How Common Stacking Is
CreditFeed’s analysis of UCC filing data across 40,447 MCA merchants in Florida, California, Colorado, and New York, published in April 2026, found 73.4% of merchants carry exactly one active advance and 11.8% show no active position at all. That leaves 14.8%, roughly 5,990 merchants, carrying two or more advances at once, and 3.6%, roughly 1,453, carrying three or more.
Put plainly: in a general lead pool, roughly one in every seven active merchants is already carrying a second position before a broker ever submits a third.
Why the Real Number Is Probably Lower Than It Looks
CreditFeed discloses its own bias directly. Because MCA lenders do not consistently file UCC-3 termination statements once an advance is paid off, a satisfied or lapsed advance can still show up as an active filing in a UCC search. That means these stacking percentages likely represent an upper bound rather than an exact, current count.
This is the same “stacking” a mcarocket-sourced glossary definition describes plainly: a merchant holding multiple simultaneous advances, straining cash flow. The dataset above gives that definition a real, if imperfect, denominator.
Reading a Bank Statement for Signs of an Existing Advance
A UCC search is not the only way to catch this. The same balance and transaction pattern a broker already reads before submission, per the underwriting criteria funders apply, tends to show a second position clearly once you know what to look for: more than one regular, recurring daily or weekly debit hitting the account, on top of ordinary operating expenses, is the practical signature of an existing advance still being repaid.
A merchant whose statement shows chronically low daily balances alongside multiple recurring debit patterns is a stronger stacking signal than either sign alone.
What a Merchant Might Not Fully Disclose, Even Honestly
Not every case of an undisclosed advance is deception. A merchant juggling more than one advance at once is not always tracking the details as precisely as a broker would assume, especially if the earlier deal was arranged quickly or through a different broker entirely. Asking a direct, specific question, how many active advances are currently being repaid and what the combined daily or weekly debit is, gets a more reliable answer than a general “do you have any other funding” question, which is easy to answer honestly and incompletely at the same time.
The bank statement is still the more reliable source either way, honest gap or deliberate omission.
A Checklist Before You Submit a Second or Third Position
Before sending a submission on a merchant who may already be stacked, a few checks are worth running in order: pull the bank statements and count the recurring debit patterns directly, ask the merchant a specific question about current combined obligations rather than a general one, and run a UCC search while keeping CreditFeed’s own upper-bound caveat in mind, since a filing showing as active may already be satisfied.
None of these checks are a guarantee. Together, they are a meaningfully better read than submitting on the merchant’s word alone and letting the funder discover the stack mid-underwriting.
Treat Dramatic Stacking Statistics With Real Skepticism
A handful of MCA-defense marketing sites publish dramatic-sounding survival statistics tied to stacking counts, the kind of claim that promises a precise, sharply declining approval or survival rate as more positions stack up. Treat any figure like that with real skepticism unless the publisher discloses its actual case-selection methodology and underlying sample size. The most commonly circulated version of this specific claim traces back to a paid advisory service with no independently verifiable data behind it, not a disclosed research methodology.
The CreditFeed figures above are worth using precisely because CreditFeed discloses its methodology and its own bias. That is the bar a stacking statistic should clear before it goes into a submission conversation with a merchant.
Getting the Read Right Before the Submission, Not After
Every check in this guide takes minutes against statements and a UCC search a broker already has access to. Skipping them does not make a stacked file less stacked. It just moves the discovery to a funder’s underwriting desk, where it costs a submission slot and a bit of the broker’s own credibility with that panel member.
Getting a merchant on the phone who is worth this level of scrutiny starts before any of this. Human + AI SDRs qualify that conversation directly, so the file landing on your desk is one worth reading this closely in the first place.
| Position Count | Share of Merchants (CreditFeed, 40,447 merchants) |
|---|---|
| No active position | 11.8% |
| Exactly one position | 73.4% |
| Two or more positions | 14.8% (about 5,990 merchants) |
| Three or more positions | 3.6% (about 1,453 merchants) |
CreditFeed’s analysis, published April 2026, covering Florida, California, Colorado, and New York. CreditFeed cautions these figures likely represent an upper bound, since MCA lenders do not consistently file UCC-3 terminations when an advance is paid off.
Sources
The external data in this guide draws on the sources below. Figures described in the text as estimates or industry triangulations are directional and are not attributed to a single dataset.
- CreditFeed, We Analyzed 40,000 MCA Merchants. Here’s How to Think About Targeting
- MCashAdvance, MCA Underwriting: Process, Criteria, Red Flags