They can hold 5 percent, not 10, and your retainage has a date you can bill against

A Florida county sends over the contract for a $1.2 million job and the retainage clause reads the way it has always read: 10 percent of every draw until the work is half complete, then 5 percent after that. It sounds like law because it was law, and plenty of Florida payment pages still print it. It stopped governing any contract entered into on or after October 1, 2020, when s.1, ch.2020-173 rewrote the section a county answers to. Section 218.735(8)(a) now says one number: a local governmental entity may withhold from each progress payment made to the contractor an amount not exceeding 5 percent of the payment as retainage. Section 255.078(1) sets the identical ceiling on state work.

Run that clause to the halfway point and it has $60,000 of your money where the statute allows $30,000. The gap is $30,000 you already earned and already paid out in wages and material, and it stays open to closeout. Cover it with an 8 percent operating line and you pay $2,400 a year to finance a clause nobody read against the section it came from. The ceiling holds whatever the draft says: s.218.735(8)(b) on that county job, and s.255.078(2) in the same words on state work, lets a contract set retainage below 5 percent, step it down on a schedule, or release parts of it early, and gives nobody a route to step it up.

By the end of this page you will have the withholding percentage on your contract read against the ceiling that governs the job, retainage billed as a payment request carrying its own interest rate instead of asked for as a favor at closeout, the punchlist clock that starts your release, a release date on every held dollar on the job record, and, if you sub on a bonded public job, the three question letter that unlocks your right to sue for it. Written against the 2026 Florida Statutes, unchanged on retainage from the 2025 edition.

Read which of the three regimes your job is under before you price the draw schedule

Florida does not have one retainage rule. It has a state public rule, a local government rule saying the same thing in different words, and a private rule that says almost nothing about the amount.

Two rows are where the protection quietly stops.

The $200,000 row removes the ceiling exactly where you have the least leverage to argue about it. On a $180,000 city job it is s.218.735(8)(f) that puts the cap out of reach, and the entity may hold what the contract states, 10 percent included. Quote s.255.078(6) at a city and you have quoted the state's copy of the same carve-out: s.255.072(5) defines the public entity that whole run of sections governs as the state, and not a local governmental entity. So read the retainage clause on a small public job harder than on a large one, and cite it from the half of the statute book your owner actually sits in.

The FDOT row is the correction that rarely gets carried. Section 5(2) of ch.2020-173 says the amendments to ss.255.05 and 255.078 do not apply to contracts executed under chapter 337, which is transportation contracting, so quoting the 5 percent ceiling at a district office quotes a section written past them.

Hold the ceiling, then spend the argument on the release schedule instead

Once the job is inside s.255.078 or s.218.735 the amount stops being negotiable upward, and s.218.735(8)(b) locally, s.255.078(2) on state work, is explicit about the one direction the flexibility runs. The entity may withhold at a rate lower than 5 percent, may reduce the rate incrementally on a schedule set out in the contract, and may release all or part of what it holds at any point, including retainage attributable to a particular subcontractor or supplier. Every one of those moves is downward. So at the pre-bid, the question worth asking is not whether the entity will lower its percentage but whether the contract will carry a step-down: 5 percent to half completion and 2.5 after, or release of a trade's retainage once that trade has demobilised and been accepted. That is a request the section contemplates in its own words, not an exception you are begging for.

The same subsection puts an obligation back on you. Where the entity pays retainage attributable to a sub's work, the contractor must timely remit it, and "timely" is the pay-down rule: 10 calendar days from your receipt, 7 for a subcontractor paying its own subs, under s.218.735(6) locally and s.255.073(3) on state work. Sitting on a sub's retainage a week past receipt is not a cashflow decision, it is a breach of a numbered subsection, and the sub has the same statute you do.

Bill retainage as a payment request, because the statute already calls it one

One sentence changes how retainage behaves. Section 255.078(4) says the same time limits for payment of a payment request apply regardless of whether the payment request is for, or includes, retainage, and the local government twin at s.218.735(8)(d) says it again for county and city work. So retainage is not money released when someone in accounts payable feels the job is finished. It is a payment request, and it inherits every clock and consequence attaching to one:

Read the interest row twice, because it is where two rates get swapped. The 2 percent per month on construction services runs from the due date with no grace period, and s.218.735(9) does not condition it on you invoicing for it. The 1 percent per month figure that circulates on Florida payment pages belongs to s.218.74(4), which covers everything a local government buys except construction services, starts 30 days after the due date, and does have to be invoiced for. On $60,000 sitting 90 days past due, the two readings are $3,600 against $1,200, and s.218.76(3) has the court award costs and reasonable attorney's fees to the prevailing party.

Two levers sit underneath that table and rarely get pulled, and both are one page of paper with a date on it. Section 218.735(1)(a) lets you send an overdue notice, and if the request is not rejected within 4 business days of delivery, it is deemed accepted, except for any portion that is fraudulent or misleading. Section 218.76(2)(b) does the same on the dispute side: notify the entity in writing that it failed to start its own dispute procedure on time, and if it still has not started within 4 business days, the objection is waived. The full set of windows is in Florida prompt payment.

Start the release at the punchlist, and know the three ways it can trigger

Public closeout in Florida is a sequence with a number on every step. Section 255.077 runs it for state work and s.218.735(7) runs the identical shape for local government.

The list comes first. Under s.255.077(1)(a) on state work, and s.218.735(7)(a) word for word on county and city work, on a project estimated under $10 million the contract must provide for a list of the items needed to render the work complete and acceptable, with the estimated cost of each, developed within 30 calendar days after substantial completion as the contract defines it, or after beneficial occupancy or use where it does not. At $10 million and above it is the same 30 days, extendable by contract to 45.

Then the money moves twice rather than once. Section 255.077(4) gives the entity 20 business days after the list is developed, and after receipt of a proper invoice or payment request, to pay the remaining contract balance including retainage, less 150 percent of the estimated cost to complete the listed items. Section 255.077(5) then lets you request all remaining retainage once those items are done. On local work the same step sits at s.218.735(7)(e), and s.218.735(7)(c) puts final completion at least 30 days after the list reaches you.

The third trigger is the one to keep in your back pocket, and the two regimes count it differently. Where the entity fails to develop the list in the time the section allows, you may submit a payment request for the whole remaining balance including retainage anyway. On state work s.255.077(9) makes that payable within 20 days of receipt. On county, city and school board work s.218.735(7)(j) makes it 20 business days, which across a normal autumn is nearer a calendar month, and getting the two the wrong way round is how contractors start counting interest a week before it is owed. The entity keeps two answers to that, so hand it neither: it need not process the request where you failed to cooperate in developing the list, and s.255.078(3) preserves anything that is the subject of a written good faith dispute or of a s.255.05 claim.

Two more sentences in s.255.077 pay for themselves on a job that runs long. Under (7), warranty items may not affect the final payment of retainage, so a twelve month warranty is not a reason to hold your last 5 percent for twelve months. Under (8), retainage may not be held to secure premiums under a consolidated insurance program, and final payment may not be delayed pending the insurer's final audit. A wrap audit running past closeout is a common reason given for a held balance, and the section closed it.

So on a county job reaching substantial completion on September 14, 2026, the list is due by October 14, the balance less 150 percent of the listed items follows 20 business days after that list, and the day the last item is signed off you request the remainder. Miss October 14 at their end and you send the request anyway, payable in 20 business days under s.218.735(7)(j) because the owner is a county, not the 20 calendar days the state runs on.

On private work, set the number yourself, then run the 14 day release

No Florida statute caps retainage on private construction work, and knowing that beats wishing otherwise. Section 715.12(7)(a) lets an owner and contractor agree to a provision allowing the owner to withhold a portion of each progress payment until substantial completion, and (7)(b) does the same down the chain. A portion. No percentage appears in the subsection, while the public sections put "an amount not exceeding 5 percent" in exactly the same slot. On private work the number is a term you negotiate at signing, alongside the draw interval and the payment terms.

The 10 percent quoted elsewhere as a private cap comes from s.713.23(1)(d) and does a different job. It says a lienor's failure to receive retainage sums not in excess of 10 percent of the value of what that lienor furnished is not a nonpayment requiring service of the notice of nonpayment on a private payment bond. That is a safe harbour inside a notice condition, and it limits nothing about what may be withheld.

What private work does have is a short release clock. Under s.715.12(7)(a) the owner pays the balance of the contract price, retained progress payments included, within 14 days after any one of three events, each pairing a completion marker with a punchlist you then substantially complete: an architect or engineer certifies substantial completion, a certificate of occupancy issues, or the owner or the owner's tenant takes possession. Where the contract sets no time for that punchlist, the section supplies 15 days from whichever of the three comes first, and if no written punchlist reaches you inside that window, interest starts 14 days after the same event. On a project built in phases the subsection applies to each phase separately, which turns one distant release into several near ones.

The rate is why a private release date belongs on a calendar. Funds held past the window accrue at the s.715.12(5) rate, being the s.55.03 judgment rate plus 12 percent per annum, or the contract rate where that is higher, under s.715.12(6)(a). The Chief Financial Officer resets the judgment rate quarterly, and for the quarter beginning July 1, 2026 it is 8.06 percent, putting the statutory rate at 20.06 percent a year. Sixty thousand dollars held 120 days past release carries $3,957 of interest. Read s.715.12(6)(e) alongside it: unless the contract specifically provides otherwise, a dispute does not let an obligor withhold payment for work not affected by that dispute.

One private lever goes underused. Section 715.12(7)(c) lets you withdraw the retained cash by depositing securities with the obligor: United States Treasury bonds, notes or bills, bonds or notes of the State of Florida, or certificates of deposit within insured limits. The withdrawal cannot exceed their market or par value, whichever is less, and any income they earn comes to you. On a long job with six figures retained, that swap turns dead money into working capital.

Send the three question letter when a bonded public job goes quiet on your retainage

Subcontractors on bonded public work carry one extra rule that is both a deadline and a gate. Section 255.05(10) requires an action for recovery of retainage against the contractor or the surety within 1 year after your performance of the labor or completion of delivery, and separately bars it from being brought at all until one of four conditions is met:

• The entity has paid your retainage to the contractor and the s.218.735 or s.255.073(3) time for passing it down has expired.
• You have completed all your work and 70 days have passed since the contractor sent its final payment request to the entity.
• At least 160 days have passed since substantial completion as the contract defines it, or since beneficial occupancy or use where it does not.
• You asked the contractor in writing for any of three facts and got no written response within 10 days.

That fourth one is a letter you can send this afternoon. The facts s.255.05(10)(d) lets you demand are whether the project has reached substantial completion, whether the contractor has received your retainage and on what date, and whether it has sent its final payment request and when. Ten days later you either hold the answers, which show which of the other conditions is already satisfied, or you hold the condition itself and the gate is open.

The safety valve underneath is narrow. Where none of the four is satisfied and the action cannot be brought inside the year, the period is extended to 120 days after one of them is satisfied. That protects a claimant whose retainage was not yet claimable, and does nothing for one who could have filed and did not. The notices that have to be in place before any of this matters are counted in Florida public job bond claims and on the Florida payment bond claim calculator.

What it costs

There is no monthly subscription. The platform fee is 2.5% of each invoice processed through AEC Stack, collected on payment due dates.

The retainage numbers are set by statute rather than charged by anyone, and these are the ones the page works from:

On the platform side the percentage is a field rather than an assumption. A quote carries the withholding rate as a number you type, so a public job goes out at 5 and a private job at whatever you negotiated, with the retained amount figured on the pre-tax value of the work and the balance payable now underneath it. Convert the quote to an invoice and the rate travels with it, in USD, because the market on the business record says Florida.

The Holdbacks tracker then adds up every retained dollar across every job, with the release date you set on each and a countdown against it. Outside Ontario it applies no statutory arithmetic of its own: your date is kept exactly as entered and drives the countdown, and nothing computes a release date from a rule that does not govern your job. Section 255.077 and s.715.12(7) tell you which date to write down, and the tracker makes sure the day it lands is not a day you spend searching email.

Open the job you are billing this month in your business file and do two things to it. Put the retainage percentage from the signed contract next to the ceiling that governs the job, because on a public contract over $200,000 anything above 5 is money you can ask back today rather than at closeout. Then write the release date on the held amount, counted from the punchlist rule that applies rather than from the day the work ended. A held balance with a date on it is a receivable. Without one it is a memory, and memories do not accrue 2 percent a month.

<!-- CAPTURE LATER: the Holdbacks tracker on a Florida launch, USD held totals across two county jobs, contractor-entered release dates counting down, no Ontario window on the rows. Blocked in this wave: the demo tenant is Ontario. -->