truck stop funding — mellow

mellow is not a lender and does not underwrite or approve anything itself. we review your details and work to connect you with funding providers who serve your category. terms and approval come from the provider, subject to underwriting.

know the business type, state, time in business, monthly business-bank-deposit range, requested amount, exact use, existing advances or loan payments, and timeline. use actual operating deposits rather than projected sales.

possible structures include bank or credit-union products, lines of credit, term products, equipment or inventory financing, and revenue-based financing. eligibility, cost, collateral, guarantees, repayment, and disclosures vary. a category list is not evidence that a product is available.

no. the public inquiry is not a secure document channel. do not submit bank statements, identification, tax records, account credentials, ownership documents, or supplier records unless an appropriate counterparty and secure process have first been verified.

compare the amount received, total payback, payment amount and frequency, term or estimated duration, reconciliation rights, collateral or receivables involved, personal guarantees, prepayment and default provisions, broker compensation, and required state disclosures.

no — nothing is approved until a provider underwrites your file. what you qualify for depends on your deposits, time in business, existing obligations, product mix, and state. the inquiry is how we find out which providers fit.

some will, and it is worth heading off before it happens. several revenue-based providers exclude trucking as an industry and some apply a higher revenue floor to anything trucking-adjacent, because carrier files behave differently — receivables concentrated in a few brokers, fuel as the dominant cost, equipment liens. a travel center is not that business. it is fuel-and-convenience retail with a fixed location, and it does not hold operating authority or carry freight. the distinction is real, but a reviewer skimming an application sees the word truck and applies a screen. make sure whoever packages your file states the business plainly: retail fuel, convenience store, foodservice, showers, parking. mellow does not underwrite or issue decisions, and cannot commit a provider to a classification, but a file that describes itself accurately from the first line is not relying on a stranger to guess right.

no one can answer that before a provider underwrites the business, and in fuel retail the usual shortcut is actively misleading. revenue-based providers commonly size from average monthly business-bank deposits, then reduce for existing advances, negative days, and irregular patterns. a travel center's deposits include fuel gross that mostly flows back to a supplier, so raw deposits overstate what the site keeps. a careful provider adjusts for that; a careless one issues an approval the margin cannot service. the preparation that helps is knowing your own numbers: monthly deposits by account, fuel cost of goods, in-store gross profit, existing payments, and the exact amount, purpose, and timeline you need.

generally yes, and this is where travel center files stall more than any other vertical. many sites run separate accounts — one the fuel supplier drafts, one holding card and fleet-card settlements, one for payroll, sometimes a separate account per franchise brand inside the building. sending a single account produces a picture with no cost side or no revenue side, and an underwriter reading a partial view usually reads risk. providers verify against the full record anyway. give them the complete set with a one-line description of what each account does, and the same file that looked confusing reads as an organized multi-profit-center operation.

not always, but time in business is one of the first screens a provider applies. many revenue-based providers look for at least 3 to 6 months of operating history and business-bank statements. bank, credit-union, and SBA-backed products usually want 2 years or more, and for fuel sites they frequently want environmental diligence on the tanks as well. if you recently bought an existing travel center, the operating history under prior ownership generally does not transfer to your file, so the useful move is depositing consistently through the first months rather than assuming the site's age carries you.

revenue-based providers often decide within 1 to 3 business days of a complete file, and bank or credit-union products commonly take weeks — longer where tank environmental review is involved. speed depends on the file as much as the provider. missing statement pages, unexplained large transfers between your own accounts, an undisclosed position, or a mismatch between the application and the bank record all add days. treat any timeline as an estimate rather than a commitment, because funding is subject to underwriting and mellow does not control provider timing. if a fuel delivery or a compliance deadline is driving the request, say so early and price the alternatives, including supplier terms and a smaller amount.

from a bank, sometimes, and it is usually slow. fuel retail carries environmental liability from the underground tanks, and banks that will lend against the real estate often want an appraisal, an environmental report, and a committee — a process measured in months. what moves in days is a merchant cash advance, which is not technically a loan: a funder purchases a share of future receivables for a lump sum now, underwritten on bank statements. we package files for specialty funders who already accept fuel-and-convenience retail.

that is a misclassification, and it is the single most common avoidable decline in this vertical. several MCA funders exclude trucking as an industry, and some apply a higher revenue floor to trucking-adjacent files. a travel center is fuel-and-convenience retail that serves truckers — it does not own tractors, hold operating authority, or carry freight. a funder skimming an application can miss that. the fix is presentation: the file should read as retail from the first line.

because gross deposits and gross profit are very different numbers in fuel retail, and a fleet-card receivable sits between them. a location can deposit enormous sums and hold a modest average daily balance, because most of that money is fuel cost owed back to the jobber. an underwriter used to reading a restaurant's statements can read that as thin. the correction is context supplied up front, not argued after a decline.

when a driver buys diesel on a Comdata, EFS, WEX, or TCH card, the transaction settles to you on the network's schedule rather than instantly. you have sold the fuel and already paid or are about to pay the jobber for it, so you carry a genuine receivable that a normal convenience store does not. it shows up in bank statements as a lag between volume and cash. explained, it is a working capital cycle. unexplained, it looks like a shortfall.

typically 24-72 hours from a complete file to funds in the account, subject to underwriting. a complete file is the last 3 months of business bank statements from every operating account, a one-page application, and your ID. multi-account travel centers slow themselves down more than any other vertical we work in, usually by sending one account when the fuel draft, the payroll, and the deposits run through three.

funded amounts run $10K to $500K, and travel center files often land higher than typical retail because the deposit volume is larger. the number is not simply a percentage of deposits, though. a careful funder discounts fuel gross for the cost owed back to the supplier, then sizes to what the site actually keeps. an offer built off raw gallons deposits is the kind of oversized approval that becomes a problem in month three.

not directly. section 781 changes what is lawful to sell and hold after november 12, 2026, and a location that already cleared the category has no inventory exposure. the indirect effect is the revenue that left with it. a counter category with strong margin does not replace itself, and rebuilding that gross profit through foodservice, beverages, and driver goods takes shelf investment before it takes hold.

often, subject to underwriting. some specialty funders write second and third positions. the test is whether deposits support the combined payment through a slow stretch, not through a strong month. this vertical has a specific trap: large gross deposits can qualify a location for a payment load its actual margin cannot service. we run that math against fuel-adjusted revenue before submitting anywhere.

cost varies by funder, by file, and by position, so we do not publish rates or factor rates. what you should expect: the full payback amount and payment schedule in writing before you sign, and in several states a standardized disclosure document delivered with the offer. if anyone quotes you a rate before reading your bank statements, they are guessing at a number that will change.

yes. specialty funders place working capital into fuel-and-convenience retail in every state. state rules shape what a location can stock and how its tanks are regulated, but they do not decide whether a file gets read. what varies most by state is disclosure paperwork, which several states now require with an offer, and that works in the operator's favor.