Nevada Contractor License Bond Amount: Who Sets It

Nevada sets no single dollar figure for a contractor license bond in advance. NRS 624.270 requires a surety bond, or a cash deposit in its place, before the Board issues a license, and NRS 624.270(4) has the Board fix that amount for each applicant, within a statutory range, rather than assigning one number to every license.

Filing a bond, or a cash deposit, before a license issues

NRS 624.270(1) creates the requirement, before the Board grants any license:

Before issuing a contractor’s license to any applicant, the Board shall require that the applicant: (a) File with the Board a surety bond in a form acceptable to the Board executed by the contractor as principal with a corporation authorized to transact surety business in the State of Nevada as surety; or (b) In lieu of such a bond, establish with the Board a cash deposit as provided in this section.

NRS 624.270(1) gives an applicant two routes to the same requirement. A surety bond, executed by the contractor with a surety authorized to transact business in Nevada, is one route; a cash deposit with the Board is the other. NRS 624.270(1) applies before the Board issues any license.

A statutory range, not a schedule

NRS 624.270(1) creates the requirement; it says nothing about the figure. A different subsection sets that:

Except as otherwise provided in subsection 6, the amount of each bond or cash deposit required by this section must be fixed by the Board with reference to the contractor’s financial and professional responsibility and the magnitude of the contractor’s operations, but must be not less than $1,000 or more than $500,000.

NRS 624.270(4) puts a floor and a ceiling on the number: not less than $1,000, not more than $500,000. Within that range, the Board fixes the figure for each applicant. The subsection weighs the applicant’s financial and professional responsibility and the magnitude of the applicant’s operations, not a published schedule. NRS 624.270(4)‘s own opening clause is not a throwaway qualifier: it names the one case in which this range does not hold, addressed next.

The exception that removes the ceiling

NRS 624.270(6) is the exception NRS 624.270(4) points to:

If the Board is notified by the Labor Commissioner pursuant to NRS 607.165 or otherwise receives notification that three substantiated claims for wages have been filed against a contractor within a 2-year period, the Board shall require the contractor to file a bond or establish a cash deposit in an amount fixed by the Board. The contractor shall maintain the bond or cash deposit for the period required by the Board.

Once three substantiated wage claims reach the Board against one contractor within two years, the ordinary range no longer applies. NRS 624.270(6) then makes filing a bond or cash deposit mandatory, in an amount the Board fixes, with no ceiling stated. The $500,000 figure at NRS 624.270(4) is therefore the range that applies except where NRS 624.270(6) has already been triggered, not an absolute limit true of every license.

How the bond figure and the license’s monetary limit relate

A Nevada contractor license also carries a separate figure, set under a different section: the monetary limit. NRS 624.220(2) defines it:

The Board shall limit the field and scope of the operations of a licensed contractor by establishing a monetary limit on a contractor’s license, and the limit must be the maximum contract a licensed contractor may undertake on one or more construction contracts on a single construction site or subdivision site for a single client.

The monetary limit is the ceiling on a single contract a licensee may undertake, set by the Board under NRS 624.220(2). NRS 624.270(4), by contrast, ties the bond figure to the applicant’s financial and professional responsibility and the magnitude of the applicant’s operations. That wording does not, on its own text, name the monetary limit as the measure of that magnitude.

The Board’s own License Requirements page describes the bond amount at approval as depending on license type, monetary limit, financial responsibility, experience and character. That naming of the monetary limit as a factor comes from the Board’s own summary of its practice, not from the wording of NRS 624.270(4) itself. The two texts are not stated to mean the same thing.

NRS 624.270(4) does not say which reading of the magnitude of the applicant’s operations is correct. One reading treats it as another name for the monetary limit. Another treats the monetary limit as only one measure of a wider magnitude. Which is right turns on how NRS 624.270(4) and NRS 624.220(2) are construed together, and this page does not resolve it.

Keeping the bond in force

Filing the bond, or the cash deposit in its place, is not a one-time step. NRS 624.270(3) treats keeping it in force as a continuing condition of the license:

Failure of an applicant or licensee to file or maintain in full force the required bond or to establish the required cash deposit constitutes cause for the Board to deny, revoke, suspend or refuse to renew a license.

Letting the surety bond or cash deposit lapse is itself cause for the Board to act. NRS 624.270(3) lists denial, revocation, suspension and refusal to renew as available responses to the same failure, not a sequence the Board must exhaust in order.

NRS 624.270(5) lets the Board relieve a licensee of the requirement after five consecutive years, but only on application:

After a licensee has acted in the capacity of a licensed contractor in the State of Nevada for not less than 5 consecutive years, the Board may relieve the licensee of the requirement of filing a bond or establishing a cash deposit if evidence supporting such relief is presented to the Board. The Board may at any time thereafter require the licensee to file a new bond or establish a new cash deposit as provided in subsection 4

Relief under NRS 624.270(5) takes evidence; it is not automatic at the five-year mark. The same subsection lets the Board require a new bond or cash deposit from the same licensee at any later time. Nothing in NRS 624.270(5) ends the underlying requirement — it suspends it, on the Board’s own terms, for as long as the Board leaves it suspended.

A separate bond for residential pool and spa work

An applicant for pool or spa work carries an added requirement under NRS 624.276(1):

Before granting an original contractor’s license to, or renewing the contractor’s license of, an applicant who performs or will perform work concerning residential pools or spas, the Board shall, in addition to any other conditions for the issuance or renewal of a license, require the applicant to: (a) File with the Board a bond solely for the protection of consumers in an amount fixed by the Board; or (b) In lieu of filing a bond, establish with the Board a cash deposit as provided in this section.

NRS 624.276(1) requires this consumer-protection bond, or a cash deposit in lieu of it, on top of whatever NRS 624.270 already requires. NRS 624.276(2) states the relationship between the two directly:

A bond required pursuant to subsection 1 is in addition to, may not be combined with and does not replace any other bond required pursuant to the provisions of this chapter. A contractor required to file a bond pursuant to subsection 1 shall maintain the bond for 5 years or for such longer period as the Board may require.

The pool-and-spa bond stacks on top of the general bond; it does not replace it. It runs for five years or longer, at the Board’s discretion, under NRS 624.276(2). As with the general bond, its amount is fixed by the Board rather than stated in NRS 624.276, so no figure can be given for it here either.

This page addresses only the bond and cash-deposit requirement. The wider financial-responsibility page covers the financial statement the Board reviews at approval. The classification and the monetary limit is the axis this page has weighed against the bond figure without resolving how the two relate. The rest of what Nevada requires sets this requirement in context. How the application proceeds covers where the bond is filed in that process. For the overview, start at how a Nevada contractor license works.