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BLM right-of-way bonds.
From $100.
When the Bureau of Land Management issues a right-of-way grant or temporary use permit, 43 CFR 2805.20 lets it require a performance and reclamation bond before you disturb any ground. BLM sets the amount from its reclamation cost estimate. Premiums cost 1% of the bond amount, $100 minimum.
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Three steps to a notice to proceed.
BLM will not let you break ground until the bond is in place, so it usually sits on the critical path:
Apply online
Your details, the bond amount BLM set, and the serial number and terms of your right-of-way grant or temporary use permit — the two fields that tie the bond to the right authorization.
Pay & e-sign
At the standard amounts the application collects no credit information. Most applications issue instantly, right after purchase.
Send it to the field office
Your executed bond arrives by email, ready for the BLM authorized officer who has to approve it before construction. Wet-ink originals mailed when the field office wants them.
What it is and who needs it.
What the BLM right-of-way bond actually secures
A right-of-way grant is BLM's authorization to put something across federal public land — a pipeline, a transmission or distribution line, a fiber run, a road, a water line, a communication site. The authority is Title V of FLPMA (43 U.S.C. 1764(i)), and 43 CFR 2805.20 is the bonding rule: BLM may require you to obtain, or certify that you have obtained, a performance and reclamation bond covering any losses, damages, or injury to human health, the environment, or property arising from your use and occupancy — including the cost of terminating the grant — and securing every obligation the grant and the applicable regulations impose. 43 CFR 2805.12 makes complying with that a term of the grant, and BLM will not issue a notice to proceed with ground-disturbing work until you do.
The number is engineered, not negotiated. BLM sets it from a reclamation cost estimate (RCE) that includes the government's own cost to administer a reclamation contract, and it can require the bond to cover cultural resource and Indian cultural resource identification, protection, and mitigation for project impacts. If you plan to use hazardous materials, you must also bond the liability for damages or injuries from a release or discharge. BLM reviews the bond periodically for adequacy and may require a new bond, or an increase or decrease, at any time during the term — and if BLM releases the bond, or the amount turns out to be short of the real reclamation cost, you remain liable for the difference.
BLM's national policy (IM 2019-013) sets the shape of who has to bond: bonding is expected for new commercial and non-commercial uses and land use authorizations likely to incur reclamation or maintenance costs, with narrow exemptions for federal, state, and county governmental uses, typical residential uses, federally funded public utilities, oil and gas and renewable energy leases, and uses whose anticipated reclamation cost falls under the $2,000 micro-purchase threshold — and it allows a consolidation discount of up to 15% for a proponent in good financial standing with no prior defaults. In Florida, BLM's holdings are administered through BLM Eastern States and its Southeastern States District Office in Flowood, Mississippi; the state's best-known unit is the 120-acre Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse Outstanding Natural Area in Palm Beach County, and BLM also administers federal mineral estate under split-estate lands here. Take your amount from the authorized officer, not from a rule of thumb.
You need this bond if you are
One application, issued instantly.
Enter the amount BLM set plus your grant or permit serial number and its terms and conditions.
Start the application →Common questions.
Other Florida bonds.
Clear the notice to proceed.
1% of the bond amount, $100 minimum, e-signed and ready for the field office. Free until issued.