urgent working capital for gas stations
specialty funders offer urgent working capital to gas stations when the account cannot cover what has to happen this week — a fuel load the jobber will draft on delivery, a dispenser down on the busy island, a compliance test that came back failed. advances run $10K to $500K, and the specialty funders typically decide in 24-72 hours. every offer is subject to underwriting, and we show you the payment against your margin, not your deposits.
- amount
- $10K to $500K
- decision
- 24 to 72 hours
- stacking
- all positions considered
- paperwork
- bank statements + ID
- commission
- paid by the funder, not you
when the jobber will not drop the load
the urgent problem at a fueling site is rarely subtle. you have two days of product in the ground, the jobber drafts your account on delivery, and the money that should be there went out on a cigarette invoice and a payroll run. a station that runs dry does not lose one sale — it loses the whole day, because a driver who pulls in and sees bags on the handles buys their coffee, their lottery ticket, and their pack of cigarettes somewhere else, and some of them do not come back next week. fuel is what brings people onto the lot. the inside counter is what pays you. run out of the first and you lose the second. the same urgency shows up in other shapes: a dispenser out of service on the island closest to the road, a submersible pump that quit, a compliance test that came back failed with a correction window attached. none of these wait politely. banks are the wrong instrument at this speed and many decline fuel retail on category anyway. an advance against future receivables moves on your bank statements, and our job is to know which funders will read a station file this week.
why your bank statements mislead everyone who reads them
this is the thing gas station owners have to explain to every broker who calls, and it is the thing we do not need explained. your deposits contain the entire retail price of every gallon that went through the pumps, and most of that money was never yours — it belongs to the jobber, to the fuel taxes riding on it, and to the card networks. a site depositing $400,000 a month might be holding $40,000 of actual gross profit once fuel cost, interchange, and cost of goods on the inside come out. NACS reported fuel gross margin at 39.7 cents per gallon in 2025, about 12.7 percent of the average retail price that year, and card fees at 8.4 cents per gallon in 2024. a fifth of the fuel margin goes to accepting the card before you have paid the light bill. funders who work this category underwrite fuel margin and inside gross profit. funders who do not either decline because the deposit-to-balance ratio confuses them, or worse, over-advance against a number that was never really revenue. the second failure hurts more than the first. we route around both.
a realistic timeline from application to funding
here is how the clock actually runs on a clean file. day one: a one-page application plus your last 3 months of business bank statements. we review the same day and submit to funders who take fuel retail. offers typically come back within 24-48 hours. after you accept, the funder verifies — a merchant call, a bank connection or statement refresh, occasionally a quick site check. funding typically lands within 24-72 hours of a signed agreement, subject to underwriting. the station-specific snag is that you are probably behind the register. verification calls happen during business hours, and an owner who is running the counter, meeting the transport, and covering an overnight shift can lose a full day to phone tag. tell us the two-hour window you can actually take a call and we set it there. the other common delays are the ordinary ones: missing statement pages, a co-owner on the account nobody mentioned, an existing position that surfaces in verification instead of in the first conversation. disclose the mess up front. a file with a known problem in it moves faster than a clean-looking one with a surprise.
what urgent funding costs, honestly
speed carries a price and we will not pretend otherwise. advances written on short timelines usually run shorter terms and price higher than deals shopped over a month, and cost varies by funder, by position, and by file strength. we do not publish rates, because your actual quote depends on underwriting and comes with formal disclosures at the offer stage. what we do instead is the arithmetic that matters. we put total payback in dollars next to the amount you receive. then we do the step almost nobody else does in this category: we put the payment next to your gross profit rather than your deposits. a daily remittance that looks like a rounding error against $400,000 of deposits can be a quarter of what the site actually earns. we ask what your gallons and your cents per gallon look like, what inside sales run, and what the inside margin is after cost of goods, and then we check whether the payment leaves enough to pay the next transport. if it does not, the advance makes your problem worse and we will say so before you sign.
when we tell you to wait
some urgent station problems should not be funded, and a broker who funds everything is not on your side. if fuel margin has been compressed for months and inside sales have been flat while expenses climbed, an advance buys weeks and adds a payment to a structure that was already failing. if you are carrying an open remediation order or a compliance action that could suspend your ability to sell product, borrowing against receivables that might stop is a bad trade, and we would rather you resolve the regulatory question first. if your branded supply agreement is up for renewal and the conversation with your distributor has gone quiet, find out where you stand before you take on a payment that assumes the brand and the volume continue. and if the number you need is a full tank replacement or a canopy rebuild, an advance against receivables is usually the wrong instrument for it — the payback window and the asset life do not match, and equipment or real-estate-secured financing is worth pricing first even though it is slower. sometimes the honest answer is 30 days of tighter buying and a hard conversation with the jobber about terms. we are here for that call too.
frequently asked questions
how fast can i actually get funded?
typical range is 24-72 hours from a complete application to money in the account, subject to underwriting and verification. same-week is common when statements are clean and you are reachable during the verification call. send full statement PDFs from the bank rather than screenshots or a printed summary, and tell us the window you can step away from the register.
my deposits are enormous but my balance is always low. will that get me declined?
with the wrong funder, yes, and it is one of the most common declines in this category. a fuel site cycles enormous money through the account and holds very little of it, which reads as leakage to an underwriter who has never priced a station. we package the file with gallons, cents per gallon, inside sales, and the jobber drafts identified, so the pattern reads as fuel retail rather than as a business bleeding cash.
can an advance pay for a fuel load?
yes, and it is one of the most common uses in this category. fuel is inventory you pay for before you sell it, and when the rack moves against you the working capital requirement rises without your profit rising at all. the advance lands in your business account and you pay the jobber the way you always do. we will size to a load you turn in days, not to a bet on price direction.
what documents do you need to start?
three things for most urgent files: your last 3 months of business bank statements, a one-page application, and a copy of your driver's license. it helps enormously if you can also tell us monthly gallons and your average cents per gallon, plus inside sales, because that is what lets us size the request against margin. no business plan, no environmental report, no tax returns for most deals under $150K.
is this a loan?
no. a merchant cash advance is a purchase of future receivables rather than a loan — the funder buys a slice of future revenue at a discount and you remit it daily or weekly. people search 'gas station loans' and land here, which is fine, but the distinction matters legally and in how the cost is structured. mellow is not a lender and does not make credit decisions; we package files for a specialty funder network.
ready to talk it through?
three months of bank statements and an ID. we'll tell you honestly whether funding fits your situation — and which funders would look at your file.
related situations
check what you qualify for
four questions, no contact details, instant answer. nothing here is an offer — it is an estimate based on the published minimums at the funders we work with.
see what your shop qualifies for.
takes about 30 seconds. no credit pull, no documents yet — we just need a way to reach you.