North Dakota Surety BondsFlat Statutory Amounts, Two Big Outliers

No. North Dakota licenses contractors through the Secretary of State under NDCC Chapter 43-07, but that license does not carry a surety bond requirement. Bonding instead comes from two other places: individual cities and one specialty trade. Grand Forks requires roughly a $5,000 contractor bond, Fargo requires about $25,000, and Bismarck requires performance and payment bonds on public improvement work under NDCC Chapter 48-01.2. Separately, water-well drillers must post a mandatory $15,000 state bond. So a general remodeler in a small ND town may need no bond at all, while a well driller or a Fargo contractor does.

A flat $25,000, filed with the North Dakota Department of Transportation (NDDOT) under NDCC 39-22-04. Unlike most states, North Dakota applies the same $25,000 to every dealer classification: new (franchised) dealers, used dealers, wholesale (dealer-to-dealer) dealers, motorcycle dealers, trailer dealers, and manufactured-home dealers. There are no volume-based tiers and no exemptions by dealer type. The bond runs on a calendar-year term (January 1 to December 31). Premiums for well-qualified applicants typically run a few hundred dollars a year.

Because it is not a flat license bond -- the amount is set by the ND Department of Health and Human Services within statutory ceilings under NDCC 19-24.1-15. Dispensaries face a penal sum not to exceed $100,000, and manufacturing facilities not to exceed $1,000,000. That $1M ceiling makes it by far the largest bond ceiling in the state. The bond secures public health, safety, and the environment against abandonment or default rather than protecting a consumer transaction, which is why the exposure -- and the ceiling -- is set so high. Your assigned amount appears on your NDDoHHS eligibility notice.

The notary bond amount is $7,500 under NDCC 44-06.1-20, and the premium is small -- around $50 for the four-year commission term. All-in, most notaries spend roughly $86 to get commissioned: about $50 for the bond plus the $36 filing fee paid to the Secretary of State. There is no exam and no credit check. North Dakota has authorized remote online notarization (RON) since 2019, and your existing $7,500 bond covers remote notarial acts -- no separate bond is needed to add RON.

The North Dakota Insurance Department regulates the surety companies that write these bonds -- it licenses carriers and confirms they are authorized to transact surety business in the state. The bond obligation itself, though, is set by whichever agency requires it: NDDOT for dealer and vehicle-title bonds, the Secretary of State for notary and business-license filings, the State Board of Water Well Contractors for well bonds, NDDoHHS for compassion-center bonds, and the district courts for probate and fiduciary bonds. So one department stands behind the carrier while another defines the bond you actually need.

Usually not. Under NDCC 30.1-17-03, a personal representative appointed in an informal (clerk-reviewed) probate is not bonded by default. Bond is only required if the court appoints a special administrator, the will expressly demands it, or an interested party files a written demand under 30.1-17-05. When a bond is required, NDCC 30.1-17-04 sizes it from a sworn estimate of the personal estate value plus one year of expected income, and the court can raise, lower, or excuse the amount afterward. Formal (judge-supervised) estates are more likely to require a bond.

Yes. The small flat-amount bonds North Dakota relies on -- the $7,500 notary bond, the $25,000 dealer bond, the $15,000 water-well bond -- are approachable even with weak credit because the surety's maximum exposure is modest. Notary bonds require no credit check at all. For larger obligations such as the compassion-center bond or a sizable court bond, credit and financials matter more, and applicants below roughly 600 should expect a higher rate. We place higher-risk applicants with specialty carriers rather than turning them away.