Revenue-based financing

Revenue-based financing for restaurants: a payment that shrinks on slow nights.

Restaurants live on daily sales that rise and fall with weather, holidays and events. A share-of-revenue payment follows those swings.

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Why does revenue-based financing suit restaurants?

Short answer: Restaurant revenue is daily and visible, with card settlements arriving almost every business day, which makes repayments tied to sales a natural fit. A slow, rainy Tuesday produces a small payment and a packed Saturday a larger one. Restaurants have traditionally used holdback advances; a revenue share works the same way across all deposits.

Key facts

Daily card settlements are easy to read
Payments shrink on slow nights
Seasonal patios and winter dips are absorbed
Delivery payouts count as revenue

Why the structure suits restaurants

Restaurant revenue is daily and visible: card settlements arrive almost every business day. That makes a restaurant easy to read and a natural fit for repayments tied to sales. A slow, rainy Tuesday produces a small payment; a packed Saturday produces a larger one.

Restaurants traditionally used merchant cash advances repaid through a holdback on card sales. Revenue-based financing works on the same principle but is calculated on total revenue and often collected on a regular schedule rather than through the card processor.

What a reviewer reads

Daily card settlements and their consistency through the week.
Delivery-app payouts, which arrive weekly and carry their own fees.
Seasonal patterns, including patio seasons and January slowdowns.
Food and labour costs as a share of revenue.
Any existing advance being repaid from card sales.

Canadian seasonality

Across most of the country, patio season lifts sales from May to September, December brings parties and gift cards, and January and February are quiet. Tourist areas peak harder in summer. A repayment that follows revenue protects the cash a restaurant needs to get through February.

Uses that pay back

Kitchen equipment that fails or limits output.
Patio build-outs before the season.
Renovations timed for the quiet months.
Inventory for a busy holiday period.

A worked example

Illustrative arithmetic: a restaurant with $75,000 monthly sales

Advance: $35,000. Repayment cap: $35,000 × 1.22 = $42,700.
Cost of the capital: $7,700, fixed in dollars from the start.
Payment: 8% of monthly revenue. At $75,000 a month that is $6,000, so about 7.1 months to reach the cap.

Every figure on this page is illustrative arithmetic in Canadian dollars. It is not an offer, a quote or a promise of approval.

Where Canadian files usually start

Monthly revenueTypically from around $20,000 a month in deposits for Canadian files. The exact line varies by funder and by file.

Time in businessTypically about 12 months. Newer businesses can be reviewed, but the options narrow.

Account healthLimited low-balance or negative days. Funders read the last few months of bank statements for this.

CreditScores from 500 are considered. A score of 600 or higher opens more options and better offers.

DocumentsA signed application and recent business bank statements, typically the last four months.

Existing advancesFiles with an existing advance can be reviewed, including second position.

Next step: apply once with a signed application and your last four months of business bank statements. The file is read for rBF for restaurants and matched to the structure that fits, whether that is revenue-based financing, a merchant cash advance or a smaller first advance that builds history. Questions first? Call (305) 384-8391.

Sources and review

Reviewed by the Merchant Fund Express team on October 12, 2026. Official pages checked as of that date.

Common questions

Is revenue-based financing different from a merchant cash advance?

They are related. Both are repaid from sales. A merchant cash advance is priced with a factor rate on future card receivables; revenue-based financing is priced with a multiple and repaid as a share of total revenue.

Do delivery-app payouts count?

Yes. They count when they land in the business account.

Can a new restaurant apply?

Restaurants with several months of deposits can be reviewed, with fewer options than one with a year of history.