Florida Non-Compete Law: CHOICE Act, Limits, and Enforcement

Florida non-compete law is set out primarily in Florida Statute 542.335, and it favors employers more than the law in most other states. A restrictive covenant is presumed valid when it is written, signed by the employee, tied to a legitimate business interest, and reasonable in duration and geographic area. A newer statute effective July 1, 2025, the CHOICE Act, adds a parallel framework for higher earners. If you signed something limiting what you can do after leaving a Florida job, the rules below decide whether it holds up.

What the Statute Actually Covers

Section 542.335 does not treat non-competes, non-solicitation clauses, and confidentiality provisions as separate categories. It groups all of them under the single label “restrictive covenant.”¹ The same enforceability analysis applies whether your agreement blocks you from joining a competitor, contacting former clients, or disclosing internal information.

The Writing and Signature Requirement

The threshold requirement is absolute. The covenant must be in a written document signed by the person the employer wants to bind.¹ A verbal promise carries no legal weight. If you never signed anything, the restriction fails no matter how compelling the employer’s business reason.

Consideration is the other baseline issue, and Florida is generous to employers here. Continued at-will employment counts as sufficient consideration. Your employer can hand you a non-compete on a random Tuesday and require your signature to keep your job. No raise, bonus, or additional benefit is needed. Some states demand more; Florida does not.

Legitimate Business Interests the Employer Must Prove

A signed writing is necessary but not enough. The employer also has to show the restriction protects at least one recognized business interest, and the burden is entirely on the employer.¹ The statute lists five categories, and courts can recognize others.

Trade secrets, including formulas, processes, and customer databases that give the company a competitive edge because they aren’t publicly known.
Valuable confidential information that falls short of trade secret status but still has commercial value and is not available to outsiders.
Substantial relationships with specific existing or prospective customers, patients, or clients.
Customer goodwill tied to a trade name, trademark, geographic location, or marketing area.
Extraordinary or specialized training that goes well beyond routine onboarding.

A general desire to keep you away from competitors does not qualify. The employer has to point to something specific, such as trade secrets you accessed, client relationships you managed, or training the company paid for. Courts have also recognized interests beyond the statutory list. Referral sources in healthcare, for instance, have been treated as protectable in fields like home health services and cardiology, on a theory similar to customer goodwill.

How Long the Restriction Can Last

Florida uses rebuttable presumptions to gauge reasonable duration. The presumptions depend on the type of relationship.

Former Employees, Agents, and Independent Contractors

Six months or less is presumed reasonable. Anything longer than two years is presumed unreasonable.¹ Durations between the two fall into a gray zone the court works through on the facts. Most employment non-competes sit in the one- to two-year range.

Distributors, Dealers, Franchisees, and Licensees

One year or less is presumed reasonable, and more than three years is presumed unreasonable.² The deeper market integration in these arrangements justifies the longer permissible window.

Sale of a Business

Three years or less is presumed reasonable, and beyond seven years is presumed unreasonable.² Buyers get a long runway to absorb the goodwill they paid for.

Trade Secret Restrictions

When the covenant is specifically designed to protect trade secrets, none of the standard presumptions apply. Five years or less is presumed reasonable, and more than ten years is presumed unreasonable.¹ An employee who had access to real trade secrets can face a much longer restriction than one whose non-compete rests on client relationships alone.

All of these presumptions are rebuttable. But the argument has to focus on whether the scope is excessive relative to the interest being protected. Florida law prohibits courts from considering any personal or economic hardship the restriction causes the employee.¹ Losing your livelihood, having to relocate, or facing financial ruin is legally irrelevant.

Geographic Scope

The restriction also has to define a reasonable territory. The area should track where the employer does business or where the employee had meaningful presence. A statewide restriction for a single-county operation invites pushback. A restriction covering the three counties where you actually managed clients is much more likely to survive.

Remote work complicates the analysis. When an employee works from home and touches clients across multiple regions with no fixed office, the traditional territory concept blurs. Florida courts have not drawn a bright line for remote workers, and the statute still requires the restriction to be reasonable in area. Employers drafting for remote employees often anchor the geography to where clients are located rather than where the employee sits. Ambiguity in the contract tends to produce litigation.

The CHOICE Act for Higher Earners

The CHOICE Act (HB 1219) took effect July 1, 2025. It does not replace Section 542.335. It sits alongside it, giving employers additional tools for restricting higher-earning workers.

Who It Applies To

The CHOICE Act covers any employee or individual contractor with a base salary greater than twice the annual mean wage of the county where the employer’s principal place of business sits, or the county where the employee lives if the employer is based outside Florida. Healthcare professionals are excluded. The dollar threshold varies by county and updates with wage data, so you have to check the current mean wage figure for the relevant county to know whether the Act reaches you.

Garden Leave Agreements

Under a covered garden leave agreement, the employer and employee agree to a notice period of up to four years before the employment relationship ends. The employer keeps paying full salary and benefits through the notice period. After the first 90 days, the employee is not required to perform any work but cannot take a competing job without the employer’s permission. The employer can shorten the notice period with at least 30 days’ advance written notice.

Covered Non-Compete Agreements

These look like traditional non-competes but cap the enforceable period at four years. Any non-working portion of a garden leave period with the same employer reduces the non-compete term day for day.

Extra Procedural Steps

CHOICE Act agreements require steps the base statute does not. The employer must advise the employee in writing of the right to consult a lawyer and provide at least seven days to review the agreement. The employee must acknowledge in writing that the job involves confidential information or customer relationships. Skipping these steps can knock out enforceability.

Courts Rewrite Overbroad Agreements Rather Than Void Them

This provision drives a lot of outcomes. When a Florida court finds a restriction too broad, the statute says the court “shall modify” the restraint and enforce it to the extent reasonably necessary to protect the employer’s interest.¹ It is not discretionary.

Employers therefore face little downside risk in drafting aggressively. If they overreach, the court trims the restriction back. It rarely disappears. For employees, the strategy of arguing “this non-compete is too broad, so it should be void” almost never succeeds. The court will simply narrow it.

What Happens When an Employer Sues

Injunctions and the Irreparable Harm Presumption

The employer’s most powerful tool is a court injunction ordering you to stop the competing activity. In most civil cases, the party seeking an injunction has to prove harm that money can’t fix. Florida’s statute flips that burden. A violation of an enforceable restrictive covenant creates a statutory presumption of irreparable injury.¹ The employer does not have to prove damage is occurring; the court assumes it. Preliminary injunctions are much easier to get in Florida state court than in most other jurisdictions. In federal court, the Eleventh Circuit has held that federal procedural rules govern and the employer must actually prove irreparable harm.

Mandatory Attorney Fees

The statute requires the court to award reasonable attorney fees and costs to the prevailing party in any enforceability dispute.¹ The rule cuts both ways. If the employer wins, you may owe its legal bills on top of any damages. If you defeat the non-compete, the employer pays yours. Restrictive covenant litigation routinely runs into five figures per side, so fee shifting shapes settlement leverage heavily.

Money Damages

Employers can also pursue lost profits caused by the breach. Florida requires those damages to be proven with reasonable certainty rather than speculation. Because that proof is expensive and uncertain, most employers lead with injunctions and treat damages as additional leverage.

Defenses That Actually Work

Challenging a Florida non-compete is uphill, but not hopeless. The strongest defenses attack the agreement itself rather than the employee’s circumstances.

No legitimate business interest. If the employer can’t tie the restriction to trade secrets, confidential information, client relationships, goodwill, or specialized training, the covenant is void.
Overbroad scope. Arguing the time, area, or line of business sweeps too widely. This usually produces modification rather than dismissal, but the narrowing can still be significant.
Prior material breach by the employer. Under Florida’s prior breach doctrine, if the employer materially breached the employment agreement first, such as by failing to pay agreed compensation, the employee may be released from the non-compete. The breach has to be substantial, and the employee can’t have waived it by continuing to perform with knowledge of the breach.
No signature or no writing. If you never signed the agreement, it is unenforceable.

What you cannot argue is personal hardship. The statute explicitly bars courts from weighing economic harm to the employee.¹ Many employees discover this only after they need the argument.

Physician Specialty Exception

Florida carves out one narrow exception. Under Section 542.336, a non-compete with a physician is void when a single entity or its affiliates employs or contracts with every physician practicing a particular specialty in a given county. The legislature concluded that enforcing the restriction in that setting would deny patients access to specialist care. The non-compete stays void for three years after a second unaffiliated employer begins offering the same specialty in that county.³

The Federal Picture

The FTC issued a final rule in April 2024 that would have banned most non-competes nationwide.⁴ It never took effect. A federal district court in Texas found the FTC lacked authority for the rule, and in September 2025 the FTC filed to accede to the vacatur.⁵ There is no federal ban, and Florida law controls. Separately, the NLRB General Counsel has argued that overbroad non-competes can violate the National Labor Relations Act by chilling collective action.⁶ That position is not binding law, and it excludes supervisors and managers, but employees covered by the NLRA may have an additional argument in the right facts.

1
The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 542.335 – Valid Restraints of Trade or Commerce
2
Florida Senate. Florida Code 542.335 – Valid Restraints of Trade or Commerce
3
Florida Senate. Florida Code 542.336 – Invalid Restrictive Covenants
4
Federal Trade Commission. FTC Announces Rule Banning Noncompetes
5
Federal Trade Commission. Federal Trade Commission Files to Accede to Vacatur of Non-Compete Clause Rule
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National Labor Relations Board. NLRB General Counsel Issues Memo on Non-Competes Violating the National Labor Relations Act