A merchant cash advance is a purchase of a business's future receivables — not a loan — repaid by remitting a fixed percentage of deposits, typically 8% to 20%, until the purchased amount is satisfied. In Miami, advances concentrate in hospitality and restaurants, construction, logistics and port-adjacent trade, import-export, and retail — operators whose revenue moves in patterns a fixed monthly payment doesn't accommodate: seasonal swings, project draws, and six months a year of hurricane exposure.
Core placements are Miami businesses running $50,000 or more a month in deposits; most deals close between $20,000 and $200,000 a month; a dedicated program exists below $20,000. Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 through November 30 — six months where a mandatory evacuation can flatten a week's deposits to near zero. A remittance tied to a percentage of what actually lands, instead of a fixed payment due regardless, is why this structure fits Miami's calendar. Florida law requires funders to disclose total dollar cost before you sign, and bars brokers from collecting fees upfront.
An MCA is not debt. A funder purchases a fixed dollar amount of a business's future receivables at a discount, priced as a factor rate rather than an interest rate — commonly 1.15 to 1.49. A $50,000 advance at a 1.30 factor means $65,000 total repayment, a $15,000 cost, fixed at signing regardless of how quickly it's remitted, unless the agreement states an explicit early-payoff benefit. That's a different mechanic than a term loan, where interest accrues on a declining balance and paying early genuinely saves money.
Repayment happens through a holdback — a set percentage, typically 8% to 20%, taken from daily or weekly deposits or card batches — rather than a calendar due date for a fixed sum. Miss a slow week and that week's remittance is smaller; the total owed doesn't change, but the pressure on any single week does. That distinction, repayment tied to revenue instead of the calendar, is the entire reason the product exists, and the reason it fits certain Miami businesses better than a term loan does.
Five industries account for most of what we see locally. Hospitality and restaurants run card-heavy revenue with real seasonal swings tied to tourist patterns, and often carry thinner traditional collateral than a bank wants for a term loan. Construction and contracting revenue arrives in draws timed to permits, inspections, and project completion, leaving gaps a fixed loan payment doesn't tolerate well. Logistics and port-adjacent trade — freight forwarders, customs brokers, trucking operations tied to PortMiami and Miami International Airport — see volume follow global shipping cycles rather than the local economy. Import-export businesses carry currency-conversion timing and customs clearance delays that shift exactly when revenue lands. Retail, particularly in tourist-facing corridors, runs seasonal card batches that peak and trough on a predictable but uneven calendar.
| Industry | Typical deposit pattern | Why a fixed loan payment often doesn't fit |
|---|---|---|
| Hospitality & restaurants | Card-heavy, seasonal, tourist-driven | Revenue swings with season and weather; thinner traditional collateral |
| Construction & contracting | Draw-based, tied to permits and inspections | Gaps between draws don't match a fixed calendar due date |
| Logistics & port-adjacent trade | Tied to PortMiami and MIA freight cycles | Volume follows global shipping, not local seasonality |
| Import-export | Currency- and customs-timing dependent | Cash lands on customs and FX timing, not a fixed schedule |
| Retail | Seasonal card batches | Peak and trough months are predictable but uneven |
Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 through November 30 — six months of the calendar year. A mandatory evacuation order, a week of boarded windows, or a slow reopening after a storm doesn't just cost revenue; it costs a fixed loan payment its footing, because that payment is due whether the doors opened or not. A remittance-based structure absorbs that differently: the percentage taken is a percentage of what actually deposited, so a shuttered week produces a smaller remittance rather than a missed one. That isn't a workaround built for storm season — it's the basic mechanics of the product working as intended.
On the other side of a storm, rebuild demand is real and immediate, concentrated in construction and contracting. Timing capital to that window is often the difference between capturing the work and watching it go to a competitor who mobilized faster.
Yes, though less dramatically than hurricane season affects risk. Snowbird season, roughly November through April, runs deposits meaningfully higher for hospitality, restaurants, and tourist-corridor retail than the summer trough does. Funders size off average monthly deposits, typically over a trailing three-month window, which smooths some of this swing but doesn't erase it — a business measured in March looks different than the same business measured in August. An honest read accounts for which part of the calendar the trailing statements actually cover, not just the headline average.
A restaurant or retail business running most of its revenue through card batches has a data trail a funder can underwrite quickly, and a repayment mechanism — split-funding or a lockbox arrangement pulling a percentage of each batch — that requires no separate collection step. Compare that to a fixed loan payment, which asks a card-heavy, seasonally uneven business to hit the same dollar figure in a slow August as a strong February. The remittance model doesn't ask that. It takes the same percentage of a smaller number, and a smaller number results.
| Structure | In a strong month | In a slow month (storm week or summer trough) |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed loan payment | Same payment due | Same payment due — the shortfall is absorbed elsewhere |
| MCA remittance (% of deposits) | Larger remittance, faster payoff | Smaller remittance; total cost unchanged, weekly pressure eases |
Since January 1, 2024, Florida's Commercial Financing Disclosure Law (Fla. Stat. §§ 559.9611–559.9615) has required any funder extending $500,000 or less to a Florida-directed business to disclose, in writing and before you sign, total funds provided, total disbursed, total repayment, total dollar cost, payment manner and frequency, prepayment terms, and any collateral requirement. Separately, § 559.9614 bars a commercial financing broker from collecting an advance fee before your financing is completed — a rule worth understanding in its own right.
Slow down if any of these happen:
The full mechanics of that broker rule, the fee names it hides behind, and what to do if you're asked for one anyway are covered in Can a Commercial Finance Broker Charge You an Upfront Fee in Florida?
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Under $20K a month in deposits? Most of what's above is priced for businesses doing $50K or more a month in deposits — that's the core of what we place. Funding doesn't stop below that line, though; the structure just changes. There's a program built for exactly your revenue level, and the same rule applies either way.
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