Illinois licenses debt settlement providers through the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, and the Debt Settlement Consumer Protection Act requires every applicant to submit a $100,000 surety bond under 225 ILCS 429/20. Ours is $1,000 flat, the price you see is the checkout price, and the bond issues the moment you pay. Any credit screen is a soft pull only — it never affects your score.
















Debt settlement license bonds are a straightforward IDFPR filing. Here's the entire process:
Business and owner details, an effective date, and a term. That is the entire application — and any credit screen is a soft pull that never shows as a hard inquiry.
This bond is checkout-priced at $1,000 flat, so it issues the moment you pay — your executed bond and power of attorney generate on the spot.
Your executed bond arrives by email, ready to file with your debt settlement license application at the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. Wet-ink original mailed on request.
Illinois regulates debt settlement — negotiating with creditors to settle a consumer's debts for less than the balance — under the Debt Settlement Consumer Protection Act, 225 ILCS 429. Section 20 requires every applicant to submit, with the license application, a bond in the sum of $100,000 approved by the Secretary, with an insurer authorized to write fidelity and surety business in Illinois as surety.
It's a three-party arrangement: you (the principal), the surety carrier, and the Secretary of Financial and Professional Regulation (the obligee). The bond runs to the Secretary for the use of the Department or of any person with a cause of action against you arising out of a violation of the Act or its rules — the fee limits and disclosure duties that protect consumers in settlement programs.
It is not insurance for you — if the surety pays a claim, you repay the surety. At renewal the Act keeps the bond at a minimum of $100,000, and the Secretary can require more based on the prior year's disbursements; we track the term and send renewal notices 60 and 30 days out.
These are the actual issuing fields — business and owner details, an effective date, and a term. That is the entire application.
Start the application →$1,000 flat, issued the moment you pay, soft pull only. Free until issued.