If you are managing B2B receivables in the Americas (USA, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil), the stakes for your cash flow have never been higher.
Recent data suggests that a late payment in this region is increasingly becoming a permanent loss.
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The Data: A Widening Gap Between the Americas and Europe
According to the 2024–2025 Atradius Payment Practices Barometer, the risk profile for the Americas has deteriorated significantly compared to European counterparts.
- Approximately 50% of all B2B invoices in the North American (USMCA) region are currently.
- In the United States, 8% of the total value of B2B credit sales is now written off as uncollectable. That’s nearly triple the historical average of 2.7%.
- While Western Europe is also seeing a dip in payment punctuality, its bad debt write-off rate remains lower, at roughly 6%.
- Once an invoice passes the 90-day overdue mark in the Americas, the likelihood of recovery drops by nearly half. Essentially, one in every two invoices reaching this stage becomes a “bad debt” write-off.
This is perhaps the most telling chart in the survey. Faced with late payments, 35% of companies across North America delay their own payments to their suppliers, thus creating a highly volatile chain of bad debt.
“Wait and See” Is a Failing Strategy
While many credit managers blame broader economic volatility, the data suggests that late payments have become a structural “fact of life.”
Atradius reports indicate that 48% of businesses in the region expect insolvencies to rise further throughout 2025.
As the survey results underline, recovery and growth do not guarantee payment promptness. Businesses must remain vigilant, as even “stable” customers are increasingly using supplier credit as a form of interest-free bridge financing, often at the supplier’s terminal expense.
Chasing bad debts in the USA and the Americas can also be complicated and expensive.
The Barrier of Local Complexity
Despite 81.5% of firms in the Americas implementing credit management policies, the “local factor” remains the greatest hurdle for international creditors.
- Customers in the Americas are not bound by UK or EU Late Payment Directives.
- Pursuing a debt in Brazil or Mexico requires navigating entirely different legal statutes, language barriers, and time zones.
- It is notoriously easy for a debtor to ignore a creditor located half a world away.
The latter point is the reason we work with a network of local agents who can tackle the debt locally, rather than allowing the debtor to hide from international calls.
Keep in mind that, even if you do decide to take legal action in the USA, the need to supply court witnesses could make a claim extremely expensive. Your best course of action is to engage an international debt collection service with local connections in the Americas, which is often effective without the need to go to court.
Protecting Your Profitability
To ensure you fall into the half of companies that successfully recover what they are owed, speed and local expertise are your only real levers.
Our international debt recovery service bypasses the nightmare of overseas litigation by connecting you with a global network of independent specialists.
We provide:
- Local Legal Authority: Agents who operate within the specific statutes of the debtor’s jurisdiction.
- Prioritization: We ensure your invoice moves to the top of the “must-pay” pile before a potential corporate insolvency occurs.
- Efficiency: We save you the exhaustive search for reputable foreign agents, providing a single point of contact for your global ledger.
Collect the Debt Before It Becomes Unrecoverable
In North and South America, the window for recovery is closing faster than ever. If an invoice is approaching the 90-day mark, the time for “reminders” has passed. The time for action is now. When the 90-day window is closing, the difference between a recovered invoice and a total write-off is the speed and authority of your response.
Contact Safe Collections today to leverage our global network of recovery specialists. Whether your debtor is in Chicago, Mexico City, or São Paulo, we provide the local expertise and boots-on-the-ground presence needed to move your invoice to the top of the priority list and secure the payment you are owed.
