2026 Best MCA Defense Lawyers in Virginia

Top MCA Defense Firms for Virginia - 2026

The new law makes MCA companies register with the state government, but if you’re a Virginia business owner the really useful part is that these companies now have to abide by rules meant to protect you. The law protects businesses whose main office is in Virginia, but banks, credit unions and advances over $500,000 are exempt.

It’s narrower than you might expect. California, New York and Utah wrote broad codes that sweep in merchant cash advance providers along with a wider range of other lenders and small business financing products. Virginia didn’t. Its code goes after merchant cash advance companies, period, and the lawmaker who wrote it said that was the whole point.

What counts as sales-based financing? It’s when you repay over time as a percentage of your sales or revenue, and payments can rise or fall with your sales. Also included is fixed payments that have a “true-up” reconciliation to a percentage of your sales. A provider that does five or fewer deals in any 12-month period is exempt.

Contracts can’t include a confession of judgment, and such clauses are unenforceable anyway. It gets better. Lawsuits have to be filed in a Virginia court. Similarly, any contract clause naming an out-of-state court as the proper venue for disputes is unenforceable.

There’s also some leverage in arbitration. If the contract has an arbitration clause, the MCA company has to pay the full costs, and can’t force you into in-person hearings outside your home jurisdiction. That said, they may try to argue the Federal Arbitration Act has overridden this part of Virginia law.

By November 1, 2022, all Virginia merchant cash advance providers had to register with the State Corporation Commission, and they have to renew it every year. That’s one place a good attorney starts to check. Even MCA brokers have to register. Just because an attorney can check these things doesn’t mean they know what to do about it.

And then when MCA companies do make an offer, they need to include a whole list of items. They have to reveal how much they are giving you after fees, the finance charge, the total repayment, how many payments they estimate you’ll make, what each payment will cost, any other fees they expect to add, any collateral they expect to take, and how much they’re paying the broker. Oddly, though, they don’t have to tell you the annual percentage rate. And if you refinance or pay off ahead of time, they owe you a fresh disclosure as of that day, spelling out their prepayment policy: all fees or penalties, or a rebate off the finance charge.

There’s a catch, though. The law doesn’t define what a “finance charge” is, or how to calculate it, so it can be argued over. And if a company breaks the law, the state attorney general can file suit to stop violations and seek damages, restitution and even attorney fees. That’s more leverage, maybe.

There’s also the clock: time is money and time keeps on slipping into the future. Even if you signed a contract and haven’t paid up, they only have five years to sue on it. The lesson is, don’t sit on it.

If you’re meeting a merchant cash advance attorney, bring the contract and all the offer disclosures they made to you, if you have them. Ask whether your deal is even covered, whether the MCA company registered with the state before making you an offer, if it made the proper disclosures, and how they would use the new Virginia rules on where lawsuits have to be filed and where arbitration can be held.