North Dakota Surety Bonds

Usually, you will be required to post one of the following three categories of bonds:

• License and permit bonds are the types of bond that businesses need when applying for a license or a permit in ND. Some examples include collection agencies, money transmitters, contractors, grain buyers, and transient merchants.
• Contract bonds may be required from a contractor bidding or performing work on a construction project. Usually, these bonds are required on large public projects, but increasingly they are also being required for P3 and private projects as well.
• Court bonds can be required to guarantee that a third party will uphold their legal obligations in front of a court. Court bonds are also required from some individuals appointed by a court as custodians, fiduciaries, or guardians.

How much you will end up paying to get bonded depends on a number of factors. To get started, you need to know the required total value of your bond. This total value is sometimes referred to as the bond’s penal sum.

For auto dealer bonds, the total bond amount is $25,000, meaning that a claim against the dealer’s bond cannot exceed $25,000. To get bonded, the dealer needn’t pay that full amount upfront. Instead, they pay a yearly premium to the bonding company in exchanges for its backing.

Premiums depend mostly on the applicant’s FICO score. Applicants with a score of 700 may pay as little as 1% of the bond’s value, which means that a bond of $25,000 may cost just $250 a year. Premiums tend to go up as the applicant’s credit score goes down, and can reach 15% for some bonds. In most cases, however, they won’t go above 10%.

It’s important for surety bond applicants to understand the other factors that influence their premiums, so they can prepare a stronger application. These include financial statements– business or personal– as well as a resume of their experience. The business’s age is also a factor. Find out more on our “What Does a Surety Bond Cost?” page.

The application process is simple, but there are small differences based on whether you are applying for a contract bond or a license bond.

License Bond Application

All you need to do to get your license bond is submit our online application– it takes just five minutes. We’ll respond with a free bond quote based on the information you provided, and, once you purchase your bond, we’ll mail you the original bond form within two business days.

Contract Bond Application

To apply for a contract bond simply fill out the application and our experts will get back to you shortly.

You can get pre-approved for a bond line of up to $500,000. If you need a higher bond line, you must have a certified CPA prepare financial statements for the past 3 years.