Two Laws Now Govern Florida Non-Competes
Most of what people believe about non-competes comes from states that hate them. Florida is not one of those states. Florida courts enforce restrictive covenants (contract terms limiting where you can work or compete after you leave) more readily than almost anywhere in the country, and in 2025 the Legislature went further. A new law, the CHOICE Act, created a second track of agreements for high earners that courts must enforce with a preliminary injunction (a court order stopping the new job while the case plays out) as the starting point rather than the prize.
So the first question about any Florida non-compete is which rulebook it lives under. The CHOICE Act covers written agreements with employees and independent contractors whose salary clears a county-based threshold, signed with specific paperwork the Act requires. Everything else, meaning most agreements, still runs under Florida’s restrictive-covenant statute, where the fight is about legitimate business interests and reasonableness. The Act says plainly that any restriction failing its definitions falls back to the traditional statute. Licensed health care practitioners are carved out of the CHOICE Act entirely, so a physician’s or nurse’s covenant is judged under the traditional rules, and a separate Florida law voids covenants for certain specialty physicians where one group employs every physician in that specialty in a county.
Which track you are on changes everything below, so sort that first.
What Makes a Non-Compete Enforceable in Florida
Under the traditional statute, a Florida non-compete holds up when four things line up. It is in writing and signed by the person being restrained. It protects a legitimate business interest, and the statute names them, meaning trade secrets, valuable confidential information, substantial relationships with specific customers or patients, customer goodwill tied to a brand or territory, and extraordinary or specialized training. It is reasonable in time, geography, and line of business. And the business proves the restriction is reasonably necessary to protect that interest. The statute reaches employees, agents, and independent contractors alike. And when a departing employee takes the customer list itself, trade-secret law adds its own claims on top of any covenant; that playbook is in what to do when a former employee takes your customer list.
Time limits come with presumptions. For a former employee, 6 months or less is presumed reasonable and anything over 2 years is presumed unreasonable, with the space between litigated on the facts. Those are starting points rather than walls, but most Florida employment non-competes are written at 1 to 2 years for exactly this reason.
Two features make Florida unusually friendly to enforcement. First, a court that finds a covenant overbroad must trim it down and enforce the reasonable core (lawyers call this blue-penciling) rather than throw it out, so an overreaching document is rarely a full escape. Second, the statute tells judges not to consider the individual hardship enforcement would cause the person who signed. The court can weigh public health and safety, and it can weigh equitable defenses, but the argument that enforcement will cost you your livelihood is off the table by statute. Add a presumption of irreparable injury once a violation is shown, plus the judge’s power to award fees to whichever side prevails, and you can see why these cases move fast and settle hard.
One more surprise for people arriving from other states. Florida courts have long treated keeping your job as enough consideration (the legal term for what you get in exchange), so an employer can hand a non-compete to a current employee and continued employment generally supports it. No signing bonus required.
Selling or Buying a Business Changes the Math
The 2-year presumption is an employment number. Sell a business and the leash gets much longer, because the buyer paid for your goodwill and the law protects that purchase. For a covenant signed by the seller of a business or its assets, up to 3 years is presumed reasonable, and only past 7 years does the presumption flip against it. Franchise and dealer relationships sit in between, with 1 year presumed fine and more than 3 years presumed too long. Where a covenant protects actual trade secrets, the bands stretch to 5 and 10 years.
Here is what that means in practice. If you are buying a Florida business, the seller’s non-compete is part of what you are paying for, and skipping it means you may spend the next few years buying your customers back from the person you bought them from. If you are selling, the covenant is negotiable like every other term, and territory, duration, and the definition of competing all deserve attention before you sign rather than after. These covenants travel with the deal documents, which is why we draft them alongside the buy-sell agreement and the operating agreement instead of as an afterthought.
Handed a non-compete, or about to hand one out?
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Book your free consultThe CHOICE Act and the 4-Year Non-Compete
Since mid-2025, Florida employers can put their highest-paid people under non-competes of up to 4 years, double the old outer presumption, and courts are directed to enforce them first and ask questions later. That is not a figure of speech. When a covered employer applies, the statute says a court must preliminarily enjoin the former employee from working for anyone else during the non-compete period. The injunction can be modified or dissolved only if the employee, or the new employer, proves a narrow escape by clear and convincing evidence. The employee can show the new work is nothing like what they did in the prior 3 years and involves none of the old employer’s confidential information or customer relationships, or that the employer failed to pay what the agreement promised and did not cure it after a chance to do so. The new employer can show it does not operate, and is not preparing to operate, in the covered territory. The hiring company can be enjoined too, and the prevailing party collects attorney fees.
Not everyone can be covered. The Act reaches employees and independent contractors whose salary is more than twice the average annual wage of the Florida county where the employer keeps its principal place of business (its true home base), or of your home county if the employer is based outside Florida. Depending on the county, that threshold runs from roughly $80,000 to nearly $150,000 a year. The salary math counts base pay and the value of most non-cash benefits while excluding bonuses, commissions, tips, health insurance, severance, and anything else not fixed in advance, so a commissioned salesperson with a modest base often does not qualify no matter how large the W-2 looks.
The paperwork is not optional either. To qualify, the employer must put the proposed agreement in your hands at least 7 days before the offer expires, tell you in writing that you have the right to talk to a lawyer first, and obtain your written acknowledgment that the job will give you confidential information or customer relationships. Miss any of it and the agreement is not covered, which drops it back into the traditional statute and its reasonableness fight. The Act applies when your main workplace is in Florida, whatever law the contract names, and also when a Florida-based employer writes Florida law into the agreement.
Garden Leave, Explained
Garden leave (you give long notice, stay on the payroll, and sit out the notice period) is the CHOICE Act’s other instrument, and the more unusual one. In a covered garden leave agreement, you and the employer commit to up to 4 years of advance notice before the employment ends. You agree not to resign before the notice period runs. The employer agrees to keep paying the same salary and the same insurance benefits you had in the month before notice, though it owes you no discretionary bonuses. For the first 90 days you keep working. After that, the employer can send you home with pay, you may spend your days however you like, and you may work for someone else during the period only with the employer’s permission. The employer can also cut the whole arrangement short with 30 days’ written notice, and it can reduce your pay during the period only for gross misconduct.
The same mandatory-injunction machinery backs it up, and time served counts. Any non-working stretch of garden leave credits day for day against a companion non-compete, so a long garden leave is not stacked on top of a full 4-year restriction. For the employer, garden leave buys certainty that a rainmaker cannot walk across the street next month. For you, it is paid time, but it is also a career on pause at yesterday’s salary with the bonus pool gone. Price that honestly before you sign, not after.
For Business Owners Who Want Restrictions That Hold
Start from the interest you are protecting, not from the scariest template on the internet. A covenant tied to real customer relationships, genuinely confidential information, or true specialized training gets enforced. A covenant that tries to stop a junior employee from working anywhere in their field invites a narrowing fight you will fund. The court will trim an overbroad covenant, but every trim costs months and fees, and judges remember overreach. The reliable stack pairs the non-compete with a confidentiality agreement and a non-solicitation clause (a promise not to poach your customers or your staff), each doing the job it is built for.
For the people who could genuinely hurt you, the CHOICE Act deserves a hard look. If the role clears the county salary threshold, a covered agreement converts a maybe into something close to a certainty of interim relief, and stretches the horizon to 4 years. The price is process discipline. The 7-day review window, the written advice-of-counsel line, the acknowledgment language, and the garden-leave credit all have to be in the file, and we calendar the notice window so an eager hiring manager does not void the agreement by rushing the signature.
Restrictive covenants also belong in two documents owners forget. Your operating agreement, so a departing member cannot open across the street while still holding equity, and your buy-sell agreement, so the covenant is priced into any exit. If a departure has already turned into a fight over money or clients, that is its own playbook. And expect obligations to run both ways. You will post a bond if you seek an injunction, and your own compliance will be examined, because a business that broke its own promises first makes a poor plaintiff.
If You Signed One or Got the Letter
If the agreement is still unsigned, slow down. Work out which regime it lives under, because a CHOICE-covered agreement is a different commitment than a traditional one. Run the salary math against your county’s number, confirm the 7-day review window and the counsel advisory were honored, and read the definition of competing, which is often broader than your actual job. Everything is negotiable before signatures. Duration, territory, a list of named competitors, and garden-leave credit are all asks we make routinely. The same careful reading matters at the far end of the job, because employers routinely tuck a fresh covenant into an exit package, one of the traps our severance agreement review guide covers.
If you already signed and a demand letter arrived, do not ignore it and do not call the sender to explain yourself. Letters like these build a record, and fee-shifting means guessing wrong can cost you the other side’s legal bill along with your own. Have counsel answer it. The defenses are real. A covenant with no legitimate business interest behind it fails, because general skills are not protectable. Overbreadth narrows the restriction even where it survives. An employer that stopped paying what it promised has weakened its own hand. And work that is not actually similar to the old work sits outside most covenants entirely. Under the CHOICE Act those defenses narrow and the burden climbs to clear and convincing evidence, which is one more reason to know your regime before you resign, not after. When the dispute is headed to court, our business litigation practice handles both sides of these cases.
A warning that earns its own paragraph. Advice imported from other states gets people sued in Florida. No federal ban is in effect; the FTC’s 2024 rule against non-competes was set aside by a federal court before it took effect, and the agency later abandoned it. California habits do not travel. Florida remains one of the most enforcement-friendly states in the country, and people who treat the letter as a bluff meet the injunction docket.
What It Costs
Drafting is flat-fee work, whether it is a restrictive-covenant package for a key hire, a CHOICE-ready agreement with its notice paperwork, or covenants built into your operating agreement or buy-sell, each quoted at the consult once we know the roles and the stakes. Reviewing an agreement you have been handed is a modest engagement that can change what you sign, or whether you sign at all. Disputes are quoted after we read the agreement and the letters, with a candid view of your leverage, because fee-shifting runs both ways in these cases and the math should be honest before anyone postures. The 30-minute consult is free.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Non-Compete Agreements Enforceable in Florida?
Yes, and more readily than in most states. A Florida non-compete holds up when it is written, signed, protects a legitimate business interest like customer relationships or confidential information, and stays reasonable in time, territory, and scope. Courts must narrow an overbroad covenant rather than void it, and they may not weigh the personal hardship enforcement causes. Since 2025, agreements with high earners that meet the CHOICE Act’s requirements are enforced even more strongly, with a mandatory preliminary injunction. Assume yours is enforceable until a lawyer who has read it tells you otherwise.
How Long Can a Non-Compete Last in Florida?
For ordinary employees under the traditional statute, 6 months or less is presumed reasonable and more than 2 years is presumed unreasonable, so most run 1 to 2 years. Sale-of-business covenants get 3 years presumed reasonable with 7 as the outer band, franchise and dealer covenants get 1 and 3, and covenants protecting trade secrets get 5 and 10. Under the CHOICE Act, a covered high earner can agree to up to 4 years, reduced day for day by any non-working garden leave time served first.
What Is the Florida CHOICE Act?
A 2025 Florida law that makes non-competes and garden leave agreements with high earners close to self-enforcing. It covers employees and independent contractors earning more than twice their county’s average annual wage, requires 7 days to review the agreement, written notice of the right to talk to a lawyer, and a written acknowledgment about confidential information or customer relationships, and in exchange allows restrictions of up to 4 years that courts must preliminarily enforce. Health care practitioners are excluded, and agreements that miss the requirements fall back to the traditional statute.
What Is a Garden Leave Agreement?
An agreement to give up to 4 years of advance notice before employment ends. You promise not to resign before the notice period runs; the employer promises to keep paying your salary and insurance benefits the whole time. After the first 90 days you can be relieved of all duties while still being paid, and you may work elsewhere during the period only with the employer’s permission. The employer can shorten the period with 30 days’ written notice. It is paid time, but your bonuses stop and your career waits, so the terms deserve scrutiny before you sign.
Can I Get Out of a Non-Compete in Florida?
Sometimes, but never by ignoring it. The live defenses are the absence of a legitimate business interest behind the covenant, overbreadth a court will trim rather than excuse, the employer’s own failure to honor the agreement, and the argument that your new work is not actually similar to the old work. Under the CHOICE Act those defenses narrow and the burden rises to clear and convincing evidence. Many situations resolve by negotiation, a carve-out for the new role, a shorter period, or a defined territory, which is usually faster and cheaper than testing the injunction docket.
Does a Non-Compete Need Extra Pay to Be Valid in Florida?
Generally no. Florida courts have treated continued employment as enough to support a covenant signed mid-employment, so an employer can condition keeping your job on signing one. The CHOICE Act adds process rather than pay, meaning 7 days to review, written advice of the right to counsel, and a signed acknowledgment about confidential information. Garden leave is the exception in spirit, since the employer funds the entire notice period at your prior salary and benefits.
Is the FTC Ban on Non-Competes in Effect?
No. The FTC adopted a rule in 2024 that would have banned most non-competes nationwide, a federal court set it aside before it took effect, and the agency dropped its appeals in 2025 and formally removed the rule in 2026. No general federal ban applies, and state law governs. In Florida that means two enforcement-friendly statutes, so any plan built on the assumption that non-competes are dead is dangerous here.
Do Non-Competes Apply to Independent Contractors in Florida?
Yes. The traditional statute reaches employees, agents, and independent contractors alike, and the CHOICE Act expressly covers individual contractors who clear the salary threshold. Labeling someone a 1099 contractor does not free them from a signed covenant. The enforceability questions are the same ones an employee would face, meaning the business interest behind the covenant, the reasonableness of its terms, and, for high earners, whether the CHOICE paperwork was done.
Common Situations
The template on the top producer. A firm’s leading salesperson resigns with the client list, and the owner discovers the non-compete is a two-page download with a statewide ban and no stated business interest. The court trims it to the customers actually served and a shorter period, and enforcement lands, at the price of months of briefing a purpose-built covenant would have skipped. The statute rescues sloppy drafting, slowly and expensively.
The offer with a countdown. An executive is handed a CHOICE non-compete with the offer set to expire in 4 days. The missing review days become leverage, since the Act requires 7. Counsel reads the agreement, the geography shrinks to the markets she actually manages, and garden-leave credit is written in. She signs knowing exactly what 4 years means.
The move from California. An engineer relocates, assured by a friend back home that non-competes are unenforceable, and joins a direct competitor inside the covered territory. The former employer files, the presumption of irreparable injury does its work, and he spends a year enjoined while the fee clause compounds. A short Florida consult would have redirected the job search before the resignation.
Sources of Law
- Fla. Stat. §542.335 (valid restraints of trade: writing and signature, legitimate business interests, reasonableness presumptions of 6 months and 2 years for former employees, 1 and 3 years for franchisees and dealers, 3 and 7 years for sellers of a business, 5 and 10 years for trade secrets; required modification of overbroad restraints; no consideration of individualized hardship; presumption of irreparable injury; prevailing-party fees). Retrieved 2026-08-08.
- Florida CHOICE Act, Fla. Stat. §§542.41 to 542.45, created by ch. 2025-213, Laws of Fla. (HB 1219), which became law without the Governor’s signature on July 3, 2025 (stated effective date July 1, 2025; the official statute note records a constitutional effective date of August 15, 2025). Definitions, salary threshold, and exclusions in §542.43; covered garden leave agreements in §542.44; covered non-compete agreements in §542.45. Retrieved 2026-08-08.
- Fla. Stat. §542.336 (restrictive covenants void as to certain specialty physicians); Fla. Stat. §456.001 (health care practitioner definition incorporated by the CHOICE Act).
- Ryan, LLC v. Federal Trade Commission, No. 3:24-cv-00986 (N.D. Tex. Aug. 20, 2024) (setting aside the FTC Non-Compete Clause Rule nationwide); FTC press release of Sept. 5, 2025 (Commission vote acceding to vacatur and dismissing its appeals); Removal of the Non-Compete Rule, Fed. Reg. Feb. 12, 2026 (removing the vacated rule from the C.F.R.). Retrieved 2026-08-08.
Updated on August 8, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. Attorney Kevin Klagge represents families, businesses, and international clients in estate and tax planning, business structuring, and international law, with a focus on Florida legal tools. He litigates estate and business issues in court. General information about Florida law, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Outcomes depend on the specific facts; past results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Do not send confidential information until we have agreed to represent you.