Business Debt Relief in Miami

A South Florida owner with merchant cash advance debt can start by laying every contract beside Florida’s commercial financing disclosure law, finding out which court a lawsuit would reach in Miami-Dade, Broward or Palm Beach, and matching each daily debit to real deposits. Hamilton & Merchant offers a free, confidential first conversation to look at the options. The worry under all of it is simple: the debits keep clearing when the season, a storm or a late-paying client does not.

Picture an owner like Rafael, who runs a six-person customs brokerage and freight-forwarding office a few minutes from Miami International Airport. Work is not his problem: the airport moved 2,889,025 U.S. tons of international freight in 2025. His problem is timing. A big client paid ninety days late last spring, so he took an advance of $60,000, then one for $40,000, then a third. Today three debits clear every business day, $1,100 in all, against weekly deposits that swing between $4,000 and $14,000 depending on who has paid.

Rafael is a composite, and the numbers are round on purpose. The questions he is asking are the natural ones: what does Florida law require of the funder, who would hear a lawsuit, what can be reached, and what bills come first. This page works through those questions for Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach, written for owners from Homestead to Jupiter.

What does the South Florida economy look like for a small business?

It is large, service-heavy and tied to travel and trade. In August 2026 the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach area counted 2,967,100 nonfarm jobs, and three sectors are worth a look for owners who take advances: trade, transportation and utilities at 647,400 jobs, leisure and hospitality at 343,700, and construction at 159,700. Payroll is not cheap either. The Bureau of Labor Statistics put the average weekly wage across all industries in the Miami area at $1,716 in the first quarter of 2026, against $1,654 for the country.

The mix matters because it sets the rhythm of cash. A restaurant on Las Olas, a roofing crew in Pembroke Pines, a salon in Delray Beach and a parts importer in Medley all live on different calendars, yet each one gets paid on its customers’ schedule and pays its people, its landlord and its funders on a fixed one. Over the twelve months to August 2026, leisure and hospitality added 4,000 jobs and education and health added 10,000, while financial activities lost 5,900. The economy is moving, and a small business has to keep its own cash moving alongside it.

Ownership here is also diverse in a way the numbers can show. In the Census Bureau’s Annual Business Survey figures for 2021, about 18.1% of Florida’s firms, 85,966 of 473,751, were Hispanic-owned, the highest share among the three states the Bureau compared. Whatever language an owner works in, the written agreement is the document to read closely, and a later chapter returns to that.

Construction and restaurants deserve their own reading if either is your trade: see the guides for contractors and for restaurants.

How do PortMiami and the airport shape cash flow for trade businesses?

They set the pace for every business that touches freight: forwarders, customs brokers, truckers, warehouses, produce importers and the shops that sell what arrives. Money moves slowly through those chains. A forwarder may pay the carrier and the duties first and be paid by the importer later, so a gap can open between outflow and inflow even in a record year.

The record years are real. PortMiami handled 1,115,058 TEUs (20-foot container units) in fiscal year 2025, up from 1,089,443 the year before, and it has now topped one million TEUs for eleven straight years. Miami International Airport carried 3,405,322 U.S. tons of freight in 2025, of which 2,889,025 were international, and it ranks first among U.S. airports for international freight. The airport also served 55,314,661 passengers, 24,850,064 of them international, which feeds the hotels, restaurants and ground-transport companies around it.

Busy docks do not guarantee that each small company in the chain is comfortable. A forwarder whose volume doubles may need to front twice the freight charges, and a daily debit sized for last year’s volume lands on this year’s tighter margins. The transport side has its own guide at trucking and logistics.

What does the Florida Commercial Financing Disclosure Law require?

It requires a covered funder to hand the business a written disclosure at or before closing, laid out in plain dollar terms. The statute, Florida Statutes 559.961 to 559.9615, took effect for transactions closed on or after January 1, 2024, and it covers commercial loans, accounts receivable purchase transactions (a sale of receivables at a discount, which is how an advance is described) and commercial open-end credit when the money goes to a business.

The disclosure must state six things:

• the total funds provided to the business;
• the funds actually disbursed, if less, after fees, payoffs of earlier balances and payments to third parties;
• the total amount the business will pay the funder;
• the total dollar cost, which the statute defines as the total to be paid minus the funds provided;
• how often and in what manner payments are made, and the amount (or an estimate and the method when payments vary);
• any costs or discounts tied to prepayment, with a pointer to the contract provision.

If the disclosure says you received $60,000 and the bank deposit says $52,000, the difference deserves a name on a line item. Find it before you sign, or find it tonight.

Read the second line with care. The “funds disbursed” figure comes after fees and after any earlier balance the funder paid off, which is exactly where renewals and consolidations show their cost. The third and fourth lines give you the number to compare against everything else: total repayment and total dollar cost. A calculator turns those into a daily figure; the MCA cost calculator does the arithmetic if you enter what the paperwork says, and the state-by-state study at state MCA laws shows how Florida’s approach compares.

The law asks for one disclosure per transaction. A later modification, forbearance or other change to a closed deal does not require a new one, so the document you were handed on day one is the document that counts.

Who does the Florida disclosure law cover, and what does it leave out?

It covers commercial financing of $500,000 or less and leaves out several categories, and it gives owners no lawsuit of their own. The exemptions include federally insured banks and their affiliates, deals secured by real property, leases, licensed money transmitters, any transaction of more than $500,000, and any provider that closes no more than five commercial financing transactions in Florida in a 12-month period.

Enforcement belongs to one office. The Attorney General has exclusive authority, with fines of $500 per incident, capped at $20,000 for aggregated violations, rising to $1,000 per incident, capped at $50,000, after written notice. The statute adds two sentences owners should know: a violation does not affect the enforceability or validity of the underlying transaction, and the law creates no private right of action. A missing or sloppy disclosure is therefore a fact to bring to your attorney, and a possible complaint to the Attorney General, but not a switch that cancels the contract.

The same chapter polices brokers. It bars a broker from collecting or soliciting an advance fee from a business for broker services, bars false or misleading statements, and requires a broker’s advertising to carry its actual address and phone number. Our guide on how MCA brokers are paid explains what the broker earns on a deal.

The definitions section contains a sentence that is easy to misread. For purposes of the disclosure law, a funder’s characterization of an accounts receivable purchase as a purchase is conclusive, which means the law does not treat that deal as a loan for its own disclosure rules. It is a statement about this part of the statutes. How a court classifies a particular contract in a dispute is a separate question, and courts look at the actual terms: whether the agreement has a reconciliation provision, whether it has a finite term, and whether the funder has any recourse if the business goes bankrupt. A study group of the Business Law Section of The Florida Bar reported in January 2026 that it found no reported decisions interpreting the definition, and proposed three statutory amendments, one of them to that definition. Those are proposals, not changes in the law, and the current statute text does not reflect them.

Why does reading every page matter before signing in Florida?

Because the signed pages can carry terms that a phone call or a quick meeting never covered. What a representative said and what the agreement says on page nine are two different things, whatever language the conversation was in, so the page is the thing to read.

Ask for the agreement and the Florida disclosure before you commit, and give yourself a day with them. Mark the reconciliation clause, the term, the definition of default, the personal guarantee, the venue clause naming where a suit must be filed, and any authorization to debit your account. If any paragraph is unclear, have a Florida attorney read it with you. Our guide to reading your MCA contract goes clause by clause, and the one on the reconciliation right covers the clause that most affects a slow month.

On the court side, the Eleventh Judicial Circuit has a Department of Translation and Interpretation for court proceedings, so ask the court how interpretation is arranged if a hearing is set and you need it.

Which court hears a merchant cash advance lawsuit in Miami-Dade, Broward or Palm Beach?

It depends on the dollar amount. Florida has one set of lines for every county: small claims up to $8,000, county court from there up to $50,000, and circuit court above $50,000, all measured without interest, court costs or attorney fees. A claim between $8,001 and $50,000 belongs in a county court civil division, and a larger one in circuit court, though your attorney will confirm where the particular papers were filed.

Three timing facts matter once papers arrive. The summons states the deadline to respond, and under Florida’s civil rules a defendant must serve an answer within 20 days after being served, unless a statute sets another period. The limitation period for an action on a written contract is five years. And a judgment accrues interest: the Florida Chief Financial Officer set the rate at 7.87% a year for the quarter that began October 1, 2026, and resets it every quarter.

Anyone can look up whether a case exists. The Broward County Clerk’s public case search accepts a business name, and the Eleventh Judicial Circuit’s county civil page points to the Clerk’s case search for Miami-Dade. Palm Beach County’s Clerk runs a free eCaseView search, so try the exact registered business name there. The Broward clerk says its search is not the official court record, so confirm anything important with the clerk. For the full anatomy of a response, read the first 30 days after a suit.

What happens when the contract names a New York court?

The funder may sue in New York, win there, and then ask a Florida court to enforce that judgment. An advance contract may name a New York court and New York law; the venue clause in yours will say whether it does. A Florida owner can end up with a judgment from a state where nobody on the payroll has ever been to a hearing.

Florida has a set procedure for this. A judgment from another state can be recorded here, the circuit court clerk mails notice to the debtor, and enforcement process cannot issue until 30 days after that mailing. The statute also provides for a stay of enforcement when a debtor, within 30 days after the judgment is recorded, files an action contesting the jurisdiction of the court that entered it or its validity and records a lis pendens, and a court may stay enforcement on any ground that would stay a Florida judgment. Those windows are short, and which arguments are available depends on the papers, so a Florida attorney should read the statute against the file the week the notice arrives. Our guide on out-of-state MCA judgments lays out the sequence.

If a notice from the clerk reaches you, do not set it aside until a slow month passes. The 30-day waiting period is a head start for the owner who uses it, and it ends whether or not anyone is paying attention.

Does Florida allow a confession of judgment?

Not in the form many out-of-state contracts use. Florida Statutes 55.05 declares null and void any power of attorney for confessing or suffering judgment to pass by default or otherwise, and any general release of errors, made before an action is brought. In plain terms, a signature given in advance that lets a funder enter judgment without a lawsuit carries no force under Florida law.

That is a narrow protection with a narrow reach. It speaks to powers of attorney made before suit. It does not stop a funder from filing a regular lawsuit in Florida, and it does not address a judgment entered by a court in another state, which Florida handles through the recording procedure described above. Our guide to confessions of judgment shows where they still count across the country.

How does a creditor reach a business bank account in Florida?

One route is a writ of garnishment, which is a court order directed at a third party such as your bank. After a judgment, a creditor can obtain a writ reaching any debt owed to the defendant by a third person and any personal property of the defendant in a third person’s hands. A bank account is the textbook example.

Florida also allows a writ before judgment, but the gate is higher. The creditor must file a verified motion or affidavit stating specific facts, and unless an attachment writ has already issued, post a surety bond payable to the defendant in at least double the amount of the debt demanded. The writ must tell the defendant about the right to an immediate hearing to dissolve it. The bond is there because an improper writ can cost the defendant real money.

When the defendant is an individual, such as a sole proprietor or a guarantor, the clerk attaches a notice explaining that some wages, money and property may be exempt, and a defendant claiming an exemption has 20 days from receiving the notice to file a sworn claim. The creditor then has 8 business days (hand delivery) or 14 business days (mail) to object. What the exemptions protect is for your own attorney to decide against your facts. The head-of-family and homestead rules get their full treatment on our Tampa Bay page.

A judgment creditor has a second tool: a judgment lien certificate filed with the Florida Department of State. It attaches to personal property that is subject to execution, along with accounts and payment intangibles, but it excludes money, fixtures and negotiable instruments. The writ reaches funds held by a third party such as a bank, while the lien attaches to the categories of personal property the statute lists. Our reading list on this topic includes the guide to funder remedies and the guide to a frozen business account.

What does a UCC lien mean for a Florida business?

It means a funder has filed a public notice claiming an interest in some or all of the business’s assets, such as its receivables. The notice is a financing statement, and in Florida it sits in the Florida Secured Transaction Registry, a public record. A new lender, a landlord and your own bank can all look it up.

Stacking creates a puzzle here. A study group of The Florida Bar noted that many funders name an agent or representative on the financing statement instead of the secured party, so a business with several advances can hold several filings without being able to tell who stands behind each. Florida already gives a debtor a tool: a signed request to the secured party for an accounting, a list of collateral or a statement of account, which a secured party must generally answer within 14 days after receipt. The statute excludes a buyer of accounts or payment intangibles from that duty, and an advance is sold as a purchase of receivables, so whether the tool reaches a particular funder is a question for your attorney. The Bar group has proposed a change so that a response to a request served on an agent or representative must name the secured party and its mailing address. That is a proposal, so ask your attorney how the current statute applies.

The practical effects of a filing, and how an owner ends a lien once the debt is resolved, appear in our guides on UCC liens and bank freezes and on terminating a UCC lien.

Which Florida costs come due before the daily debit?

Payroll, payroll taxes, sales tax and rent each have their own enforcer and their own calendar. Several changed in the last year, so a budget built in 2025 needs a redo.

Here is the list:

• Wages. The floor rose to $15.00 on September 30, so every hourly schedule built before that date costs more per shift. Inflation adjustments resume in September 2027 and take effect the following January 1.
• Reemployment tax. A new Florida employer starts at 2.7% on the first $7,000 of each employee’s wages, and that rate holds until the employer has reported for 10 quarters. For 2026 the range runs from 0.1% to 5.4%, which is $378 per employee at the top.
• Sales tax surtax. On top of the state rate, county surtaxes for 2026 run 1% in Miami-Dade, 1% in Broward and 0.5% in Palm Beach, where the current rate began January 1, 2026. A retailer collecting in Hialeah and one in Boca Raton collect different totals.
• Commercial rent. The state sales tax on commercial rent, and the surtax, ended for rental periods beginning on or after October 1, 2025. If a lease still shows a tax line, ask the landlord why.
• E-Verify. A private employer with 25 or more employees has had to use E-Verify since July 1, 2023, with a fine of $1,000 per day after three failures in any 24-month period, following a notice and a 30-day cure window.
• Insurance. Citizens Property Insurance’s approved average statewide commercial changes effective July 1, 2026 were mixed: up 7.2% for commercial residential multiperil and up 14.4% for commercial residential wind-only (both excluding condominium associations), down 1.8% for class-rated nonresidential multiperil and down 5.0% for nonresidential wind-only. Rates vary by risk, and your own carrier’s numbers will differ.

The guide on the one creditor you always pay first explains why tax obligations jump the line, and what to do when you can’t make payroll covers the day the account cannot cover people.

What does a fixed daily debit do against a South Florida sales curve?

It treats every day like the best day. Greater Miami’s own visitor bureau calls February the most popular month, with peak-season prices, and says August is when Miami is least crowded, with hotel and airfare prices at their lowest. A café, a boat charter or a gift shop near the beach lives inside that curve. A debit does not.

Take Dana, who runs a 30-seat café a few blocks from the beach in Miami Beach. These numbers are hypothetical. In February her weekly deposits run about $12,000; in August they fall to about $6,000. She carries two advances with combined debits of $800 per business day, or $4,000 a week. In February that is one third of deposits. In August it is two thirds, and the rent, the food order and the payroll that now has to clear $15.00 still come out of what is left.

A schedule that works in February tells you nothing about August. Run the numbers for the slowest month before the money lands in the account, not after.

Weather adds a second unknown. NOAA’s August 6, 2026 update put the chance of a below-normal Atlantic hurricane season at 75% and expected 7 to 13 named storms, and added that the outlook covers overall seasonal activity and is not a landfall forecast. A quiet forecast does not settle anything for a single street in Broward. A closure for a few days costs sales, and the debit amount in the contract was set before the storm. The guide on slow-season payments describes how owners plan for the weeks that run thin, and the page for seasonal companies covers the wider pattern.

Where can a South Florida owner find outside business help?

Several public and professional resources are open to owners, and none of them is connected to Hamilton & Merchant. The Florida Small Business Development Center Network offers consulting and training for small businesses. Its FIU center serves Miami-Dade and Monroe counties, and its FAU center serves Palm Beach and Broward counties. FAU describes its consulting sessions as personalized and confidential, with cash flow management and access to capital among the topics.

For legal questions, The Florida Bar Lawyer Referral Service offers a 30-minute consultation for no more than $25, through an online request available around the clock or by phone on weekdays at 800-342-8011. A Florida-licensed attorney is the person to tell you how the statutes in this page apply to your papers. The clerks’ offices and the Eleventh Judicial Circuit publish self-help information and case search tools for their counties, and a clerk can tell you which division holds a case.

Choosing a debt-relief company deserves the same care as choosing a lawyer. Start with how to find a debt relief agency and compare it against whether an MCA lawyer or a debt relief company fits your situation.

When should a South Florida owner get help with merchant cash advance debt?

As soon as the advance becomes the biggest bill rather than a tool, and before the next one is signed. The signs are concrete:

• You are using money from a new advance to cover the debit on an old one.
• Payroll taxes or sales tax have started waiting behind the daily debit.
• The total of your debits is more than your slowest month can carry.
• A funder or its lawyer has sent a notice, or a summons has arrived.
• The bank account has been frozen or a lien notice has turned up.
• You signed a personal guarantee and you are not sure what it covers.

Hamilton & Merchant is based in Orlando and has no office in South Florida. The first conversation happens by phone, so nobody has to drive anywhere, and it is a free, confidential conversation about your situation and the kinds of help that exist. Call (407) 993-1416 or begin with the free MCA diagnostic. Our Orlando page tells you more about the home base, and how a first conversation works shows what to expect.

Bring what you have. The most useful items are the full contract for each advance, the Florida disclosure document if you received one, the last three months of bank statements, a list of every advance with its daily or weekly debit, and any court papers or notices. If you cannot find a document, say so and bring what you have.

Some funders agree to a settlement and some don’t, and results vary. If an owner ever pursues a settlement program, the regular payments usually stop while each funder is negotiated, and that puts the advances in default. Default can bring a lawsuit, added fees, damage to credit, and a claim on any personal guarantee, so the decision is one to make with a Florida attorney and an accountant beside you. Our guide to personal guarantees explains the clause that makes the owner personally responsible.

• Good help does this

  • Explains the options in plain words.
  • Tells you to bring in your own attorney and CPA, licensed in Florida, when a step needs one.
  • Asks to see the contracts and the bank statements before it says anything about your case.
  • Answers in writing when you ask how it is paid.

• Good help never does this

  • Promises a result, a number or a timeline.
  • Charges you before any work has been done.
  • Tells you to ignore a lawsuit or a summons.
  • Pushes you to move money or change banks before you have spoken to your own attorney.

Hamilton & Merchant is not a law firm and not a CPA firm, and nothing on this page is legal or tax advice. The Florida statutes quoted here are written in general terms, and how they apply to a given contract, guarantee or bank account is for your own licensed attorney to say.

What should a South Florida owner do this week?

1. Pull every document into one folder. Contracts, disclosures, three months of statements, the debit list and any court papers. Write the funder name, the funded amount and the debit amount at the top of one page.
2. Compare each contract with its Florida disclosure. Check total funds, funds disbursed, total to be paid and total dollar cost against what actually hit the account. Circle any gap and write down the question.
3. Search for a case. Use the clerk’s online case search in your county, entering the business name and your own. Note any case number, the court and the filing date.
4. If papers were served, write down the date today. The summons states the response deadline, and the civil rules give a defendant 20 days after service unless a statute says otherwise. Call a Florida attorney the same day; the Bar’s referral line is one starting point.
5. Check the company’s standing. A Florida LLC’s annual report is due between January 1 and May 1, and a company that has not filed cannot maintain or defend a court action until the report and fees are paid. Look yours up on the state business-records site.
6. Refresh the cost sheet. Put in $15.00 for staff, $11.98 for tipped staff, the surtax for your county, and a zero for the commercial rent sales tax on any rent period starting after September 2025.
7. Build a small cash grid. List the next 13 weeks of expected deposits next to every debit, rent, payroll and tax date. Use your slowest month for the low case, and read rebuilding cash flow for ideas.
8. Make one call to the SBDC, and one to Hamilton & Merchant. The SBDC serves your county with consulting on cash flow and capital. Hamilton & Merchant offers a free, confidential first conversation by phone. Neither costs you a day of sales.

Two more guides are worth a read this weekend: signs your MCA is sinking your business and the Florida overview in Florida business debt laws. If you are weighing your timeline, how much time you have is a calm place to start. The sister pages for all metro areas are there when your business reaches beyond South Florida.

Questions owners in Miami ask