Contractor License & Permit Bonds in North Dakota

North Dakota licenses contractors statewide — and the license carries no bond, because the legislature repealed it

North Dakota does license contractors, and the requirement is broad. N.D.C.C. § 43-07-02(1) says a person may not engage in the business nor act in the capacity of a contractor in the state “when the cost, value, or price per job exceeds the sum of four thousand dollars,” and — the part that gives the statute its teeth — nor may that person “maintain any claim, action, suit, or proceeding in any court” relating to their business as a contractor without first having a license. The license is issued by the Secretary of State in four classes set by contract value, from Class D up to one hundred thousand dollars a job through Class A above five hundred thousand. Going without it does not merely risk a penalty. It costs you the courthouse.

And that license carries no bond, because the bond was repealed. Chapter 43-07 still contains a section numbered § 43-07-11 and headed “Contractor’s bond — Requirements.” Underneath the heading there is no requirement at all. The section reads, in its entirety, “Repealed by S.L. 1995, ch. 397, § 9.” The catchline survived the repeal and the obligation did not, which is why a search of the code for the phrase still finds something and a reading of it finds nothing. Across the whole of Chapter 43-07 — some thirty-seven thousand characters — the word “license” appears well over a hundred times and the word “surety” does not appear once. The four uses of “bond” are the repealed catchline, two references to the physical bid bond envelope your license copy goes into under § 43-07-12, and an injunction clause providing that the court need not require a bond or undertaking.

The regulator says the same thing in its own words. The Secretary of State’s contractor licensing page runs to more than ten thousand characters and contains zero uses of “bond” and zero of “surety.” What that office asks a contractor for instead is a letter of good standing from Workforce Safety and Insurance and proof of liability insurance. So there is a real answer to “what is the North Dakota contractor license bond?” and it is not none required and not no license. It is that the state licenses you and does not bond you — and that the bonding question moves down a level, to the city.

Nothing stops the cities from bonding you anyway — and nine of the nine we read do

Chapter 43-07 contains no preemption clause of any kind. The nearest provision runs in the opposite direction: § 43-07-06, headed Administrative and governing bodies may impose requirements, provides that any body with power to enter public contracts “may impose reasonable requirements and conditions … in addition to the requirements imposed by this chapter.” The state licensed the trade and left the field open behind it.

The cities have filled it, and not thinly. Every North Dakota city we reached bonds at least one contractor credential — nine out of nine, with no negatives — and ten out of ten bond work in the right of way, which is the layer this state bonds most consistently of all. Five of them go further and make the state license the prerequisite to their own bonded municipal one, which is the clearest possible proof that no one thinks the state has occupied the field. Grand Forks: “No contractor’s license shall be issued by the city until such time as the applicant shall have demonstrated receipt of a contractor’s license issued by the state.” Fargo: no permit unless “licensed as a contractor by the State of North Dakota and licensed as an excavator by the City of Fargo.” Minot asks for verification of a state general contractor’s license in good standing; Dickinson wants a copy of the license or renewal certificate; Bismarck’s concrete packet asks for a “Class D or higher contractor license with the State of North Dakota.”

That is the shape of the whole state, and it is why this page has twenty-seven bonds on it and not one of them is a state record. The zero is the finding rather than a gap. A contractor asking whether they need a North Dakota contractor license bond has an answer that is neither yes nor no: not from the state, and probably from the city they are working in.

The five-corner map: five states, five settlements of the same question

North Dakota completes a set. Across five states in this directory, the same question — who licenses contractors, and who bonds them — gets five incompatible answers, and knowing which one you are standing in is most of the work.

Montana licenses contractors, bonds none of them, and forbids its cities to: MCA 37-45-204 bars a political subdivision from requiring registrations, licenses or bonds for the same or a similar purpose. Colorado has no state contractor license at all and hands licensing to “any city, town, county, or city and county” in statute. Wyoming also has no state license and simply leaves each city to decide for itself. New Mexico licenses everyone, bonds everyone once at a single figure, and then bans the second bond. North Dakota licenses everyone, bonds no one, and lets the cities bond anyway.

It is Montana’s structure without Montana’s preemption — and it is the only one of the five where a contractor holds a state license with no bond and a city license with one, at the same time, for the same work. There is also a mirror worth seeing, thirteen years apart. New Mexico’s 2008 amendment deleted the menu of alternatives from its financial-responsibility statute and left the bond standing alone. North Dakota’s 1995 repeal deleted the bond itself and left the license standing alone. Two legislatures, the same statute-shaped decision, taken in opposite directions.

The twelve bonds that carry a published figure

Fargo bonds the sidewalk trade at $25,000, stated flat in § 18-0204 of the city code. Bismarck keeps both of its figures in published packets rather than in the ordinance, and states them plainly there: the concrete contractor bond is $5,000 on the City’s 2024 Concrete Contractor Packet, and the excavation contractor bond is $25,000 on its Excavator’s Packet. Where an obligee publishes the requirement itself, that is the number you file.

Dickinson runs two: the driveway, sidewalk, curb and retaining wall contractor license at $5,000, and an excavation permit bond at $1,000 that appears on no carrier list we checked. Grand Forks runs three with figures, in three different chapters: the general contractor license bond at $5,000, where § 21-2905 requires it and § 19-0103 sizes it; the master plumber bond, also $5,000, which reaches past the plumbing to require you to restore any street or alley you have opened and keep it in good order for three years; and a house movers license bond at $1,000.

Jamestown is the tidiest drafting in the state: one bond at $25,000 written “for doing business as a patching contractor, concrete contractor, excavating contractor, or combinations of any such business.” Three trades, one instrument, one filing. West Fargo publishes its code as sixteen title PDFs rather than through a code service, and inside them the master heating contractor and master gas installer bond is $5,000, described in the ordinance as an annual surety bond that stays in force a year after the work is finished.

Williston supplies the last two, and the excavation bond is the strictest drafting we found in North Dakota. The excavation permit bond is $10,000, and § 20-106 leaves no substitute open: the required surety bond must be with good and sufficient surety, by a surety company authorized to transact business in the state, and satisfactory to the city attorney in form and substance. It stays in force two years after completion, because what it really secures is the road surface rather than the digging. The house mover license bond is $5,000 — stated in § 9-24 and stated again on the City’s own application for the license, which asks for a $5,000 surety bond alongside your insurance and your state registration.

The fifteen that carry no figure, and exactly why each one does not

The largest municipal requirement in the state is deliberately shown without its number. Fargo’s excavator license bond is real, it is confirmed on the City’s own published Excavation Fees and Guidelines, and the amount there is substantial — but the Guidelines state it as the minimum amount of the bond, every first-party statement of the requirement repeats the word minimum, and there is no published bond form fixing a penal sum to settle it. A floor is not a price. Printing one as though it were would tell you that you had finished shopping when you had not.

Four more are sized by resolution rather than by ordinance, which means the code requires the bond in terms and then declines to say how much: Fargo’s tree service license, Minot’s excavator license, Mandan’s excavator permit and West Fargo’s sidewalk and driveway contractor license. Valley City is a variant of the same: its ordinance names a sum and then adds “or as set by resolution,” so the code contradicts its own figure.

Three are figure-free because a bond is not the only way to satisfy them, and where you can comply without buying a bond at all, quoting a bond amount would mislead. West Fargo’s excavator registration says in terms that the deposit “shall be cash, a certificate of deposit, or a surety bond.” Williston’s demolition and lot restoration bond allows cash, a cashier’s check, corporate surety or personal surety — and sets a minimum on top of that, so it fails twice over. Fargo’s re-roofing bond is conditional and takes cash in lieu.

The rest are unsized, floored or discretionary. Dickinson’s water, sewer and stormwater excavator license names a surety bond and leaves the sum to be “determined from time to time” by the commissioners. Grand Forks’ master mechanical installer bond writes a minimum and then reserves an uplift in the same sentence — a bond of at least a stated sum, “but the city may require a larger bond.” Grand Forks’ excavation bond says “at least.” West Fargo’s house mover license is discretionary and set by resolution: the administrator may require the license as a permit condition, and the commission sets the sum.

Two figures in circulation belong to somebody else

Third-party surety sites carry two North Dakota numbers that we could not reconcile with any city’s own text, and in both cases the number turned out to be real — attached to the wrong obligee. We would rather say so than repeat it.

A “Fargo excavation license bond” is widely listed at $25,000. Fargo does have a $25,000 bond and it is not that one: $25,000 is Fargo’s sidewalk builder bond, from a different article of a different chapter. Fargo’s excavation requirement lives in the City’s Guidelines and is a substantial minimum rather than a fixed sum. Two instruments, two chapters, two very different amounts — and the figure circulating for one of them belongs to the other. A contractor who bought against the smaller number would be badly underbonded.

And a $10,000 excavation figure circulates for Mandan. Mandan’s excavator permit bond is real — we found it, in a part of the code the licensing chapter never points at — but its amount is set by resolution of the board of city commissioners and appears nowhere in the ordinance. We also fetched and read the City’s published 2023 Public Works Rates Resolution, and it carries no bond, surety or excavation figure either. What it does match, to the dollar, is Williston’s excavation permit bond at $10,000 — the same requirement, for the same act, in a city that is absent from those lists entirely. Confirm Mandan with the city when you pull the permit.

What renders with a number here, and how we quote it

Twelve of the twenty-seven North Dakota bonds on this page carry a published amount and fifteen do not. The line between them is not confidence — it is what the obligee actually wrote. A figure appears when a code section or the obligee’s own published packet or form states a single fixed sum, requires it of everyone in the class, and offers no non-surety instrument in its place. A bond is shown without a figure when any one of four things is true: the amount is set by a later resolution, the code states a minimum or reserves an uplift, the requirement is discretionary, or a non-surety substitute — cash, a deposit, a certificate of deposit, a cashier’s check — sits beside the bond as an equal route.

Two structural facts are worth planning around before you buy anything. The municipal license almost always requires your state contractor license first, so the two credentials stack rather than substitute. And the bond commonly outlives the job: North Dakota cities routinely hold it for the license term plus one or two years, or for two years from acceptance of the work, because what it secures is the restored surface rather than the excavation.

Every North Dakota bond on this site is quoted rather than issued from an instant online portal, and that is deliberate — including for the twelve fixed figures, because the trade definitions differ enough between cities that the right instrument matters more than the right number. Tell us the city and the trade, and a licensed producer confirms both the requirement and the amount against the obligee before quoting. Request a quote on any North Dakota bond page, or from the form on this page.