Find Me Funders
Business days
Also called banking days, business day.
Days the banking system settles, excluding weekends and federal holidays, which is the calendar every payment schedule and contractual deadline in funding actually runs on.
Drafted with AI assistance. Not yet independently checked. Nobody has verified the claims on this page against a source, so treat the figures and legal points as a starting point rather than as settled, and confirm anything you are about to act on. How we check things.
What it means
A daily payment is not a payment every day. It is a payment on days the ACH network settles, which excludes Saturdays, Sundays and the federal holidays observed by the Federal Reserve. That leaves roughly 21 or 22 payments in a typical month and around 252 to 254 in a year, which is why cash advance terms are quoted in payment counts rather than calendar months.
The distinction runs through everything else in the documents. Funding timelines, payoff letter validity, notice periods, cure periods where they exist, and rescission or review windows in the newer state disclosure statutes are all usually expressed in business days.
Contracts define the term themselves, and the definitions vary. Some say any day banks are open in a named state, some exclude the funder's own holidays, and some say business day means a day the funder is open for business, which is not identical to a banking day. The definition sits in the definitions section and controls the arithmetic everywhere else.
Cutoff times interact with this. A file submitted after the cutoff on a Friday before a Monday holiday does not settle until Tuesday, so a two business day timeline can be four calendar days.
Where this one catches people
Merchants budget daily payments at 30 a month and are then relieved to find only 21 or 22 debits, but the payback total is unchanged, so the term is longer than a naive calendar reading suggests. The reverse error hurts more: assuming a payoff quoted as good for five business days lasts five calendar days, and wiring on day six into an expired figure.
Worked through
A 120-payment daily advance does not finish in four months. At roughly 21 to 22 banking days a month, it runs about five and a half calendar months, and any holiday-heavy stretch extends it further.
Figures in the example are illustrative. They show the arithmetic, not a quote — what any one lender would charge is on that lender's page, where it is published at all.
Where you will meet this term
Read next
Business days — common questions
What does business days mean?
Days the banking system settles, excluding weekends and federal holidays, which is the calendar every payment schedule and contractual deadline in funding actually runs on.
Where does business days catch people out?
Merchants budget daily payments at 30 a month and are then relieved to find only 21 or 22 debits, but the payback total is unchanged, so the term is longer than a naive calendar reading suggests. The reverse error hurts more: assuming a payoff quoted as good for five business days lasts five calendar days, and wiring on day six into an expired figure.
Is business days the same as an interest rate?
Business days is defined above; if you are comparing it against a rate, check whether the two measures share a time dimension before you put them side by side.
Which products does business days apply to?
Merchant Cash Advance, Working Capital, Term Loan, Business Line of Credit, Revenue-Based Financing.
Is there a worked example of business days?
Yes, on this page, and it is labelled illustrative. It shows the arithmetic, not a quote from any lender.
What else should I read alongside business days?
ACH, ACH debit, Cure period, Cutoff time, Holdback.
Has this definition been checked?
Not yet. This entry is drafted and live, and the notice at the top says so. Confirm anything you are about to act on.
Is this legal advice?
No. It is a definition. What a clause does in your contract, in your state, is a question for a lawyer licensed where you are.
Can I suggest a term?
Yes — [email protected]. The glossary grows from what people are actually shown in contracts.