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Federal tobacco bonds in Florida.
From $100.
Before commencing business, a manufacturer of tobacco products files a bond with the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) alongside its permit application, under 27 CFR 40.66. It secures the federal tobacco excise tax, and TTB assigns the penal sum. Pricing is 1% of the bond amount, $100 minimum.
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Three steps. One sitting.
You cannot commence business until TTB approves the bond, so the useful thing is to have it in hand before the permit review begins:
Apply online
Your factory details, the penal sum TTB requires, your TTB permit number if you already have one, and an effective date.
Pay & e-sign
The credit check is a soft pull that never affects your score. Most bonds issue right after purchase.
File it with your permit application
The executed bond and power of attorney arrive by email, ready to go in with your TTB permit package. Wet-ink originals mailed whenever TTB asks for them.
What it is and who needs it.
What the tobacco bond actually secures
Federal law taxes tobacco products when they are removed from the factory, and it lets the manufacturer remove them before the tax is paid. The bond is what makes that credit safe: under 26 U.S.C. 5711 and 27 CFR 40.66, every person must file a bond in connection with the permit application before commencing business as a manufacturer of tobacco products, conditioned on compliance with chapter 52 of the Internal Revenue Code — including timely payment of the tax, penalties, and interest. The bond goes in on TTB F 5200.29 (TTB also accepts 5200.25 / 5200.26), in duplicate.
The penal sum is not a round number someone picks. Under 27 CFR 40.133 it equals the total tax liability on all tobacco products manufactured in the factory, received in bond from other factories and export warehouses, and released to you in bond from customs custody during any calendar month — subject to a maximum of $250,000 for cigarettes, $150,000 for cigars, smokeless tobacco, pipe tobacco, or roll-your-own, and $250,000 for any combination. It is never less than $1,000. If your volume outgrows the bond, 27 CFR 40.135–40.136 require you to file a strengthening or superseding bond immediately.
Florida is one of the places this bond turns up most. Tampa's Ybor City built itself on cigar manufacturing, and the state still carries a dense concentration of premium-cigar factories, importers, and blenders — most of them small operations that hit the TTB permit requirement long before they hit anything the state does. Note that Florida's own tobacco bonds are separate: chapter 210, Florida Statutes, bonds cigarette distributing agents and tobacco products distributors through the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, and those are state tax bonds, not this one. If you both manufacture and distribute, expect to carry both.
You need this bond if you are
One application, issued instantly.
Enter the penal sum TTB requires and your permit number if you have one.
Start the application →Common questions.
Other Florida bonds.
Bond it before the permit review starts.
From $100. Enter the penal sum TTB assigns; your bond arrives e-signed and ready to file. Free until issued.