason to call an attorney the day the papers arrive.

Bills to raise the county court at law ceiling to $325,000 were filed in 2025, but as of October 29, 2026 one sat in committee and the other had only been filed, so $250,000 is the working figure.

Once a petition is served, the clock is short. Rule 99(b) of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure directs the defendant to file a written answer on or before 10:00 a.m. on the Monday next after the expiration of twenty days after the date of service. Missing it can allow a default judgment, which is a ruling for the funder without the owner having been heard. Some contracts also name courts in another state, and the out-of-state judgment guide explains how an out-of-state judgment reaches a Texas business. The lawsuit guide covers the first steps after service.

What happens after a judgment in Texas?

After a judgment, interest accrues at the Texas post-judgment rate, which the Office of Consumer Credit Commissioner set at 6.75 percent for October 2026, and the creditor can ask the court for tools to collect. How those tools work against a Texas business, and what Texas exemptions protect, is covered on the Houston page, which owns that subject.

What I will add here is the plain idea behind it: a judgment is not the same as money in hand, and what a creditor can reach depends on the facts of the owner’s accounts and assets, not on a slogan. The seizure guide goes through accounts, receivables, equipment and a home without promising any result.

Which Texas costs come before the funder?

Several Texas obligations come on their own schedules and carry their own penalties: the franchise tax report, sales tax collected from customers, unemployment tax on payroll, and withheld payroll taxes owed to the IRS. An owner who pays the funder first and these later can end up with a second set of problems that are harder to fix.

The franchise tax report is due May 15, at 0.375% for retail or wholesale businesses and 0.75% for others, and an entity at or below the threshold still files a Public Information Report or Ownership Information Report. Sales tax runs 6.25% at the state level, with local jurisdictions adding up to 2% for a maximum of 8.25%. Monthly filers report by the 20th of the following month, and late payment carries a 5% penalty for the first 30 days and 10% after that.

On payroll, Texas unemployment tax applies to the first $9,000 of each employee’s earnings, and the new-employer rate is generally 2.70%. Texas follows the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, and there is no state income tax to withhold. Withheld federal payroll taxes are different: the IRS describes the Trust Fund Recovery Penalty as a personal penalty equal to the unpaid balance of the trust fund tax, assessed against a person responsible for collecting or paying it who willfully fails to do so. The guide on the one creditor you pay first explains why tax money is handled separately. Where the CPA question comes in, a Texas CPA of your own is the right person.

A missed franchise tax filing deserves its own mention, because it is quiet. The Comptroller sends notices of intent to forfeit the right to transact business to entities that miss a filing, and the entity must file and pay the report plus late penalties and interest to clear it. A business that is already stretched by daily debits can overlook a May 15 deadline for exactly that reason. Put the date on the calendar next to the payroll dates, and ask your CPA whether the report is on track before the funder’s next debit lands.

Should a DFW owner accept a renewal offer on an advance?

A renewal offer comes when a balance is partly paid and the funder offers new money on top of it. Whether to accept turns on arithmetic: how much of the new money goes to paying off the old balance, how much actually reaches the account, and what the new debit does to cash on a slow month.

Under Chapter 398, a specific offer under $1 million must disclose the disbursement amount, the total repayment amount and, where an existing balance is paid off, the part of the new money that goes to prepayment charges and unpaid finance charges. Those lines are the ones to compare. If Dale is offered $50,000 and $30,000 of it goes straight to the old balance, the usable money is $20,000, and the total he repays is based on the whole $50,000. The renewal guide works through that math step by step.

When a new advance has to cover the last one, the number to watch is the money that reaches your account, not the number on the front page.

Renewals are not wrong in themselves. Financing is a tool, and plenty of owners use it well. The trouble starts when the new money is only enough to keep the old schedule going, and that pattern can show up as a request for a bigger advance every few months.

What free public resources exist for Dallas-Fort Worth business owners?

Several free or low-cost public resources serve the metro. None is a partner of Hamilton & Merchant, and none is a substitute for a Texas attorney or CPA.

• North Texas Small Business Development Center, hosted by Dallas College. It lists business advising on business plans, financial analysis and identifying financing sources, plus seminars; ask which counties it serves and whether advising is free. In Denton County, the North Central Texas SBDC at North Central Texas College describes its appointments as no cost and confidential.
• SCORE chapters for Dallas and Fort Worth, which offer mentoring that SCORE describes as free.
• Lawyer referral services certified by the State Bar of Texas: the Dallas Bar Association at (214) 220-7444 and the Tarrant County Bar Association at (817) 336-4101. Confirm what each charges before you call.

An SBDC adviser can help an owner organize financials and understand cash flow, which is useful before any conversation about debt, since a clean set of monthly numbers makes every later step easier. Appointments at these centers are usually by request, so ask for one early rather than the week a deadline hits. A bar referral service works the same way in reverse: it can name a Texas attorney who takes commercial collection or business cases, and the first call is the time to ask what the attorney charges and what a first meeting covers.

These offices explain and advise; they do not negotiate with a funder for you, and they do not know your contracts until you show them. Treat them as the place to get your own numbers and questions in order.

Which kind of help fits which problem is covered in the lawyer or debt relief company guide.

When should you get help with merchant cash advance debt in Dallas-Fort Worth?

Get help when the daily debits are taking more than the business can spare, when a new advance is being used to pay the last one, or when court papers arrive. Waiting until nothing is left can leave fewer choices.

These signs tell me an owner should have a conversation soon:

• Two or more advances are debiting at once, and the combined debit is a double-digit share of deposits in a slow month.
• A broker is calling with an offer to pay off the old advances with a new one.
• Payroll or sales tax is being delayed to make the debit.
• A funder has sent a default notice, a lien notice, or a petition from a court.
• You have personally guaranteed an advance and your family finances depend on the business.

A first conversation with Hamilton & Merchant is free, confidential and held by phone, because the company is based in Orlando. It helps an owner understand the situation and the right kind of help. It is not legal or tax advice, and it does not replace a Texas attorney or CPA.

What to bring to a first conversation

• Every advance contract and any amendments or renewals.
• The last three months of business bank statements.
• A list of every advance with its daily or weekly debit and remaining balance, if you know it.
• Any court papers, default notices or lien notices.
• Any page where you signed in your own name rather than the company’s, so the attorney can see what the paper says about you personally.

How to compare the kinds of help

Some funders agree to a settlement and some don’t, and results vary. When a program involves settlement, the regular payments usually stop while each funder is negotiated, and that places the advances in default. Default carries four risks: a lawsuit, added fees, damage to credit, and a claim on any personal guarantee. The guide to personal guarantees explains the wording that creates that last risk. A default notice has its own deadlines, so read it the day it arrives.

• Do this

  • Read every contract before you decide anything.
  • Have a Texas attorney review any court papers immediately.
  • Ask any firm to explain, in writing, what it will and will not do.
  • Keep paying payroll and tax obligations in step with your CPA’s advice.

• Never do this

  • Ignore a lawsuit because a call seemed to resolve it.
  • Pay any firm up front before work is done.
  • Trust anyone who promises results or a timeline.
  • Sign a new advance to cover the last one without comparing the numbers.

Good help never promises a result, never charges before work is done, and never tells you to ignore a lawsuit. The vetting guide offers questions to ask any company, including this one. For a full picture of options, the relief overview sets them side by side, and the free MCA diagnostic is a quick way to organize your numbers first. The how it works page describes what the call covers.

What should a Dallas-Fort Worth owner do this week?

Do the following in order. Each step is about getting the facts together and getting your own advisers in the room.

1. Put every advance contract, amendment and renewal in one folder, paper or digital.
2. Download the last three months of business bank statements and mark each debit by funder.
3. Write the one-page list: date, amount funded, daily debit, remaining balance, guarantee.
4. Check your Texas Comptroller account for the May 15 franchise tax report and the Public Information Report, and look at when your next sales tax return is due, the 20th for monthly filers.
5. Check the Dallas County or Tarrant County court sites for any case filed in your business’s name, and keep any papers you have been served with where you can find them. The clock under Rule 99(b) runs from service.
6. Call the Dallas Bar Association or the Tarrant County Bar Association referral service, or another Texas attorney you trust, and ask about your contracts and any guarantee.
7. Book a free, confidential first conversation with Hamilton & Merchant at (407) 993-1416 and bring the folder. The time guide explains why sooner usually beats later.

Questions owners in Dallas-Fort Worth ask