Business and Legal Insights

This article is the first in a three-part series examining the evolving legal landscape surrounding noncompete agreements affecting Florida employers. While Florida has historically been one of the more favorable jurisdictions for enforcing restrictive covenants, recent developments at both the state and federal levels have added new considerations for businesses seeking to protect their workforce, customer relationships, and confidential information.

In this series, we will examine: (1) Florida's 2025 CHOICE Act and its expanded protections for certain noncompete and garden leave agreements, (2) a survey of other recent developments in noncompete law in other states, including Delaware, which could apply if an employee is located in a different state or if another state’s laws govern the employment relationship, and (3) the current federal landscape affecting the use and enforcement of noncompete agreements nationwide.

Florida’s CHOICE Act became effective July 1, 2025, but a year later many employers still have not fully appreciated how dramatically this changed the state's approach to restrictive covenants.

At a time when many states are limiting or outright banning employee noncompetes, and even the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) nationwide ban on noncompetes was officially vacated in 2024, Florida has doubled-down, almost literally.  Florida’s CHOICE Act creates a framework that allows qualifying employers to enter into noncompete agreements with qualifying employees lasting up to 4 years, as opposed to the 2 year period under Florida’s general noncompetition laws. The CHOICE Act also provides a more employer-friendly path to enforcement when the statute's requirements are satisfied.  To be clear, the CHOICE Act is more of a supplement to Florida’s traditional noncompete laws, and not a replacement.

To obtain any benefits of the CHOICE Act, employers must follow specific statutory requirements, so careful drafting remains critical. The CHOICE Act requires certain language and disclosure. Further, the CHOICE Act only applies to “high wage earners”, as more specifically described in the statutes.  However, there may still be a benefit to including the new statutory language in case an employee’s salary changes and they later qualify.  The bottom line is that for businesses seeking to protect customer relationships, confidential information, and key personnel, the CHOICE Act offers tools that are significantly stronger than those available in many other jurisdictions. Our firm’s prior blog provides an overview of these requirements in more detail: FLORIDA'S CHOICE ACT: Shutts & Bowen LLP.

Whether your company already uses restrictive covenants or has not reviewed its employment agreements and related employee documents recently, now is a good time to revisit your approach and determine whether your agreements are positioned to take advantage of Florida's unique legal landscape.

While the CHOICE Act remains valid law in Florida, it is yet to be seen the interplay it will have with federal law.  Although Florida employers often focus on Florida law when evaluating the enforceability of noncompete agreements, the analysis does not always end there.  In an age of an increasingly remote workforce, employees may reside in other states, perform services across multiple jurisdictions, or work under agreements containing another state's choice-of-law provisions. As a result, the laws of states with very different positions on restrictive covenants may significantly impact the enforceability of a noncompete agreement.

In Part Two of this series, we will examine how noncompete laws vary across the country, current trends, and why Florida employers should consider these differences when hiring employees who have connections to other states.