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DUI payment plan costs: Florida prices the instalments themselves — $25 to start, or $5 a month
A Florida DUI judgment is rarely paid in one visit to the clerk. Section 28.246 of the Florida Statutes requires every clerk of court to accept partial payments under a payment plan, and section 28.24 prices the clerk's work in running one: a one-time $25 administrative charge to set the plan up, or $5 a month where partial payments are received without one. This page prices the payment-plan layer itself — the charges that exist only because the fine is being paid over time — from the two statutes, for the state whose conviction-side figures sit in our Florida breakdown.
The two clerk charges in section 28.24
Section 28.24 sets the service charges clerks may collect, and subsection (26) carries the payment machinery. Paragraph (b) sets the charge for receiving and disbursing partial payments — other than restitution payments — at $5.00 per month, where no administrative processing charge has been imposed under section 28.246. Paragraph (c) sets the alternative: for setting up a payment plan, a one-time administrative processing charge of $25.00, in lieu of the per-month charge under paragraph (b). The structure is a genuine either/or written into the schedule — a driver on a formal plan pays the $25 once; a driver making partial payments outside a plan pays $5 for each month a payment is received and disbursed — and over any plan longer than five months the formal plan is the cheaper of the two published routes. Restitution payments travel under their own line in the same subsection, $3.50 per payment for receiving and disbursing restitution, which matters where the judgment includes the restitution components priced on our restitution page. None of these charges reduces the underlying fine by a cent; they are the price of time, charged by the office that collects it.
| Payment-plan component (Florida) | Published amount |
|---|---|
| Payment plan set-up charge (Fla. Stat. § 28.24(26)(c)) | $25.00 one time, in lieu of the per-month charge |
| Partial payment processing, no formal plan (§ 28.24(26)(b)) | $5.00 per month in which a partial payment is received and disbursed |
| Restitution payment processing (§ 28.24(26)(a)) | $3.50 per payment |
| Maximum down payment to establish a plan (§ 28.246(4)) | The lesser of 10 percent of the total amount owed or $100 — the down payment may not exceed either figure |
| Presumed affordable monthly payment (§ 28.246(4)) | Not more than the greater of 2 percent of annual net income divided by 12, or $25 |
| Collections referral add-on on default | No single statewide percentage is quoted here — referral terms are set under the clerk's collection arrangements and are described, not priced |
Section 28.246: the plan terms the clerk must offer
Section 28.246(4) turns the clerk's discretion into a structured entitlement. Each clerk shall accept partial payments for court-related fees, service charges, court costs and fines in accordance with an established payment plan; a person seeking to defer payment applies to the clerk for enrolment; and the clerk shall enter into a payment plan with a person the court determines is indigent for costs. The subsection then caps the plan's two pressure points. Any down payment the clerk requires to establish the plan shall be the lesser of 10 percent of the total amount owed or $100 — so on a judgment of any size, the entry price cannot exceed $100. And a monthly payment is presumed to correspond to the person's ability to pay if it does not exceed the greater of two percent of the person's annual net income, divided by twelve, or $25 — a statutory formula that ties the instalment to income rather than to the clerk's preference, with the court able to review the reasonableness of the plan's terms. A person released from incarceration with outstanding obligations has thirty days to contact the clerk to pay in full or apply for a plan, a deadline worth treating as a priced component of its own: missing it is what converts a payment problem into an enforcement problem.
What falling behind costs, in structure if not in a single figure
The plan's protection is conditional on staying current. Amounts unpaid under a plan can be pursued through the enforcement routes the statutes give clerks and courts — including referral of the debt for collection, with the additional charges that referral arrangements impose, and, for obligations tied to the driving privilege, the licence-suspension machinery that Florida applies to unpaid court financial obligations, which then adds the reinstatement layer priced in our Florida breakdown before the driver is legal again. This page deliberately prices no single figure for default: the collection add-on depends on the clerk's arrangements and the suspension consequences depend on which obligations are unpaid, and both are the kind of locally variable numbers this sprint describes rather than invents. What can be said from the statutes is the shape of the risk — a $25 set-up charge buys a protected schedule only while the schedule is honoured, and the cheapest month on any Florida DUI judgment is the one paid on time. Working the published figures the other way shows why enrolment is usually worth it even for small balances: five monthly partial payments outside a plan already equal the $25 plan charge in processing fees alone, and every month after that is $5 the plan would not have charged.
Which judgments this applies to
Nothing in sections 28.24 or 28.246 is DUI-specific, and that is the point: the plan layer attaches to the Florida DUI judgment because it attaches to every court financial obligation, including the fines in our public defender page — where the $50 application fee and the statutory minimum contribution for appointed counsel are themselves court obligations a plan can carry — and the appeal costs in our appeal page if an appeal is pursued while the trial-court balance runs. Drivers in other states should not import these figures: instalment machinery is state law, most states publish their own version of it in their court-cost statutes, and where a state publishes none, the honest entry is the one this site's other state pages use — described, not priced. Florida publishes its version down to the $3.50 restitution line, which is why Florida gets the page.
Sources: Florida Statutes §§ 28.24(26), 28.246(4). Last verified: November 2026.
The fine is one line in a longer stack — court costs, program fees, interlock, supervision and reinstatement all bill separately. Price the layers that apply to your case in the calculator.
Open the DUI cost calculatorThe plan, priced in one breath
Entry costs no more than $100 down by statute, the plan itself costs a flat $25 once instead of $5 a month, and the monthly amount is presumed fair if it stays at or under the greater of an income-based figure — two percent of annual net income divided by twelve — or $25. Every one of those numbers is in sections 28.24 and 28.246, and a clerk's plan offer can be checked against them line by line before anything is signed.
Related cost guides: Florida DUI penalties breakdown, Florida DUI cost guide, DUI public defender costs, DUI appeal costs, DUI court assessments in California.
Sources: Florida Statutes §§ 28.24, 28.246. Last verified: November 2026. This page is educational information about costs only — not legal advice. Laws and fees change; confirm current figures with your court and your state's driver-licensing agency.