Bonds & Surety› Contractor License Bonds › New Hampshire
No. New Hampshire does not license general contractors, so there is no state contractor license bond to buy. Specific trades are licensed, and local requirements vary by town.
Verified August 12, 2026 against primary sources from the New Hampshire Office of Professional Licensure and Certification. Requirements are subject to current state statutes and agency rules, which change without notice. Confirm the figure that applies to you before you file.
No, not at the state level. No state general contractor licensing board. The Office of Professional Licensure and Certification (OPLC) administers more than 54 boards, and general contracting is not one of them. Most contractors working inside New Hampshire hold no state contractor license at all, because the state does not issue one. Requirements come from the trade you work in and from the town you pull the permit in.
New Hampshire has no general contractor license and no home improvement contractor registration. We checked this against the OPLC's own list of every board it administers, and there is no board for either. What the state does license are specific trades and professions, so the honest question in New Hampshire is not "am I licensed and bonded" but "does my trade need a state license, and what does this town require on top of it?"
With nothing at the state level, the requirement sits with the municipality. Towns set their own permit and registration rules, and a requirement in one town tells you nothing about the next one. Confirm with the building department before you bid, not after.
The absence of a licensing bond does not mean nothing is required of you in New Hampshire. It means the burden moves entirely onto your insurance and your contracts, and there is no state financial-responsibility screen filtering the contractors you compete against or subcontract to. That is a reason to check certificates on every sub yourself rather than assuming a licensing board did it. And on public work in New Hampshire you will still need bid, performance and payment bonds, which have nothing to do with licensure.
This is the distinction that costs New Hampshire contractors work. A license bond is what the state or the city requires before it will let you operate. It is a fixed amount, it renews annually, and it protects the public. It says nothing about whether you can bond a job.
A performance bond is different. That is job-specific, written at the full contract value, and it is what an owner requires before awarding you the work. Contractors who assume their license bond makes them "bonded" find out otherwise the first time they try to bid public work.
The two are connected in one direction that matters: the financial file that gets you a license bond easily is the same file a surety underwriter reads when you ask for a performance bond. Building it properly now is what makes the bigger bond reachable later. See how contractors qualify for bonds and how a bond program gets built.
A license bond is also not insurance. It does not protect you - if a claim is paid, you reimburse the surety. See surety bonds versus insurance.
Our team writes contractor license bonds nationally and we never decline a submission - our job is to find the path to yes. Tell us the classification you are applying for and we will tell you what it takes. If you are building toward bigger work, we will look at the whole program, not just the bond in front of you.
Call the Grit team: (801) 505-5500
No. New Hampshire does not license general contractors, so there is no state contractor license bond to buy. Specific trades are licensed, and local requirements vary by town.
There is no statewide amount because there is no statewide requirement, and for most building contractors there is no city bond either. Cities require general liability insurance instead, commonly $1,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 aggregate. The bond attaches to right-of-way work: Fort Collins requires $100,000, or $250,000 for directional boring, and Denver's paving bond is $50,000 under DRMC 49-626.
In the jurisdictions we verified, generally no. Fort Collins requires no bond on general or specialized trade licenses, and the Pikes Peak Regional Building Department requires none either. Both require general liability insurance. Aurora is the exception we confirmed, with a $20,000 license and permit bond on some classes. Confirm with the city you are pulling the permit in.
No. A license bond is a fixed annual requirement to hold your license and it protects the public. A performance bond is job-specific, written at the full contract value, and required by the project owner before award. Holding a license bond does not mean you can bond a job.
No. A surety bond protects the party the bond runs to. If a claim is paid on your bond, you reimburse the surety. Liability insurance protects your business; a bond does not.
A note on the details: Everything on this page was taken from the state's own statutes, rules or agency publications on the verification date shown at the top, and it is subject to current state code. Legislatures amend statutes, boards amend rules, and agencies set some amounts administratively so they move without any change in the law. Bond amounts, licensing thresholds and filing rules also vary by classification and by the agency issuing the license. Use this page as a starting point, not as legal advice. Confirm the current requirement with the licensing authority before you file, and confirm your own bond requirement with a licensed member of our team.
Already licensed and looking for work to bid? See where to find public construction work to bid on in New Hampshire, and the national guide to contractor license and permit bonds.