Delaware Mortgage Broker Bond

A flat $25,000. Under 5 Del. C. §2108, every mortgage loan broker licensed in Delaware files an original corporate surety bond in the principal sum of $25,000 with the Office of the State Bank Commissioner (OSBC). Unlike most states, Delaware does not increase the broker bond as your loan volume grows — the $25,000 penal sum is fixed. The statute does let the Commissioner require a larger bond in an individual case based on the particular circumstances of the applicant or licensee, but the baseline every broker starts from is $25,000.

Because Delaware puts the volume ladder on a different license. The flat $25,000 sits in the Mortgage Loan Brokers chapter (Title 5, Chapter 21). The graduated scale — $25,000 up to $200,000, keyed to prior-year Delaware origination volume — lives in the licensed-lender / originator rule at 5 Del. Admin. Code §2401-12.0. If you only broker loans (you place them with a funding lender rather than lending your own money), you stay at the flat $25,000 no matter how much you produce. The scale only catches you if you hold the lender/originator license.

The statute is explicit: the bond runs to the State for the benefit of the Office of the State Bank Commissioner and for the benefit of all consumers injured by any wrongful act, omission, default, fraud, or misrepresentation in the course of your licensed mortgage activity. It is not insurance for your business — it is a consumer-protection guarantee. If a claim is paid, the surety looks to you for reimbursement under your indemnity agreement, which is exactly why underwriting looks at your credit.

You do not pay the $25,000 — that is the coverage amount. You pay an annual premium, typically 1%–3% of the penal sum for well-qualified applicants, so roughly $250 to $750 a year on a $25,000 bond. Strong personal credit lands at the low end; thin or damaged credit moves it up, and challenged-credit programs can run higher. Because $25,000 is a small license bond, many applicants qualify through a low flat-rate program without a deep financial review.

Delaware licenses mortgage loan brokers, lenders, and originators through the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System (NMLS), with the Office of the State Bank Commissioner as the regulator. The surety issues the bond on the form the OSBC accepts, and the bond has to be on file before your license is issued and kept continuously in force while you are licensed. We prepare the correct Delaware bond form and coordinate the filing so it is on record before the OSBC acts on your application.

If you hold or are applying for a Delaware mortgage loan broker license, yes — the $25,000 bond is a condition of that Delaware license regardless of where your head office sits. Producers in the Mid-Atlantic corridor often carry several state bonds at once: Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Virginia each set their own mortgage bond requirement, and they do not all match Delaware. The efficient move is to bond each state to its own rule rather than assume one bond covers the region. Tell us your footprint and we will quote each state to its actual requirement.