The Miller Act is four sections long. Reading it end to end takes less time than reading most summaries of it, and doing so answers questions that summaries tend to leave in a fog.
Here is the whole structure, in order.
§ 3131 — which bonds, on which contracts
The requirement, at 40 U.S.C. § 3131(b):
“Before any contract of more than $100,000 is awarded for the construction, alteration, or repair of any public building or public work of the Federal Government, a person must furnish to the Government the following bonds, which become binding when the contract is awarded.”
Two bonds follow. A performance bond “in an amount the officer considers adequate” — no percentage in the statute — and a payment bond for the protection of those supplying labor and material.
Then the part almost nobody quotes. Under § 3131(c), the performance bond must specifically cover taxes withheld from wages, with its own 90-day government notice rule and a one-year limit on suit for that claim. It is a distinct obligation with a distinct clock, and it sits inside the section everyone believes they have read.
Section 3131(d) allows the requirement to be waived for work performed in a foreign country.
§ 3132 — the band below the threshold
Contracts too small for a mandatory payment bond are not left unprotected. 40 U.S.C. § 3132(a) provides alternatives to payment bonds for contracts “more than $25,000 and not more than $100,000.”
The FAR restates this band in inflation-adjusted terms at FAR 28.102-1(b)(1): for construction contracts greater than $35,000 but not greater than $150,000, the contracting officer “shall select two or more of the following payment protections, giving particular consideration to inclusion of an irrevocable letter of credit as one of the selected alternatives.”
Two or more, not one. And a named preference among them.
§ 3133 — the claim
This is the section that generates the litigation, and it is organized as a series of conditions.
Subsection (a) gives a right to obtain a certified copy of the payment bond and the contract.
Subsection (b)(1) creates the right of action for a claimant who furnished labor or material and “has not been paid in full within 90 days after the day on which the person did or performed the last of the labor or furnished or supplied the material.”
Subsection (b)(2) attaches a condition for claimants one step removed — those with a contract with a subcontractor but none with the prime. They must give written notice to the contractor within 90 days of last furnishing, stating “with substantial accuracy the amount claimed and the name of the party to whom the material was furnished.”
Subsection (b)(3) fixes venue: in the name of the United States for the use of the claimant, in the district where the contract was to be performed, regardless of the amount in controversy.
Subsection (b)(4) sets the limit: no later than one year after the day the claimant last performed labor or supplied material.
Subsection (c) makes an advance waiver void unless it is in writing, signed by the person whose right is waived, and “executed after the person whose right is waived has furnished labor or material.”
§ 3134 — the waivers that come from the top
Service secretaries may waive the bond requirement for certain cost-type and vessel contracts. Along with § 3131(d)’s foreign-work waiver, this is the statute providing for its own exceptions — which is worth knowing chiefly so that an unbonded federal contract is not automatically assumed to be an irregularity.
The two numbers, one more time
The statute says $100,000. The FAR says $150,000. Both are current, and they are not in conflict — FAR 28.102-1(a) states the operative figure a contracting officer applies, and the statute states the enacted one. A page that prints either alone is printing half the rule, and this is the single most common error in general writing about the Act.
What the four sections do not contain
Any percentage for the performance bond. That comes from FAR 28.102-2(b) — 100 percent of the original contract price.
Any state requirement. State public-works bonds come from state statutes that borrow this architecture and change its numbers, thresholds and notice periods. Resemblance is not identity, and the differences decide cases.
Any definition of “furnished labor or material.” The phrase carries the whole scope of the claimant class and its content comes from decided cases, not from the text.
What this page does not cover
This is an orientation to the statute’s structure, not advice on a claim. The deadlines above are short, several run from events a claimant has to have recorded contemporaneously, and the consequences of missing them are absolute rather than discretionary.
