Fractional CFO Services in South Florida
Fractional CFO and controller services for South Florida construction, contractors, distribution, manufacturing, and service businesses.
Miami / Fort Lauderdale / Palm Beach
Fractional CFO and Controller services for South Florida businesses.
Vessel Advisors serves South Florida companies across Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties — international businesses, real estate operators, hospitality groups, distributors, healthcare services, and the family-owned businesses behind South Florida's economy.
South Florida is unlike any other US operating market. The international dimension is real. So is the multi-generational family ownership pattern across construction, hospitality, distribution, and real estate.
How can we help?
What’s going on in your business and where would you like help?
An Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Private Company for two consecutive years.
The Market
South Florida operates on different rules than the rest of the country.
South Florida is the most international middle market in the country — the Latin American business gateway, a magnet for capital flows from across the Western Hemisphere, and a major financial-services secondary market. The mid-market companies here are multilingual, often multigenerational, and frequently structured across multiple entities and sometimes multiple jurisdictions.
What we see most:
- Family-owned hospitality and lodging operators — boutique hotels, restaurant groups, multi-property operators across South Florida and the Caribbean.
- Real estate developers and property management companies with multi-entity portfolios and partner waterfalls.
- Distribution and logistics operators serving Latin America trade routes and the Florida market.
- PE-backed platforms across services, healthcare, and consumer brands using Miami as a US base.
- Construction contractors and trades businesses building South Florida's sustained development pipeline.
Industries
Where we work most in South Florida.
Hospitality and lodging
Boutique hotels, restaurant groups, food and beverage operators. Multi-unit reporting, margin discipline, and the team development that lets family-owned hospitality scale beyond founder bandwidth.
Real estate and construction
Developers, multi-entity property managers, and construction contractors riding South Florida's sustained build cycle. Partner waterfalls, project-level profitability, and multi-entity consolidation are baseline.
Distribution and logistics
Distributors and 3PL operators serving Latin American trade and the broader Florida market. Inventory accuracy, customer-level profitability, currency exposure, and trade-finance work are the recurring conversations.
PE-backed platforms and services
Sponsor-backed services platforms running add-on strategies across South Florida and the broader region. EBITDA quality, integration discipline, and quarterly sponsor reporting are where we add the most leverage.
South Florida Taxes and Compliance
Florida stopped taxing commercial rent in October 2025. Palm Beach County cut its sales tax to 6.5% in January.
Florida also taxes no personal income. What South Florida companies do pay runs through the county surtax, city and county receipts, documentary stamps on deeds and loans, and employer and construction rules that apply in all three counties.
Taxes
Sales tax
7.0% in Miami-Dade and Broward, 6.5% in Palm Beach
Palm Beach County charged 7.0% through 2025. Its 1% infrastructure surtax ended December 31, 2025, and a 0.5% school surtax began January 1, 2026, running through 2035. Broward's 1% transportation surtax runs through 2048, and Miami-Dade's two 0.5% surtaxes have no end date.
Business tax receipts
A city receipt and a county receipt
A business inside Miami needs both, and usually a Certificate of Use first. Fort Lauderdale raised its rates 5% on July 1, 2026, its first change since 2004, and since October 1, 2026 new applicants need a Certificate of Use before the receipt. No Florida city or county taxes income, payroll or gross receipts.
Owners
No income tax, no estate tax, no PTE election
Florida's constitution bars a tax on personal income and any estate or inheritance tax beyond the federal credit amount. With no personal income tax, there is no pass-through entity tax for owners to elect.
C corporations
5.5%, with one $50,000 exemption per group
A C corporation pays 5.5% on Florida income above $50,000. A controlled group or consolidated return shares a single exemption, split equally unless the members elect otherwise, so a platform that adds companies does not add exemptions.
Federal conformity
Interest stays capped on an EBIT basis
Florida kept §163(j) at its January 1, 2025 version, so a C corporation's business interest deduction is limited to 30% of an EBIT-based measure of income, not the EBITDA base the 2025 federal law restored. Florida also adds back 100% bonus depreciation and recovers it over seven years.
Employers
Minimum wage
$15.00 since September 30, 2026
Tipped hotel and restaurant staff must receive at least $11.98 in direct wages, with tips covering the other $3.02. The rate is frozen at $15.00 through 2027 and moves with inflation from January 1, 2028.
Living wage
No living-wage terms in new local contracts
Since September 30, 2026, cities and counties cannot require a living wage or benefits through contracts, procurement or bid preferences, though contracts signed earlier keep their terms. Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach also cannot set a minimum wage for private employers.
Non-competes
Up to four years under the CHOICE Act
The CHOICE Act lets an employer bind employees paid more than twice the annual mean wage of the county where it is based to a non-compete or paid garden leave of up to four years. The employee gets seven days to review the agreement and written notice of the right to counsel, and courts must grant a preliminary injunction to enforce it.
E-Verify
Every new hire at 25 employees and up
Private employers with 25 or more employees verify each new hire within three business days, and they certify compliance on the first reemployment tax return of each year. Three failures in 24 months bring a $1,000 daily fine.
Reemployment tax
A new filing system since August 24, 2026
The Department of Revenue moved reemployment tax to a new eFile and Pay system, and old-site credentials did not carry over. The third-quarter return is due October 31, 2026. New employers pay 2.7% on the first $7,000 of each employee's wages.
Real estate and construction
Documentary stamps
70¢ per $100 on deeds, 35¢ on mortgages
A mortgage recorded in Florida pays 35¢ per $100 with no cap, plus a one-time 0.2% intangible tax when Florida real estate secures the loan. Unsecured notes pay the same 35¢ rate, capped at $2,450.
Late payments
19.87% on a late contractor payment
On private work the contract sets the due date. An unpaid amount accrues the state judgment rate plus 12% from the 14th day after it was due, 19.87% for the fourth quarter of 2026, and a contract cannot waive that interest in advance.
Retainage
No private cap, and 14 days to release it
Florida sets no limit on retainage for private work. Once a project reaches substantial completion, a certificate of occupancy or possession, and the punch list is finished, the owner pays the balance, retainage included, within 14 days.
Contractor sales tax
No sales tax line on a lump-sum contract
A developer's lump-sum invoice from a contractor shows no sales tax, even with materials itemized. Florida treats the contractor as the final consumer, so the tax and surtax were paid when it bought the materials.
Questions South Florida owners ask
Which rentals does Florida still tax after October 2025?
Rent on offices, retail space and warehouses is no longer taxed for rental periods beginning on or after October 1, 2025. Lodging stays of six months or less, commercial parking, boat docking and aircraft tie-downs are still taxed, and the surtax on a transient rental applies to the full price with no $5,000 cap. Rent for September 2025 and earlier stays taxable at 2% plus surtax even when it is paid late.
What does a notice to owner mean for a South Florida property owner?
It is how a subcontractor or supplier with no contract with the owner preserves its lien rights, and it must be served within 45 days of first furnishing and before final payment. A claim of lien is recorded within 90 days of final furnishing and served on the owner within 15 days. The lienor then has one year to enforce it, or 60 days after a notice of contest.
How long can a buyer keep me from competing after I sell my company?
Florida presumes a seller's non-compete of three years or less reasonable and one longer than seven years unreasonable. The restriction must be in a signed writing and protect a legitimate business interest, and a court must modify terms that go too far. More on how we help owners prepare a business for sale.
Is a family business community property in Florida?
No. Florida is not a community property state, though married couples can opt in by placing assets in a community property trust. A Florida homestead is protected from forced sale with no dollar cap, up to half an acre inside a city, and a spouse must join any mortgage on it, which matters to an owner who pledges the house for business credit.
What tax exposure comes with an add-on acquisition in South Florida?
A buyer of more than 50% of a business or its assets takes on the seller's unpaid sales tax and reemployment tax, though not its corporate income tax, up to the greater of the price or fair market value, net of liens. A Department of Revenue certificate of compliance, with no insiders shared between the parties, removes that exposure. The seller must file a final return and pay within 15 days of the transfer. See how we work with newly acquired businesses.
Do Broward and Palm Beach businesses need both a city and a county receipt?
Inside a city, yes. Broward requires a county receipt from anyone doing business there, one-person and home-based businesses included, after the city's own, and its fees generally run $27 to $150 by type and headcount. Palm Beach County charges $33 per professional per office after city zoning sign-off, and West Palm Beach charges a law office $86.81 plus $173.64 per lawyer.
When does a seller outside Florida have to collect Florida sales tax?
It has to collect once its taxable remote sales into Florida exceeded $100,000 in the previous calendar year. There is no transaction-count test, and only taxable sales count toward the threshold. On sales through a marketplace, the marketplace provider collects.
Figures verified October 2026 against the Florida Constitution and Statutes, the Florida Department of Revenue, FloridaCommerce, the Florida Chief Financial Officer, the Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach County tax collectors, and the cities of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. This is general information, not tax or legal advice.
South Florida Finance Talent
South Florida's top tenth of financial managers earns $326,280 or more.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts 14,540 financial managers in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro, the category that covers controllers and finance directors. Median pay is $164,230, against a national median of $166,570. At the 90th percentile the metro pays more than the nation: $326,280 against $323,270.
The metro has 7,878 business locations with 50 to 499 employees. A company that needs CFO judgment can get it without bidding for a full-time hire in a market that pays this much at the top.
Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach MSA. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023 and Vintage 2025 population estimates.
How we engage.
When It's Broken
Put out the fire.
Interim CFO & Controller. At the loss of a key employee. When things crash or break. We deploy interim professionals — repairing what's broken and keeping the system running while you decide what's next.
When You're Building & Exiting
Advise and serve.
CFO, Controller & Accounting Team. Right-sized financial leadership — and the team to execute. Embedded for the long run. The CFO Power Team: right roles, right cost.
When You Don't Know What You Don't Know
Assessment services.
Financial Discovery Assessment. A structured deep-dive that reveals where your finance function stands today — and what it needs to support where you're going.
Transaction Readiness Assessment. Will the books and reporting tell the right story to a buyer or investor — and do the systems and processes support merger or acquisition activities?
Coverage
We cover South Florida.
We support South Florida companies through our team and bench — on-site time when it matters, virtual delivery when it doesn't.
Coverage area: Miami, Coral Gables, Doral, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, West Palm Beach, and the broader Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach metro.
Call the team
866-324-4473Our Proprietary Diagnostic
The Financial Discovery Assessment shows you what’s working, what’s missing, and the plan to get where the business needs to go.
Every Assessment applies the same structured examination — accounting systems and technology, processes and procedures, team members and team structure, and team-member will-skill — refined across hundreds of engagements in businesses that look like yours.
The output is the Financial Heat Map System: dollarized findings, hidden inefficiencies, and a sequenced plan. It’s presented at the Executive Action Meeting, where your stakeholders review findings and recommendations in non-clinical, non-technical language they can act on.
We’ve walked into hundreds of businesses at the stage yours is in now. We know where to look. We know how to fix what we find.
Prefer to call? 866-324-4473