AVAILABILITY FLOAT

The time period between the time wherein a fund becomes available in an account and the time that the deposit was made, particularly relating to check deposits. The existence of the availability float is due to the processing of physical checks of the banks before funds can be released, meaning that the depositor needs to wait before the funds will appear in a bank account. Companies can decrease availability float by transferring to an electronic payment system because it reduces the inclination to the processing speed of banks on physical checks.

The difference between a payment float and availability float is referred to as the net float.