Florida debt collection licensing laws

Florida registers consumer collection agencies with the Office of Financial Regulation under the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act (Fla. Stat. Section 559.55). The FCCPA is broader than the federal FDCPA in one important way: its conduct provisions reach any person collecting consumer debt, including original creditors, so first-party operations in Florida sit under the state act even though they fall outside federal third-party rules.

Florida's limitations period is five years for written contracts and four years for unwritten obligations under Fla. Stat. Section 95.11. Florida law also treats out-of-state choice-of-law and borrowing questions carefully on purchased portfolios, so debt buyers collecting Florida residents should confirm which state's limitations period governs each account rather than defaulting to the Florida periods.

Florida classification: no dedicated debt-settlement license, under the Fla. Stat. 817.801-817.806 (credit counseling services). Florida has no dedicated debt-settlement license; sections 817.801-817.806 impose fee limits on debt-related credit counseling services instead.

Florida has no dedicated debt-settlement license. The operative statute is Fla. Stat. 817.801 through 817.806, which caps the fees that may be charged for debt-related credit counseling services, defined to reach settlement-style programs, and makes violations enforceable as deceptive practices. The compliance work in Florida is fee-structure testing against the statute, not an application.

A settlement company that also collects or buys Florida accounts still needs the Chapter 559 consumer collection registration described above; the two regimes are independent. Whatever the state regime, the FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule bars charging advance fees for debt settlement services marketed through telemarketing, so the federal fee-timing rules apply on top of any state license.