Bail Bond Rules by State
Two questions decide how a bail agency prices a bond and how long it has to save one: what may I legally charge, and how many days do I have when a defendant fails to appear. Both answers are state law, both are widely misreported, and neither is 10% or 90 days. Here they are for 39 states, with the statute behind every row.
There is no national 10% and no national 90 days. Only two states in these tables fix a 10% premium by statute; ten set no rate at all; nine run filed-rate systems where charging less is the violation. Forfeiture response windows run from 28 days (Michigan, Alabama) to two years (West Virginia), three states set no interval whatsoever, and the anchor is often the clerk's mailing rather than the missed court date. If your software defaults every file to a 90-day grace window, it is wrong in most of the country.
What these tables are, and what they are not.
Every row was read out of the primary statute, court rule or administrative code named in it, during a state-by-state research pass across 39 states. General information for licensed bail professionals - not legal advice.
1. It is 39 states, not 50. Illinois, Kentucky, Oregon and Wisconsin do not permit commercial bail bonding at all, and Nebraska and the District of Columbia are usually named alongside them. The remaining absences - Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Vermont - are simply not documented yet. We would rather leave a visible gap than fill it with a guess.
2. A forfeiture window is not a single number. Most states run several clocks at once: a notice duty on the clerk, a window to respond, a set-aside period, a remission tail. The column below is the one that answers “how long until this actually costs me money,” which is the one an agency runs its week on. The others are named in each state's guide where one exists.
3. The anchor matters as much as the number. Several states count from the clerk's mailing, from service, or from issuance of a bench warrant - not from the missed court date your file records. Where they differ, the “counted from” column says so, and a countdown built off the failure to appear will be wrong by however long the court took.
4. One row rests on a secondary source and says so. New Mexico's 30-day figure comes from summaries of Rule 5-406 NMRA rather than the rule's own text, because the New Mexico courts' per-rule PDFs were not retrievable. Every other row on this page was read from primary text.
What you may charge, state by state.
The legal shape of the number matters more than the number. A ceiling you may price under, a filed rate you must match exactly, and a floor you may not go below are three different businesses.
| State | What the law says you may charge | Shape | Read from |
|---|---|---|---|
| AlabamaAL | No state-set rate. The Bail Bond Board’s own code defines “premium” and sets no percentage, no cap and no minimum. Separate statutory court fees of $35 + 3.5% of face are the client’s cost, not your revenue. | None set | Ala. Admin. Code r. 153-X-2-.01(5); Ala. Code § 12-19-311 |
| ArkansasAR | Fixed by statute at 10%. One of the few states where “the statutory 10%” is a true sentence. | Fixed rate | Ark. Code § 17-19-301 |
| ArizonaAZ | The surety insurer’s rate on file with DIFI. No percentage, no cap and no floor appears in the statute, and only premium, collateral and actual case expenses may be collected. | Filed rate | A.R.S. § 20-340.03(D) |
| CaliforniaCA | The insurer’s filed rate. Undercutting it is as much a violation as exceeding it. Ins. Code § 1800 is a licensing section and fixes no 10%. | Filed rate | Rate on file with the CDI |
| ColoradoCO | A ceiling of the greater of $50 or 15% of the bail furnished. Market practice sits nearer 10%; 15% is the ceiling, not the going rate. | Ceiling | C.R.S. § 10-2-707 |
| ConnecticutCT | A graduated, descending statutory maximum that steps down as the bond grows — 7% on sums above $5,000. | Graduated cap | Conn. Gen. Stat. § 29-151(a) |
| DelawareDE | A band around a filed rate: the charge may not exceed or be less than the rate filed with and approved by the Department. | Band | 18 Del. C. § 4347 |
| FloridaFL | The rate filed with and approved by OIR — about 10% in practice, roughly 15% federal, with a minimum near $100. Effectively fixed, but it lives in the rate filing, not the statute. | Filed rate | Fla. Stat. § 648.33 |
| GeorgiaGA | Not more than 15% of the face amount including all surcharges, with a $50 minimum per bonded charge. | Ceiling | O.C.G.A. § 17-6-30(a) |
| IowaIA | No statutory bail premium percentage at all. The price is the writing carrier’s filed rate, and deviating from it is an offence that renews every day. | Filed rate | Carrier’s filed rate; no percentage in the Code |
| IdahoID | No rate and no cap. The agent may collect only enough to pay the premium at the rates established by the insurer. | Insurer’s rate | Idaho Code § 41-1042(1)(a) |
| IndianaIN | The filed rate — and writing a bond without collecting it in full is a Level 6 felony. | Filed rate | Ind. Code 27-10-4-5 |
| KansasKS | A statutory minimum of 10% of the face amount. Charging more is permitted. Charging less is not. | Floor | K.S.A. 22-2809b(d)(1)(A) |
| LouisianaLA | The premium rate is set and adjusted by the legislature, expressly outside the insurance commissioner’s rate-setting. | Legislature-set | La. R.S. 22:1443(A) |
| MarylandMD | The filed rate. Wilfully collecting a premium that exceeds or is less than the filed classification is unlawful. | Filed rate | Md. Code Ins. § 27-216(b)(1)(i) |
| MichiganMI | Not more than 10% of the face value, per 12-month period “or any part thereof” — so a bond running into a second year can carry a second premium. | Ceiling | MCL 750.167b |
| MinnesotaMN | The surety’s filed rate and never less than it, over a $100 statutory minimum premium. | Filed rate + floor | Minn. Stat. § 60M.02, subd. 2 |
| MissouriMO | No statutory percentage. A $50 minimum on bonds of $1,000 or less, with no separate investigation or service fee on those. Above that it is contractual. | None set | Mo. Rev. Stat. § 324.2166 |
| MississippiMS | 10% of the bond or $100, whichever is greater. Note the verb: the agent shall charge and collect it. The $100 floor bites hard on small bonds. | Fixed rate | Miss. Code § 83-39-25(1) |
| MontanaMT | No cap and no filed-rate scheme. The rates chapter expressly withholds rate-fixing power from the commissioner, and the bail part is two sections of licensing. | None set | MCA 33-16-101(2); 33-17-1601, -1602 |
| North CarolinaNC | Capped at 15% of the face amount of the bond. A ceiling, not a filed rate — charging less is lawful. | Ceiling | N.C.G.S. § 58-71-95(5) |
| North DakotaND | A ceiling of 20% of the bail or $150, whichever is greater — the highest ceiling in this table — sitting over a filed-rate floor. | Ceiling + floor | N.D.C.C. § 26.1-26.6-08, -05(1)(i) |
| New HampshireNH | No rate, no cap and no filed rate. The State tells defendants in writing to shop around, which is not something a rate-regulated state does. | None set | RSA 597; RSA 598-A |
| New MexicoNM | No percentage exists in the statute or the rule. Each licensee works to a schedule published by OSI after a public hearing, and offering a reduction is prohibited. | Published schedule | NMAC 13.20.2.17(H)(1), 13.20.2.22 |
| NevadaNV | The rates “must be” 15% of the amount of the bond or $50, whichever is greater. Phrased as a rate, not a ceiling — do not market discounting in Nevada. | Fixed rate | NRS 697.300(1)(a) |
| New YorkNY | A tiered statutory cap that steps down by bond size. A single flat percentage is the wrong shape for New York entirely. | Tiered cap | N.Y. Ins. Law § 6804 |
| OhioOH | The premium filed with and approved by the superintendent of insurance, plus an expense fee. About 10% in practice across Ohio carriers. | Filed rate | R.C. § 3905.932(I) |
| OklahomaOK | Unregulated as to amount. No percentage appears in Title 59 or the Insurance Department rules; observed market practice runs 7–15%. | None set | Tit. 59 O.S.; OAC 365:25-5 |
| PennsylvaniaPA | No statutory surety premium. The 10% you see on a Pennsylvania docket is the court’s own refundable deposit, not a bondsman’s fee. | None set | Pa.R.Crim.P. 524, 528 |
| Rhode IslandRI | No statutory premium rate. The 10% figure in Rhode Island practice is the refundable deposit with the clerk — a separate route that competes with you. | None set | R.I. Gen. Laws § 12-13-10 |
| South CarolinaSC | A band. At least the greater of $100 or 10% of the bond, and not more than 15%. Charging under the floor is an offence. | Band | S.C. Code § 38-53-170(e) |
| South DakotaSD | Every rate must be filed with the director, and bail is not one of the two exceptions. A bondsperson writes at the appointing insurer’s filed rate. | Filed rate | SDCL 58-24-10 |
| TennesseeTN | A hard statutory maximum: 10% of face for a resident defendant, 15% for a non-resident, plus a one-time $25 initiation fee, per twelve months of pendency. | Cap | T.C.A. § 40-11-316 |
| TexasTX | No statewide statutory maximum or minimum, and TDI sets no rate. Pricing is left to county bail bond board rules and competition; the market standard is about 10%. | None set | County bail bond board rules; Tex. Ins. Code ch. 2301 |
| UtahUT | No rate and no cap. Bail bond agencies are expressly exempt from the Utah Rate Regulation Act; the rate is the one the agency or surety establishes. | None set | Utah Code §§ 31A-35-608(1)(a), 31A-35-103(18) |
| VirginiaVA | A corridor with a floor and a ceiling: not less than 10% and not more than 15% of the amount of the bond. | Band | Va. Code § 9.1-185.8(I) |
| WashingtonWA | No statute and no regulation sets a bail premium rate. RCW 18.185, WAC 308-19 and RCW 10.19 were read in full and contain none. 10% is market convention only. | None set | RCW 18.185; WAC 308-19 |
| West VirginiaWV | A 10% floor, capped only by the face of the bond. The violation in West Virginia is charging less. | Floor | W. Va. Code § 51-10-5a |
| WyomingWY | No statutory rate. The widely repeated claim that Wyoming fixes bail premium at 10% by law is not supported by the code, and the Department of Insurance’s bail page says nothing about rates. | None set | Wyo. Stat. tit. 26; Wyoming DOI |
Scroll the table sideways on a phone. States in cyan have a full buyer's guide.
The forfeiture clock, state by state.
How long a surety has to act after a failure to appear before real money is owed - and, just as importantly, the event that starts the count.
| State | Window | Counted from | Read from |
|---|---|---|---|
| AlabamaAL | 28 days | Service of the conditional-forfeiture notice. Two returns of “not found” count as personal service, so it can start without anyone handing you anything. | Ala. Code § 15-13-131(a) |
| ArkansasAR | 75 days | The date the circuit clerk sent the forfeiture notification — not the failure to appear. | Ark. Code § 16-84-207 |
| ArizonaAZ | 120 days | The violation. It is a ceiling on when the show-cause hearing may be set, not a guaranteed runway; the real date is on the minute entry. | Ariz. R. Crim. P. 7.6 |
| CaliforniaCA | 185 days | The clerk’s mailing of notice — 180 days plus the 5 mailing days the statute adds. The clerk has up to 30 days to mail, so 185 from the failure is the earliest the deadline can fall. | Cal. Penal Code § 1305(b), (c) |
| ColoradoCO | 126 days | Entry of forfeiture: 35 days to judgment, then a 91-day automatic stay in which producing the defendant still vacates it. | C.R.S. § 16-4-114(5) |
| ConnecticutCT | 180 days | The forfeiture. It is an automatic six-month stay of execution, extendable for good cause. | Conn. Gen. Stat. § 54-65a(a)(1)(C) |
| DelawareDE | None | Nothing. Delaware’s forfeiture rule contains no deadline of any kind — forfeiture is immediate and set-aside is open-ended discretion. | Super. Ct. Crim. R. 46(e)–(f) |
| FloridaFL | 60 days | The forfeiture: pay or discharge inside it. Then judgment, a 35-day set-aside, and a two-year remission window. | Fla. Stat. § 903.26 |
| GeorgiaGA | 150 days | The failure to appear. The execution hearing may be set no sooner than 150 days and no later than 180, and no money judgment exists before it. | O.C.G.A. § 17-6-71(a) |
| IowaIA | 180 days | The failure to appear — a 30-day show-cause window, then a 150-day set-aside clock. | Iowa Code § 811.6 |
| IdahoID | 180 days | The order of forfeiture, which is entered immediately on an unexcused failure to appear, so the start is unambiguous. | Idaho Code §§ 19-2917, 19-2922(5) |
| IndianaIN | 120 days | The clerk’s mailing of notice. Comply inside it and there is no fee at all; on day 121 a 20% late-surrender fee attaches to the face value. | Ind. Code 27-10-2-12(c) |
| KansasKS | 60 days | Service of notice. No judgment may be entered until more than 60 days after it — the only hard deadline guaranteed regardless of district. | K.S.A. 22-2807(d) |
| LouisianaLA | 180 days | The clerk’s certificate that notice of the warrant was sent, not the failure to appear. | La. C.Cr.P. art. 335(A) |
| MarylandMD | 90 days | The forfeiture. The court may extend it to 180 days — treat that as a per-bond event, not an agency default. | Md. Rule 4-217(i)(4) |
| MichiganMI | 28 days | The revocation date. If the defendant does not appear and surrender inside it, the court may enter judgment. | MCR 6.106(I)(2) |
| MinnesotaMN | 90 days | The order of forfeiture. Reinstatement stays available to 180 days and is barred after that. | Minn. Gen. R. Prac. 702 |
| MissouriMO | No statutory window | Nothing. The recognizance forfeits at the failure itself; the real deadline is entry of judgment on the scire facias, which is docket-paced and can land in six weeks or six months. | Mo. Rev. Stat. § 544.640 |
| MississippiMS | 90 days | Issuance of the judgment nisi, which is the day of nonappearance — so it runs from the failure to appear itself, with no cure period. | Miss. Code § 99-5-25(1)(c) |
| MontanaMT | 90 days | The forfeiture. Separately, the court has 10 working days to give notice, and missing that voids the bond. | MCA 46-9-503(3), (5); 46-9-510(1) |
| North CarolinaNC | 150 days | The date notice was given, which runs from mailing rather than receipt. On day 150 the forfeiture becomes a final judgment. | N.C.G.S. §§ 15A-544.5(d)(1a), -544.6 |
| North DakotaND | 90 days | The forfeiture order. Note that any breach of a release condition is a forfeiture trigger in North Dakota, not only a failure to appear. | N.D. R. Crim. P. 46(f)(1)(B) |
| New HampshireNH | None fixed | Nothing runs from the failure itself. The operative clock is 30 days from the county attorney’s demand, and missing it revokes the registration. | RSA 598-A:2; RSA 597:31–:33 |
| New MexicoNM | At least 30 days | Service of the notice of forfeiture and order to show cause. The rule reads “thirty or more days,” so it is a floor, not a countdown to zero. | Rule 5-406 NMRA; § 31-3-2(B) — secondary source, see the note below |
| NevadaNV | 180 days | The failure-to-appear notice, toward the date the undertaking is forfeited. A second 180 days to default judgment is a litigation clock, not a recovery one. | NRS 178.508(2) |
| New YorkNY | 120 days | The forfeiture, as the district attorney’s window. Remission runs on its own one-year clock from the declaration. | CPL 540.10; CPL 540.30 |
| OhioOH | 60 days | Declaration of forfeiture: notice within 15 days, then a show-cause hearing set 45 to 60 days out. Never 90. | R.C. §§ 2937.35, 2937.36 |
| OklahomaOK | 90 days | Receipt of the clerk’s mailed order and judgment, which can sit up to 45 days behind the failure to appear — so a 90-day clock run from the failure alarms early, which is the safe direction. | 59 O.S. § 1332(C)(1) |
| PennsylvaniaPA | 90 days | Service of the notice of the forfeiture order, not the failure to appear. Two independent sources give the same 90. | Pa.R.Crim.P. 536(A)(2)(c); 42 Pa.C.S. § 5747.1(b)(1) |
| Rhode IslandRI | 180 days | Issuance of the warrant. Produce the fugitive inside six months and there is no forfeiture at all. | R.I. Gen. Laws § 12-13-16.2(b)(2) |
| South CarolinaSC | 90 days | Issuance of the bench warrant — and the court has up to 30 days to tell you, so you can learn of it with 60 days left. | S.C. Code § 38-53-70 |
| South DakotaSD | None | Nothing. Chapter 23A-43 contains no interval between forfeiture, judgment and remission; the working window is the circuit’s practice, not a statute. | SDCL ch. 23A-43 |
| TennesseeTN | 180 days | Service of the scire facias on the surety, not the failure to appear. A further 30 days runs before execution can issue on a final forfeit. | T.C.A. § 40-11-139(b), (c) |
| TexasTX | 180 / 270 days | The failure to appear — 180 days on a misdemeanor, 270 on a felony. It is a “get the principal back into custody anywhere in the U.S.” clock, not a pay-by date. | Tex. C.C.P. art. 22.13 |
| UtahUT | 180 days | The forfeiture. The statute says it outright: a forfeiture action may not be brought during the 180-day period. | Utah Code § 77-20-502(1)(b) |
| VirginiaVA | 150 days | The finding of default — and it ends at 4:00 p.m. on the final day. What expires is not only the money; it is the licence. | Va. Code § 19.2-143 |
| WashingtonWA | 60 days | A stay bond, which buys 60 days. Forfeiture and judgment are one act on the day of the failure. Separately, if the court does not notify you in writing within 30 days, the forfeiture is null and void. | RCW 10.19.090, .100, .105 |
| West VirginiaWV | 730 days | The forfeiture. Two years, mandatory, full reimbursement — produce the defendant inside it and the agent is made whole. | W. Va. Code § 62-1C-12(b) |
| WyomingWY | None | Nothing. The rule supplies no set-aside window, no judgment deadline and no remission cut-off. Any number shown for Wyoming is practice, not law. | W.R.Cr.P. 46(f), (g) |
Scroll the table sideways on a phone. States in cyan have a full buyer's guide.
Six things worth reading twice.
What Bondr does with any of this.
Bondr does not ship a per-state rules engine, and we will not say it does
There is no table of state law inside the product. Bondr has one forfeiture grace window that you set yourself in Settings, and the countdown on every bond runs off it. That is the honest description, and it is why this page exists: the number belongs to your state, and somebody has to tell you what it is. Write in Michigan, put it on 28. Alabama, 28. Florida, 60. Kansas, Ohio or Washington, 60. Arkansas, 75. Georgia, North Carolina or Virginia, 150. Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Nevada or Rhode Island, 180. West Virginia, 730.
What the product actually does
It clocks the deadline instead of filing the court date, and it ranks your live book every morning by failure-to-appear risk on plain visible rules - prior failures, days to court, silence since last contact, unpaid premium - so the bond about to cost you is on top while the window is still open. Underneath that it runs the whole book: defendants, bonds, indemnitors, collateral, premiums, court dates, documents and payments, with jail lookup across the county rosters named on the coverage page. Premium is a field you configure, not a hard-coded 10%, which is the only design that survives a table like the one above.
What it does not do
It does not validate your premium against your state's statute, calculate an Alabama court fee, model South Carolina's mandatory payment plan, or run two clocks off two different anchors. Several of those are on the list precisely because this research turned them up. If a vendor tells you their software “supports Georgia rules” or “handles Texas forfeitures,” ask them which statute and which anchor, and see whether the answer has a section number in it.
Common questions.
No, and in most states there is no statutory 10% at all. Of the 39 states in the table on this page, only Arkansas fixes 10% by statute (Ark. Code 17-19-301) and only Mississippi commands 10%-or-$100-whichever-is-greater (Miss. Code 83-39-25(1)). Elsewhere the number is either a ceiling you may charge under (Georgia and North Carolina at 15%, Michigan at 10%, Colorado at the greater of $50 or 15%), a rate your surety filed with the state that you must match exactly (Florida, California, Ohio, Maryland, Indiana, Minnesota), a band with a floor as well as a ceiling (South Carolina and Virginia, both 10-15%), or nothing at all - Texas, Washington, Montana, Utah, Oklahoma, Wyoming and New Hampshire set no rate anywhere in law. The 10% you see quoted nationally is market convention, not a national rule.
It depends entirely on the state, and the honest answer ranges from 28 days to two years. Michigan gives 28 days from the revocation date and Alabama 28 days from service of the conditional-forfeiture notice. Florida gives 60, Kansas 60, Ohio 60, Washington 60. Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia give 150. Tennessee, Utah, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Nevada, Rhode Island and Texas give 180. West Virginia gives two years. Delaware, South Dakota and Wyoming set no interval at all. Any bail software that defaults every file to a 90-day grace window is wrong in most states, and in Michigan and Alabama it is wrong by a factor of three in the dangerous direction.
Of the states documented here: Alabama, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming set no rate, no cap and no filed-rate scheme for the bondsman's premium. Missouri sets only a $50 minimum on bonds of $1,000 or less. In several of those states the 10% figure that circulates online is either pure market convention or, in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, the court's own refundable 10% cash deposit - a competing route that pays the clerk, not you - which is frequently mistaken for a bondsman's rate.
In many states, yes. Every filed-rate state - Florida, California, Maryland, Indiana, Minnesota, Ohio, Iowa, South Dakota, Delaware - requires the agent to charge exactly the rate on file, so charging less is a violation, and Indiana makes writing a bond without collecting the full filed premium a Level 6 felony. Kansas sets a 10% statutory minimum and West Virginia a 10% floor. South Carolina and Virginia set bands with legal floors at 10%. New Mexico prohibits offering a reduction outright. In ceiling states like Georgia and North Carolina, discounting is lawful. Check your own state before you advertise a price.
No, and we will not claim it does. Bondr ships one forfeiture grace window that you set yourself in Settings - it is not a per-state rules engine, and there is no table of state law inside the product. What this page is for is telling you what to set it to. If you write in Michigan, put it on 28. Florida, 60. Georgia, 150. Tennessee, 180. The engine underneath - bonds, indemnitors, collateral, premiums, court dates, documents, reporting and the risk ranking - is state-agnostic and works the same wherever you write.
Each row was read out of the primary statute, rule or administrative code named in that row, in a state-by-state research pass Bondr ran across 39 states in 2026. Where a figure could only be reached through a secondary summary, the row says so - New Mexico is the one entry on this page in that position, because the New Mexico courts' per-rule PDFs were not retrievable. This is general information for licensed bail professionals, not legal advice. Statutes change, and the court of record governs. Confirm anything you are about to rely on.
Set the clock to your state's number.
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