Top 10 US States by Contractor Bond Requirement
PlainHireCheck's ranking of US states by their typical minimum contractor bond requirement, with insurance minimums and trade counts shown alongside for context. Server-rendered from a live query against the states table.
Research period:
Research question
Among the 50 US states plus DC, which impose the highest typical minimum contractor bond requirement, and how does that bond floor correlate with each state's insurance minimum and the breadth of trades it licenses?
Methodology
Every number on this page is queried from the dataset currently published by PlainHireCheck at the moment you load it, ranked from highest to lowest and limited to the top 10. The figures are not hand-entered into this page, but they are a source snapshot rather than a live verification of every state record.
Values retain the units and precision in PlainHireCheck's published snapshot. Records with a missing or zero value on the ranking metric are excluded rather than shown as artificial zeros.
State contractor licensing boards publish records on their own schedules, and a board may change a requirement after this snapshot was compiled. Use the linked official board to verify a current requirement before acting on it; the methodology page describes the snapshot and its limits.
Outliers are shown as published, not silently smoothed or clipped, so readers can judge them in context via the source link. Where a state changes its licensing categories or reporting scope between updates, we note it on the methodology page rather than blending incompatible vintages into one ranking.
PlainHireCheck maintains an editorial standards process for how rankings are built, how outliers are handled, and how disputed values are corrected. The byline at the top of this page names the editorial owner accountable for its framing. Use the linked official board to independently verify a current requirement. Corrections, takedowns, or clarifications can be requested through the contact channels in the site footer.
Top 10 US States by Contractor Bond Requirement
Current published dataset; verify requirements with the official board
The ranked top 10
Every row below reflects the dataset currently published by PlainHireCheck (10 rows shown). Check the official board for changes after this snapshot.
| # | State | Trades licensed | Typical bond min | Typical bond max | Typical insurance min |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Jersey | 17 | 500000 | 500000 | 500000 |
| 2 | New York | 5 | 100000 | 100000 | 1000000 |
| 3 | Virginia | 18 | 50000 | 50000 | 50000 |
| 4 | California | 20 | 25000 | 25000 | 1000000 |
| 5 | District of Columbia | 18 | 25000 | 100000 | 500000 |
| 6 | Maryland | 16 | 20000 | 20000 | 200000 |
| 7 | Minnesota | 15 | 15000 | 15000 | 300000 |
| 8 | Utah | 17 | 15000 | 50000 | 300000 |
| 9 | Alabama | 18 | 10000 | 75000 | 500000 |
| 10 | Alaska | 16 | 10000 | 25000 | 100000 |
Source: US state contractor licensing boards. Figures are queried from PlainHireCheck's published source snapshot; verify a current requirement with the relevant official board.
Findings
Top entity in the ranking
The top-ranked record in this dataset is New Jersey, with a value of 500000 on the Typical bond min column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. The ranking is generated from the published dataset rather than hand-entered page copy; it does not claim to update when an agency changes its record.
Distribution shape
The gap between the top-ranked record (500000) and the 10th-ranked record (10000) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.
Aggregate context
Across the full population behind this ranking, here are the summary statistics: how many records exist in total, the sum of the ranking metric across all qualifying records, and the mean per-record value. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied (records with null or zero values on the ranking metric are excluded). This aggregate row is computed from the same dataset that powers the ranking above.
Source provenance
The records in this ranking are compiled from US state contractor licensing boards. PlainHireCheck serves its published source snapshot through this page; it is not a live agency feed, so the official board remains the source for a current requirement. The methodology page documents the compilation and its limits.
Why this ranking matters
Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.
What this analysis cannot tell us
Bond and insurance figures shown represent the typical minimum required by the state's contractor licensing board for general or principal trade licenses; specialty trades within a state can carry materially higher or lower bond and insurance minimums, and major projects often require project-specific bonds well above the state minimum. Bond purpose varies across states, some bonds protect consumers against incomplete or defective work, others guarantee tax and license-fee compliance, and others act as bid security on public works. Insurance minimums shown are general liability minimums; workers compensation, vehicle, and professional liability requirements are separate regimes not captured here. A high bond floor does not signal that a state's contractors are inherently riskier; it generally signals that the state has formalized its consumer-protection posture into a financial guarantee tied to the license. States that operate at-will registration without a state-level bond often rely on municipal bonding regimes or judicial remedies for consumer recovery.
Secondary cut from the same source
States ranked by the count of distinct skilled trades subject to state-level licensing
Sources
- State licensing boards, bond and insurance schedules - https://plainhirecheck.com/methodology
- NASCLA, National Association of State Contractors Licensing Agencies - https://www.nascla.org/