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MMBONDING
Public Works

Consent of Surety to Final Payment

You finished the job, the punch list is closed, and the owner will not cut the final check until your surety signs one more piece of paper. Here is what that document actually says, who signs it, and what to do when it stalls.

Illustration for the guide: Consent of Surety to Final Payment

Bonded public work, by the numbers

$150,000
Federal contract size that requires performance and payment bonds
Acquisition.gov (FAR 28.102)
10%
Minimum bid security on California public works
CA Public Contract Code
~290,000
Licensed California contractors, across 44 classifications
CSLB, 2025
$8.6B
U.S. surety direct written premium
SFAA, 2022

What the document actually says

Strip away the form language and a consent of surety says one thing: the surety has no objection to the owner making final payment to the contractor, and doing so will not release the surety from its obligations under the bond.

That second half is the point. When an owner holds retention, it is holding leverage. Release the money and the leverage is gone. A surety that stayed silent could later argue that the owner impaired its position by paying out early, so owners collect the consent up front and close the argument before it starts. On AIA-form projects the document is AIA G707. Federal and many public agencies use their own standard consent, but it does the same job.

Who signs it, and who does not

The surety signs, through an attorney-in-fact acting under a power of attorney — the same authority that executed your performance bond in the first place. The signed consent normally comes back with a certified copy of that power of attorney attached, because the owner has to be able to verify the signer had authority.

You do not sign it. Your broker does not sign it either. What a broker does is request it, assemble what the surety wants to see, and chase it. That is worth saying plainly, because contractors regularly lose a week emailing the wrong party — the owner asks the contractor, the contractor forwards it to the agent, and nobody has actually asked the surety yet.

What the surety checks before signing

Signing is a risk decision, not an administrative one. Before it consents, a surety wants to be reasonably confident the job is genuinely finished and genuinely paid for:

  • Is the work complete and accepted?A notice of completion, final acceptance, or the owner's own request for the consent usually establishes this.
  • Are the subcontractors and suppliers paid? This is the big one. Your payment bond guarantees them, so an unpaid supplier is live exposure for the surety no matter how happy the owner is.
  • Are there open claims, liens, or stop payment notices? Anything outstanding against the bond or the funds will hold the consent.
  • Are the final contract amount and any change orders reconciled? The consent references the contract, and a bond amount that no longer matches the contract amount gets questioned.

Sureties commonly ask for final unconditional lien waivers, or an affidavit that all bills are paid, before they will sign. Having those collected before you make the request is the single fastest way through.

Why it stalls, and what to do

Almost every stalled consent traces back to one of three things, and none of them are fixed by following up harder.

  • Someone downstream is unpaid. Often a second-tier supplier the general contractor did not know about. The fix is to find and pay or settle it — the surety will not sign around it.
  • A claim is open against the bond. Even a disputed one. See what happens when a claim is filed against your bond — the consent will not move until the claim file is closed.
  • Nobody actually requested it from the surety. The request sat with an agent, or went to a general mailbox. Confirm the surety has the request, the bond number, and the final contract amount.

Why you should care beyond this job

Final payment is not the only thing riding on it. Until the job is formally closed out, that bond is generally still counted against your aggregate bonding capacity. A completed project sitting open for months is capacity you have already earned and are not using. Closing the file out promptly is one of the cheapest ways to free up room for the next bond, and it is the same reasoning behind chasing exoneration on a completed subdivision improvement bond.

It also matters for your record. A clean, promptly closed job history is exactly the evidence that supports a bigger program next time, and it shows up in the completed-jobs history a surety asks for on every future submission.

Retention, separately

Consent of surety is about the owner releasing money. If the underlying problem is that too much of your money is being held for too long, that is a different lever — California public works contractors have a statutory right under Pub. Contract Code §22300 to substitute securities for retention and get the cash back while the job runs.

If a consent is stuck on your job and you want a read on why, send us the bond number and the owner's request. Or start a contract bond quote if you are lining up the next one. Underwriting always applies and we never promise guaranteed approval.

Questions

FAQs

Reviewed by Michael Melshenker, CEO. Updated June 2026.

What is a Consent of Surety to Final Payment?
It is a signed statement from your surety telling the project owner that the surety has no objection to final payment being released to you. On AIA-form projects it is AIA G707. The owner asks for it because releasing final payment without the surety's consent could otherwise weaken the owner's rights under the bond.
Who signs the consent of surety?
The surety company signs it, through an attorney-in-fact under a power of attorney — the same authority used to issue your bond. You do not sign it, and neither does your broker. Your broker requests it and packages what the surety needs in order to sign.
How long does it take to get one?
If the job closed cleanly and there are no open payment issues, often a few business days. What creates delay is almost never the paperwork. It is an unpaid supplier, an unresolved claim, or a lien or stop payment notice the surety learns about when it checks.
Why would a surety refuse to sign it?
Because signing tells the owner it is safe to release the money, and the surety will not say that while it still has exposure. Open payment bond claims, unpaid subcontractors or suppliers, or an unreleased stop payment notice will hold the consent until they are resolved.
Is there a separate form for releasing retention early?
Yes. Consent to final payment is the end-of-job document. A partial release of retainage before completion is a different request, on AIA projects AIA G707A. Sureties look at that one more carefully, because the job is not finished yet.