In Florida civil cases, what people call a motion for reconsideration is actually two different filings with two different deadlines. If the judge entered a final judgment or final order and you want the court to fix it, the correct filing is a motion for rehearing under Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.530, and you have 15 days from the date the judgment is filed with the clerk. If the ruling is a non-final (interlocutory) order, you can ask the judge to reconsider under the court’s inherent authority, with no fixed deadline, but that request does not pause your appeal clock.
Getting the label right matters because the two paths carry different consequences for enforcement, appeal timing, and preservation of issues.
The 15-Day Deadline for Final Judgments
Rule 1.530 says a motion for rehearing “may only be directed to a final judgment or final order.”1The Florida Bar. Proposed Amendment to Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.530 A final order is one that wraps up all the judicial work on a case, such as a judgment after trial or a summary judgment dismissing every claim.
The motion must be served on the opposing party no later than 15 days after the final judgment or order is filed with the clerk.1The Florida Bar. Proposed Amendment to Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.530 The same window applies to a motion to alter or amend the judgment. Two details matter here. First, the clock starts on the filing date with the clerk, not the date you or your attorney receive a copy. Second, “served” means delivered to the other side through an accepted method, typically Florida’s e-filing portal, which handles filing and service together.
The 15-day limit is a hard ceiling. A motion served on day 16 is untimely, and the trial court loses its authority to act on it. You also lose the procedural benefits that a timely motion carries, including the pause on your appeal deadline and the automatic block on enforcement.
Once you get a timely motion on file, the court has discretion to let you amend it with new grounds at any point before ruling.1The Florida Bar. Proposed Amendment to Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.530 So hitting the initial deadline is what matters most, even if you refine the arguments afterward.
Reconsidering a Non-Final Order
Motions aimed at non-final orders go by a different name: motions for reconsideration. Rule 1.530 does not govern them. Instead, they rest on the trial judge’s inherent authority to revisit any interlocutory ruling before final judgment. That power is broad, and there is no fixed deadline to invoke it.
The catch is significant. Because Rule 1.530 does not authorize rehearing motions for non-final orders, a motion for reconsideration of a non-final order is not “authorized” for tolling purposes. It does not stop the 30-day clock to appeal any order that is immediately appealable under Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.130, which covers orders granting or denying injunctions, orders determining personal jurisdiction, orders on venue, and several others.2Rules for Florida Appellate Procedure. Rule 9.130 Proceedings To Review Nonfinal Orders and Specified Final Orders
Practical consequence: if the order you want reconsidered is one of the appealable non-final orders, and you file a motion for reconsideration and wait for a ruling, the 30-day appeal window can expire while you wait. An untimely appeal under Rule 9.130 gets dismissed. You can still ask the trial judge to reconsider, but file the notice of appeal within 30 days as well. Do not assume the reconsideration motion buys you time.
Grounds That Actually Work
A motion for rehearing is not a second bite at the apple. Judges routinely deny motions that rehash arguments the court already considered. Florida case law recognizes a narrow set of grounds worth raising.
A clear error of law or fact is the strongest. The court overlooked or misapplied a specific legal principle, or got a factual finding demonstrably wrong. A miscalculated damages figure or the application of a statute that does not govern the dispute are examples. Vague disagreement with how the judge weighed the evidence will not work.
Newly discovered evidence can support a motion, but only if you could not have discovered it earlier through reasonable effort. Evidence you forgot to present, or decided not to present, does not qualify.
A change in controlling law after the judgment is a third recognized basis. If an appellate court issued a decision that changes the framework the trial court relied on, that can warrant reconsideration.
Whatever the ground, be specific. Identify the exact error, point to the exact place in the record or the law where the court went wrong, and explain how correcting it would change the outcome. Generic assertions that the court “erred” go nowhere.
What a Timely Motion Does for Your Appeal
Under Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.020(h), a final order is not “rendered” for appeal purposes until the court disposes of certain post-judgment motions, including motions for rehearing and motions to alter or amend.3Rules for Florida Appellate Procedure. Rule 9.020 Definitions The 30-day window to file a notice of appeal does not start running until the court enters a signed, written order resolving your motion.
Tolling is automatic. You do not have to ask for it. The condition is that the motion be “authorized and timely.” A motion served after the 15-day deadline, or aimed at a non-final order that Rule 1.530 does not cover, pauses nothing. The appeal clock keeps running as if the motion had never been filed.
Blocking Enforcement While You Wait
A timely rehearing motion also temporarily blocks the winning party from enforcing the judgment. Under Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.550, no execution or other final process can issue on a judgment until the time for serving a rehearing motion has run, and if a motion is timely served, enforcement stays blocked until the court rules on it.4The Florida Bar. Florida Rules of Civil Procedure
This protection is automatic; you do not file a separate motion to stay enforcement. It prevents collection on a money judgment, execution on property, or other enforcement action while the trial court reconsiders. Once the court denies the motion, enforcement can proceed immediately unless you obtain a separate stay pending appeal.
When Filing a Motion Is Required to Preserve an Appeal
Sometimes the motion is not optional. The Florida Supreme Court amended Rule 1.530 to add a preservation requirement: to challenge on appeal the trial court’s failure to make required findings of fact in the final judgment, you must first raise that issue in a motion for rehearing.5Supreme Court of Florida. Supreme Court of Florida No. SC22-756 – Amendments to Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.530 and Florida Family Law Rule of Procedure 12.530 Skip that step and the appellate court can treat the issue as waived.
The Court noted that the amendment “does not address or affect, by negative implication, any other instance in which a motion for rehearing is or might be necessary to preserve an issue for appellate review.”5Supreme Court of Florida. Supreme Court of Florida No. SC22-756 – Amendments to Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.530 and Florida Family Law Rule of Procedure 12.530 In other words, other situations may still require a rehearing motion for preservation, and the amendment did not narrow those.
One exception: the sufficiency of the evidence to support a judgment in a non-jury case can be raised on appeal regardless of whether you filed a rehearing motion or objected at trial.1The Florida Bar. Proposed Amendment to Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.530 That issue does not need a motion to preserve it.
If You Missed the 15-Day Window
Missing the rehearing deadline does not always end your options. Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.540(b) provides a separate route to relief from a final judgment on limited grounds:
- Mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect.
- Newly discovered evidence that could not have been found in time for a rehearing motion, even with reasonable diligence.
- Fraud, misrepresentation, or other misconduct by the opposing party.
- The judgment is void, such as when the court lacked jurisdiction.
- The judgment has been satisfied, released, or discharged, or a prior judgment on which it was based has been reversed.
For the first three grounds, you must file within one year of the judgment. For the last two, the rule allows filing “within a reasonable time” with no hard outer limit.4The Florida Bar. Florida Rules of Civil Procedure
Two important differences from a timely Rule 1.530 motion. A Rule 1.540(b) motion does not affect the finality of the judgment and does not suspend enforcement; the winning party can still collect while your motion is pending unless you separately obtain a stay. And courts apply the rule narrowly. If you could have raised the issue within the 15-day rehearing window and simply did not, a 1.540(b) motion is unlikely to succeed. It is a safety valve, not a substitute for filing on time.