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Have a question? +1 815-826-6324 (815-8-BondAI) phil@AmericasSuretyBonds.com
Army Veteran Owned | Expert Surety Bonds Since 2004
One bond covers the whole county, not just Portage. Portage City Code 18-60 asks for a copy of a Porter County Unified License Bond of $5,000, and Indiana law makes that bond in lieu of any other bond for this type of work required by the county or a city or town within it. So if you work in Portage and Valparaiso and Chesterton, you buy one $5,000 bond, file it with the county recorder, and give each city a copy. You do not buy one per city.
Portage City Code 18-60, enacted by Ordinance 25-19 on March 4, 2025, requires each contractor registration applicant to submit a copy of a current Porter County Unified License Bond in the amount of $5,000.00, with the obligee identified as Porter County and all cities, towns, and municipalities in Porter County. The instrument comes from state law. IC 22-11-3.1-2 fixes it at $5,000, requires it to be filed with the county recorder, and states it is in lieu of any other bond for this type of work required by the county or a city or town within that county. Sewer contractors must additionally provide a $50,000.00 bond naming the City of Portage.
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This is the first thing to get right, because it changes what you buy and where you file it.
Portage City Code 18-60 does not create a city bond. It says each applicant shall submit a copy of a current Porter County Unified License Bond in the amount of $5,000.00, with the obligee identified as Porter County and all cities, towns, and municipalities in Porter County.
Read that obligee line again. It names the county and every municipality in it. Portage wants a copy of a bond that already exists, filed elsewhere. The city is one of many beneficiaries, not the party you bond to.
The instrument is a creature of state law rather than local ordinance, and that is what makes it useful.
IC 22-11-3.1 is titled Licensing of Contractors in Lake and Porter Counties. It applies to a contractor doing work other than work for a political subdivision in a county inside two population brackets, which is how the statute reaches Lake and Porter without naming them. Section 2 says the contractor must obtain a unified license bond, that the bond must be in an amount equal to five thousand dollars, and, in the sentence that matters most here, that this unified license bond is in lieu of any other bond for this type of work required by the county or a city or town within that county.
So a contractor working across Portage, Valparaiso, Chesterton, Hebron and the rest of Porter County buys one bond, not one per jurisdiction. It is filed with the county recorder and held for compliance with the ordinances and regulations governing business in the county or a city or town within it.
Unusually for a contractor bond, there is no scale here. The statute names five thousand dollars flatly. It does not vary by trade, by contract size, by revenue or by how many jobs you run.
What you register as does change. Portage 18-58 asks you to state an area of expertise, and the list runs general contractor, carpentry, plumbing, electrical, masonry and tiling, concrete, heating cooling and ventilating, roofing siding insulation and weather protection, drywall and plaster, mechanical HVAC, excavating, demolition, flooring excluding hardwood laminate vinyl and carpeting, tree removal trimming landscaping and lawn maintenance, and snow removal.
Worth noticing the last two. Lawn maintenance and snow removal contractors register in Portage like everyone else.
18-60 has a second sentence that the page you are comparing against does not mention at all.
Each sewer contractor shall also provide a bond in the amount of $50,000.00, with the obligee identified as the City of Portage. That one is a city bond, ten times the size, and it sits on top of the county unified bond rather than replacing it.
There is a related exemption in 18-81, and it is narrower than it first looks. Contractors already licensed as general contractors, excavators or plumbing contractors who have installed or helped install sewer or septic systems in the city are exempt from additional licence fees concerning sewer installations. That is an exemption from fees. It still requires them to qualify under the article.
If you are reading anything about Portage contractor registration written before then, treat it as stale.
Ordinance 25-19, adopted March 4, 2025, repealed the former Division 1 and Division 3 of the contractors article outright and enacted new ones. Sections 18-58 through 18-68, which carry the registration requirements, the insurance limits, the bond, the fees, the term, the renewal procedure and the revocation grounds, all date from that ordinance.
The statute excludes some people from the definition of contractor entirely. IC 22-11-3.1-1 defines a contractor as any person, except a licensed architect or registered professional engineer, who in any capacity other than as the employee of another for wages as the sole compensation, undertakes to construct, alter, repair, move, wreck or demolish any structure. Someone who merely furnishes materials or supplies is outside it too.
There is also a grandfather clause, and it is an old one. IC 22-11-3.1-6 says a contractor who on January 1, 1980 had a valid licence issued by a county, city or town is not required to reapply for a licence. All other provisions of the chapter still apply to that contractor, so it is relief from reapplying rather than relief from the bond.
And Portage 18-62 grants building permits to actual homeowners doing the work themselves on the home they live in. That exclusion is not available more than once every five years when applied towards construction of a new single or multi family residence.
A registration runs one year, from November 1 to October 31 of the following year, under 18-63.
The registration fee in 18-62 is $150.00. If you register for the first time between September 1 and October 31, that $150.00 is credited towards the next year's renewal. Renewal under 18-65 is $50.00 if paid on or before October 31, and 18-64 adds a $30.00 penalty for renewing or paying after November 1. At renewal you file a new registration form, a copy of the bond recorded with Porter County, and a fresh certificate of insurance.
One thing to raise with the city rather than assume. IC 22-11-3.1-3 says the initial licence fee charged by a county, or a city or town within that county, may not exceed one hundred dollars, and the renewal fee may not exceed fifty dollars. Portage's renewal at $50.00 matches that cap exactly. Its $150.00 registration fee does not match the $100 figure. The ordinance calls it a registration fee and the statute caps a licence fee, so the two may be doing different jobs. If the difference matters to you, ask the building department how the fee is characterised rather than working it out from a web page.
More contractors get tripped by this than by the bond. Under 18-59 each applicant files a certificate of insurance naming the City of Portage as certificate holder and naming the City of Portage, its officers, agents and employees as additional insureds, with commercial general liability of $1,000,000.00 per occurrence and $1,000,000.00 aggregate, plus workers compensation as required by the State of Indiana.
A $5,000 bond and a $1,000,000 liability policy are very different asks. Line up the certificate early.
Worth stating plainly because it is the assumption behind a lot of bad advice. The Indiana Professional Licensing Agency licenses more than fifty professions and the construction related ones are Plumbing, Home Inspectors and Manufactured Home Installers. There is no state general contractor, building contractor or home improvement contractor licence. Contractor licensing in Indiana is county and municipal, which is exactly why the unified county bond exists.
No, and this is the most common error about it. Portage City Code 18-60 asks for a copy of a Porter County Unified License Bond with the obligee identified as Porter County and all cities, towns, and municipalities in Porter County. The bond is filed with the county recorder under IC 22-11-3.1-2. Portage is one beneficiary among many rather than the party you bond to. The exception is the separate sewer contractor bond, which does name the City of Portage.
No. IC 22-11-3.1-2 says the unified license bond is in lieu of any other bond for this type of work required by the county or a city or town within that county. One $5,000 bond, filed with the county recorder, covers Porter County and every municipality in it. You give each city a copy.
No. The statute fixes it at five thousand dollars flatly. It does not scale with contract value, revenue, trade or number of projects. That is unusual for a contractor bond and it is one of the few genuinely simple things about this filing.
No. Portage 18-60 has a second sentence: each sewer contractor shall also provide a bond in the amount of $50,000.00 with the obligee identified as the City of Portage. That is ten times the county bond and it is in addition to it, not instead of it. 18-81 does exempt contractors already licensed as general contractors, excavators or plumbing contractors who have installed sewer or septic systems in the city from additional licence fees for sewer installations, but that is a fee exemption and they still have to qualify under the article.
IC 22-11-3.1-1 defines a contractor as any person, except a licensed architect or registered professional engineer, who in any capacity other than as the employee of another for wages as the sole compensation, undertakes to construct, alter, repair, move, wreck or demolish any structure. Someone who only furnishes materials or supplies is outside the definition. Note that Portage's own registration list reaches further than people expect, and includes tree and lawn work and snow removal.
Yes, though it will not help many people now. IC 22-11-3.1-6 says a contractor who on January 1, 1980 had a valid licence issued by a county, city or town is not required to reapply for a licence. It then says all other provisions of the chapter are applicable to that contractor, so it excuses reapplying rather than excusing the bond.
For their own home, yes. Portage 18-62 grants building permits to actual homeowners undertaking the work themselves on the premises where they reside. There is a limit. That exclusion is not available more than once every five years when applied towards construction of a new single or multi family residence.
You pay a premium rather than the $5,000. At this size it is one of the smaller bonds a contractor buys, and personal credit is what mainly moves the rate. Rates vary enough between applicants that publishing a percentage would mislead more than it helps. The useful part is that one bond serves the whole county, so the premium is spread across every Porter County jurisdiction you work in rather than repeated per town.
Registration runs November 1 to October 31 under 18-63. The registration fee in 18-62 is $150.00, and if you first register between September 1 and October 31 that amount is credited towards the following year's renewal. Renewal is $50.00 if paid on or before October 31 under 18-65, and renewing or paying after November 1 carries a $30.00 penalty under 18-64. At renewal you file a new form, a copy of the bond recorded with Porter County, and a current certificate of insurance.
It is worth asking the city about rather than assuming either way. IC 22-11-3.1-3 says the initial licence fee charged by a county, or a city or town within that county, may not exceed one hundred dollars, and the renewal fee may not exceed fifty dollars. Portage's $50.00 renewal matches the second cap exactly. Its $150.00 registration fee does not match the first figure. The ordinance calls it a registration fee while the statute caps a licence fee, so they may be characterised differently. Ask the building department how it is treated.
More than the bond suggests. Under 18-59 you file a certificate naming the City of Portage as certificate holder and naming the City of Portage, its officers, agents and employees as additional insureds, with commercial general liability of $1,000,000.00 per occurrence and $1,000,000.00 aggregate, plus workers compensation as required by the State of Indiana.
There is no such thing. The Indiana Professional Licensing Agency licenses more than fifty professions and the only construction related ones are Plumbing, Home Inspectors and Manufactured Home Installers. No state general contractor, building contractor or home improvement contractor licence exists. Contractor licensing in Indiana is done by counties and municipalities, which is why the county unified bond exists at all.
Under 18-67 the building commissioner serves written notice giving you 48 hours to comply, and a fine of up to $2,500.00 may be imposed for failing to comply. Under 18-91 the building commissioner may issue a stop work order, violations carry a fine of not less than $100.00, refusing to obey a stop work order carries not less than $500.00, and each day is a separate offence. The building commissioner also will not issue a building permit to anyone who is not a registered contractor.
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