Georgia SB 90 —
the Southeast joins the framework.

Georgia Senate Bill 90 was signed into law in May 2023 and took operative effect on January 1, 2024. With it, Georgia became the sixth state — after California, New York, Utah, Virginia, and (effective the same day in 2024) Connecticut — to put a commercial financing disclosure regime on the books, and the first major Southeastern market to do so.

The Georgia framework borrows from the structures developed in the earlier states. Its threshold matches California's and Virginia's. Its required disclosure fields are largely parallel. Its broker treatment continues the pattern of putting broker conduct on its own regulatory footing rather than treating it as a sub-piece of funder regulation.

Scope and threshold

SB 90 applies to commercial financing transactions of $500,000 or less extended to a recipient located in Georgia. The covered product types include merchant cash advances, accounts receivable financing, factoring, asset-based lending, term loans, and lines of credit. Federally insured depository institutions are excluded; certain real-estate-secured transactions and de minimis transaction counts are also outside scope.

As with the other state regimes, the trigger is the recipient's location. A funder headquartered in any state must comply with Georgia's framework when extending covered offers to Georgia-located recipients. There is no in-state office requirement that limits the reach of the law.

What the disclosure must contain

SB 90 requires that the provider deliver, at the time of a specific commercial financing offer, a disclosure containing:

Total amount of the commercial financing — the capital being offered.

Disbursement amount — the net amount actually delivered to the recipient after deduction of any fees withheld at funding.

Finance charge — the total dollar cost of the financing.

Total payment amount — the gross payback obligation, and the breakdown into payment amount, frequency, and number.

Estimated annual percentage rate — calculated under prescribed methodology for indeterminate-term products such as MCAs and computed directly for fixed-payment products.

Prepayment policy — a clear statement of whether the recipient may prepay and whether prepayment reduces the dollar cost.

The disclosure is required before the recipient executes the contract, and the recipient typically signs the disclosure as acknowledgment of receipt.

The broker piece

SB 90 continues the pattern of treating broker conduct as a distinct regulatory concern. Brokers facilitating covered transactions to Georgia recipients are subject to disclosure obligations that are separate from — and in addition to — the provider's transactional disclosure. The intent is to surface the broker's role in the deal and the broker's compensation, so the merchant can evaluate the all-in cost rather than just the funder's quoted figures.

Merchants in Georgia shopping a deal through brokers should expect broker-specific disclosure documents in addition to the funder's offer disclosure. A broker who can't or won't produce that disclosure is operating outside the SB 90 framework, and the merchant should treat that as a meaningful warning signal.

How SB 90 compares to earlier state regimes

The Georgia framework lands closest to California's SB 1235 in design. The threshold is the same. The disclosure fields are largely parallel. The treatment of MCAs as a covered product type and the requirement of an estimated APR for indeterminate-term financing both mirror the California approach.

Where SB 90 diverges from California is at the margin. Georgia's regulator — the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance — is a different agency with its own rulemaking and enforcement approach. The technical methodology for APR calculation on certain product types may have small differences from California's DFPI regulations. And Georgia's broker-side disclosure regime is structured differently than California's, though the basic intent is similar.

For a multi-state operator, the implication is that being compliant in California is a strong starting point for being compliant in Georgia, but not a substitute. Each state requires its own forms, its own filings (where applicable), and its own enforcement-aware compliance posture.

What a Georgia operator should expect

A Georgia merchant receiving a covered offer in 2024 and beyond should see, at minimum: a standardized transactional disclosure delivered before contract signing; if a broker is involved, a separate broker disclosure surfacing the broker's role and compensation; clear, plain-English statements of the cost fields outlined above; and a signature line on the disclosure separate from the contract signature.

If any of those elements is missing, ask. A compliant funder or broker has the documents ready and will produce them within the same business day. A counterparty that cannot or will not is either non-compliant with Georgia law or uncomfortable putting the numbers on paper — neither is a counterparty a serious merchant should be working with.

Enforcement

The Georgia Department of Banking and Finance is the enforcement authority. The Department has supervisory and investigative powers and can impose civil penalties or require corrective action. Operators who receive non-compliant offers can file complaints through the Department's public complaint channels. Enforcement in 2024 has tracked the measured but active posture seen in the earlier state regimes.

The Southeast becomes a disclosure region

One under-discussed implication of SB 90 is geographic. Until late 2023, the state disclosure regimes were concentrated in California, the Northeast, and Utah. With Georgia going live on January 1, 2024, the Southeast — historically one of the most active small-business MCA markets in the country — joined the framework. Atlanta, Savannah, Macon, and the broader Georgia operator base are now inside the disclosure regime.

For funders and brokers who built their books on Southeastern volume, the compliance lift in 2024 was meaningful. Several established players had to update disclosure pipelines they had not previously needed. For Georgia merchants, the flip side is that the offers landing in their inboxes in 2024 should be materially more transparent than the offers they were seeing in 2022.

How Goliath approaches this

Goliath is a direct lender. We deliver clear cost disclosures on every offer regardless of which state the recipient operates in. In Georgia specifically, our offers include the full SB 90-aligned disclosure pack, and we work only with brokers who comply with the broker disclosure framework. Our internal standard has always been to put the numbers in plain English before signing — the Georgia regime made that a legal floor in the state on January 1, 2024.

This article is general information, not legal advice. Commercial finance laws evolve quickly; consult licensed counsel in your jurisdiction before making decisions based on this content.