The dual authority license lets one company both lend and broker mortgage loans in the District under a single DISB license — and D.C. Code § 26-1103(i) requires one surety bond with every original and renewal application, running to the Commissioner for the benefit of the District and anyone damaged by the licensee. The amount is tiered to your DC loan volume, from $12,500 to $50,000. Ours is 0.6% of the bond amount, $100 minimum, issued the moment you pay. Any credit screen is a soft pull only — it never affects your score.
















The bond is the easy part of an NMLS filing. Here is the entire process:
Business details, your bond amount tier, an effective date, and a term. That is the entire application — any credit screen is a soft pull that never shows as a hard inquiry.
This bond is checkout-priced at 0.6% of the bond amount ($100 minimum), so it issues the moment you pay — your executed bond and power of attorney generate on the spot.
DC mortgage bonds are filed electronically with your license record. Your executed bond arrives by email, ready to associate with your NMLS filing to DISB.
The District's Mortgage Lenders and Brokers Act, D.C. Code § 26-1101 et seq., lets a company that both makes and brokers mortgage loans hold a single dual authority license from the Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking, administered through NMLS. Section 26-1103(i) requires a surety bond with each original application and every renewal.
It's a three-party arrangement: you (the principal), the surety carrier, and the Commissioner as obligee — the bond runs to the Commissioner for the benefit of the District and any person damaged by a violation of the Act, whether the violation happened on the lending side or the brokering side. The amount is tiered to your prior-year DC loan volume, from $12,500 up to $50,000; an applicant with no DC business in the preceding 3 calendar years files at $12,500.
It is not insurance for you — if the surety pays a claim, you repay the surety. The bond has to stay continuously on file with your NMLS record; we track the term and send renewal notices 60 and 30 days out.
These are the actual issuing fields — business details, your bond amount, an effective date, and a term. That is the entire application.
Start the application →0.6% of the bond amount, $100 minimum, issued the moment you pay. Free until issued.