Research
Surety Bond Cost Report
Which bond requirements are the largest, and how far apart are the states? This report ranks statutory surety bond amounts across every state-backed bond type we track, using regulator-published figures only: no estimates, no filled gaps.
Data as of 2026-06-17. Current edition: Q3 2026. Every figure recomputes from the underlying dataset, so the report never goes stale.
By Cornerstone Staff, Financial Services State Licensing Specialists
Headline findings
10
bond types with ranked statutory state data
Cornerstone Bond Cost Index
441
published statutory bond amounts across states
State regulator requirements, state-law dataset
$1,000,000
largest single statutory bond requirement tracked
State regulator requirements, state-law dataset
37
state and bond-type pairs where no bond is required
State regulator requirements, state-law dataset
Highest statutory bond requirements
The single largest published bond amounts across every state-backed bond type we track. Each links to the full state table in the Bond Cost Index.
Top statutory requirements (state, bond type)
- Pennsylvania, Money Transmitter Bond $1,000,000
- Kentucky, Money Transmitter Bond $500,000
- Michigan, Money Transmitter Bond $500,000
- Puerto Rico, Money Transmitter Bond $500,000
- Connecticut, Money Transmitter Bond $300,000
- Indiana, Money Transmitter Bond $300,000
- New Mexico, Money Transmitter Bond $300,000
- Ohio, Money Transmitter Bond $300,000
- West Virginia, Money Transmitter Bond $300,000
- California, Money Transmitter Bond $250,000
Statutory amounts by bond type
Median and full range of published statutory amounts for each bond type with at least 10 stated state figures. States that publish no dollar amount are excluded from that bond's statistics rather than estimated.
Median statutory amount and range
- Money Transmitter Bond (Bond, not License) median $100,000, range $10,000 to $1,000,000, 50 states
- Motor Vehicle Dealer median $50,000, range $10,000 to $100,000, 42 states
- Credit Service Organization median $15,000, range $10,000 to $100,000, 22 states
- Mortgage Banker median $10,000, range $10,000 to $50,000, 52 states
- Mortgage Broker median $10,000, range $10,000 to $50,000, 52 states
- Mortgage Lender median $10,000, range $10,000 to $50,000, 52 states
- Mortgage Loan Originator median $10,000, range $10,000 to $50,000, 52 states
- Mortgage Servicer median $10,000, range $10,000 to $50,000, 52 states
- Debt Collector (Collection Agency) median $10,000, range $5,000 to $50,000, 38 states
- Notary median $10,000, range $500 to $50,000, 29 states
Where state-to-state spread is widest
Bond types where the highest-requirement state publishes a figure many times the lowest, which is where checking your specific state matters most.
- Money Transmitter Bond: $10,000 to $1,000,000, roughly 100x from lowest to highest state.
- Notary: $500 to $50,000, roughly 100x from lowest to highest state.
- Debt Collector: $5,000 to $50,000, roughly 10x from lowest to highest state.
- Credit Service Organization: $10,000 to $100,000, roughly 10x from lowest to highest state.
- Motor Vehicle Dealer: $10,000 to $100,000, roughly 10x from lowest to highest state.
Where no bond is required
Tracked states whose regulator publishes no bond requirement for a license type.
No-bond states by bond type
- Notary 22 of 51 tracked states require no bond
- Debt Collector 14 of 52 tracked states require no bond
- Money Transmitter Bond 1 of 52 tracked states require no bond
Construction and contract bond requirements
Contract surety bonds (bid, performance, payment, subdivision) are sized per project, typically 100 percent of the contract value for performance and payment bonds, 5 to 10 percent of the bid for bid bonds, and the engineer's estimate of remaining improvements for subdivision bonds, so no statewide dollar figure exists to rank. Contractor license bonds are the exception: several states fix a statewide amount by statute. The figures below are only those regulator-stated amounts; everything else is deliberately unranked rather than estimated.
- 63 tracked state requirements in this cluster carry no statewide dollar amount because the bond is sized per licensee, per class, or per project by the obligee.
- Subdivision (site improvement / plat) bond amounts are always set locally from the project engineer's estimate under each state's platting statute, so they are tracked by enabling statute rather than by dollar amount.
Regulator-stated statewide contractor license bond amounts
- Alaska, Contractor License $10,000
- Arkansas, Contractor License $10,000
- California, Contractor License $25,000
- Washington, Contractor License $15,000
Methodology and sourcing
Statutory bond amounts come from the seeded state-law dataset, sourced from state regulator publications, the same data behind the Bond Cost Index. Premium-rate bands come from our published rate methodology.
A bond type appears in the rankings only when at least 10 states publish a dollar amount for it, and any state without a published figure is excluded from that bond's statistics rather than estimated. Where our own aggregated quote data appears in the Bond Cost Index, it is published only above a minimum sample size of 25.