Bid Bonds vs. Performance Bonds: A Sub's Guide

If you've ever submitted a bid on public work and been asked to include a bid bond, or signed a subcontract that required a performance bond, you've run up against surety requirements — and possibly had no idea what you were agreeing to. Construction bonds aren't complicated once you understand what each one guarantees and who it protects, but they have real consequences for how you price work and manage your cash.

This guide breaks down the three types of contract bonds subcontractors encounter — bid bonds, performance bonds, and payment bonds — explains when you need them, and covers what it takes to get bonded.

What is a bid bond?

A bid bond is a guarantee — backed by a surety company — that you will honor your bid price and execute a contract if you are selected as the low bidder. If you win the job and then refuse to sign at the price you submitted, the surety compensates the owner for the difference between your bid and the next lowest bid, up to the bond penalty amount.

Bid bonds are typically set at 5–10% of the bid amount, though some public agencies specify a fixed dollar figure. The bond itself costs nothing to obtain from a surety that has already prequalified you — it's part of the service for an established surety relationship. The cost comes later if you perform the work: performance and payment bond premiums are where the surety earns its fee.

The practical effect of a bid bond is simple: it screens out bidders who are fishing for pricing information or who haven't done the homework to know whether they can actually build the job at the number they submitted. Owners and general contractors use them as a threshold filter on public projects and larger commercial contracts.

What is a performance bond?

A performance bond guarantees that you will complete the contracted work according to the plans, specifications, and schedule. If you default — whether because you abandon the project, go out of business, or fail to meet contract requirements — the surety steps in. The surety has three options: hire a replacement contractor to finish the work, complete the work using its own forces, or pay the owner up to the bond amount (typically 100% of the contract value).

From the owner's or GC's perspective, a performance bond converts your financial risk into the surety's risk. If you have a $500,000 subcontract with a performance bond, the owner knows that $500,000 of coverage stands behind your promise to finish the work.

What is a payment bond — and why it's almost always paired with performance

A payment bond guarantees that you will pay your laborers, sub-subcontractors, and material suppliers. It protects the parties downstream from you: the workers who can't file a mechanic's lien on public property, and the suppliers who might not get paid if you have a cash-flow crisis mid-project.

Performance bonds and payment bonds are almost always required together — the combination is called a P&P bond. They're two sides of the same obligation: completing the work and paying everyone involved. A project with a performance bond but no payment bond protects the owner from an unfinished building but leaves the framing crew or lumber yard with no recourse if money stops flowing. The Miller Act and state equivalents require both precisely because both protections are needed.

When do subcontractors need bonds?

Bond requirements flow from the project owner's contract down to the GC, and the GC decides how much to pass through to subs. Whether you need a bond depends on:

• Federal public work. The Miller Act (40 U.S.C. §§ 3131–3134) requires prime contractors on federal construction contracts over $150,000 to furnish both performance and payment bonds. GCs frequently flow this requirement to their major subcontractors.
• State and local public work. Every state has enacted a "little Miller Act" with similar requirements, though thresholds and specifics vary. If the project involves a public owner — a state agency, municipality, school district, or transit authority — assume bonds are required until you confirm otherwise.
• Private commercial projects. Bonding is not legally required on private projects, but large institutional owners (hospitals, universities, developers with lender requirements) and cautious GCs may still require it on contracts above a certain dollar threshold. Always check the subcontract or bid invitation language.
• GC-imposed requirements. Even on private work, a GC can require subs to bond as a risk-management practice. The bigger the sub's scope relative to the overall project, the more likely a bond will be requested.

The fastest way to find out whether a specific project requires bonding: read the bid invitation cover page and the draft subcontract before you put pricing together. Bonding requirements are not usually buried in the fine print — they appear in the bid instructions or the general conditions up front.

How to factor bond premiums into your bid

Bond premiums are charged as a percentage of the contract value, typically in the range of 1–3% depending on your surety rate, the contract size, and the type of work. Premium rates are set per thousand dollars of contract value and often decrease at volume thresholds (e.g., a lower rate on the portion above $500,000).

The key rule: include the bond premium in your bid costs before you apply markup. It is a direct cost of performing the contract, not a margin item. If you forget to include it and win the job, you absorb the premium out of your margin.

When you're building your estimate, treat the bond premium as a project cost at the top of the bid — similar to mobilization or permit fees — so it's visible and doesn't disappear into overhead. In BuildWorkPro, the Project Costs tab on each bid is where job-wide costs like this go; they spread across your line items automatically so the math stays consistent.

See it in the software

When you're bidding bonded work, having your estimate organized before you send it matters — a GC reviewing a bonded sub's bid wants to see a clean, professional proposal, not a number on a napkin. Here's how bid creation works in BuildWorkPro:

How to get bonded as a subcontractor

Surety bonds are not insurance you purchase off a shelf — they're a form of credit. The surety is guaranteeing your performance, so they need to believe you can actually perform. The prequalification process typically looks at:

• Financial statements. Two to three years of reviewed or audited financials. Sureties look at working capital (current assets minus current liabilities), net worth, and the ratio of bonded work to equity.
• Credit. Both personal and business credit. A thin personal credit history or outstanding judgments raises red flags even when the business financials look clean.
• Experience and capacity. A track record of completed projects in the same type of work. A surety won't extend a $2M bond limit to a contractor who has only finished $200K projects. Capacity grows with your completed project history.
• Work-in-progress schedule. A summary of current contracts, how far along each is, and what's still to be billed. Sureties use this to assess how much additional bonded work you can absorb without spreading yourself thin.

The practical step: find a surety agent or broker who specializes in contract surety bonds — not a general business insurance broker. A specialist knows which sureties write contractors in your trade and size range, and can help you present your financials in the best light. Start the relationship before you need a bond. If your first call to a surety agent is the day before a bid is due, you will not get a bond in time, and even if you did, you'd be working from scratch without any established bond limit.

What to do when you don't have bonding capacity yet

If you're a newer sub without an established surety relationship, or your financials don't yet support a large bond limit, a few options exist:

• Work smaller bonded contracts first. Most sureties will start small and grow your bond limit as you complete projects. A $200K bonded job this year builds the history that gets you to $1M next year.
• Focus on private unbonded work while building capacity. There's no requirement that all your work be bonded. Winning private commercial jobs, completing them profitably, and strengthening your financials is how you build toward public-work bonding ability.
• Consider a co-surety or joint venture. On specific larger projects, a more established contractor can sponsor you as a joint venture partner with their surety backing the bond. This is project-specific and requires the right relationship, but it does happen.
• Don't bid bonded work you can't bond. Submitting a bid on a job that requires bonding when you haven't confirmed your surety capacity is a recipe for withdrawing at the last minute — which is exactly what a bid bond is designed to penalize.

Track bonded bids separately from your pipeline

One practical habit that helps: tag or note which bids in your pipeline require bonding, so you can see at a glance how much bonded work is pending versus in progress. If you win several large bonded jobs in the same quarter, you can hit your aggregate bond limit — meaning you'd need to turn down new bonded work or wait for existing jobs to reach substantial completion before your capacity opens up.

In BuildWorkPro's construction bidding module, you can add notes or attach documents (like the bond commitment letter from your surety) directly to each bid, and filter your bid pipeline by status — so tracking which open bids are bonded and at what stage is a matter of staying organized in the same workflow you're already using to estimate and propose.

Construction bonds are a gateway to a larger class of work. Getting bonded requires time, clean books, and a relationship with a good surety agent — but once you have that capacity, you can pursue public and large commercial contracts that most of your competition can't touch.