Michigan deferred presentment bonds.
From $750.
Michigan licenses payday lenders as deferred presentment service providers, and each licensee must furnish a $50,000 surety bond to the commissioner, today the Department of Insurance and Financial Services (DIFS), under MCL 487.2134(4). Premiums cost 1.5% of the bond amount.
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How much does a Michigan deferred presentment bond cost?
1.5% of the bond amount, from $750 at the $50,000 minimum. Enter your amount in the calculator for the exact price.
Three steps. One sitting.
There is no long underwriting queue on the standard $50,000 filing — enter your amount, pay, and file the executed bond with your DIFS license application or renewal. Here is the whole thing:
Apply online
Your company details, the bond amount your license requires, and an effective date. That is the application — no financial statements to assemble first.
Issued
No credit check up to $100,000 and most applications approve instantly. Because the penal sum runs five figures, an underwriter may glance at a larger filing; above $100,000, any check is a soft pull that never affects your score.
File with DIFS
Your executed bond and power of attorney arrive by email, ready to file with the Office of Consumer Finance alongside your license application or your August renewal. Wet-ink original mailed on request.
What it is and who needs it.
What the deferred presentment bond actually guarantees
Michigan does not use the phrase “payday loan” in its statute. It calls the product a deferred presentment service transaction: a customer writes a personal check, the lender advances cash, and the lender agrees to hold the check for a period before presenting it. The Deferred Presentment Service Transactions Act, 2005 PA 244, licenses the businesses that do this, and under MCL 487.2131 a separate license is required for each location. Chartered banks, savings and loan associations, savings banks, and insured credit unions sit outside the act entirely.
The bond is one half of the act’s financial-responsibility test. MCL 487.2132(a) requires net worth of at least $50,000 for each licensed location, capped at $250,000 for any one licensee, and MCL 487.2134(4) requires the $50,000 surety bond on top of the license fee — written by a bonding or insurance company authorized to do business in Michigan, on a form satisfactory to the commissioner, and posted “to secure the performance of its obligations.” Where one person holds 20% or more of two or more licensees, the group furnishes a single bond.
What the bond stands behind is the conduct the act polices: the $600 ceiling on a single transaction, the tiered service fee, the statewide database check before a transaction is written, the restitution remedy of five times the fee charged on a violation the licensee concedes, and the private civil cause of action in MCL 487.2173. It is not insurance for you — if the surety pays a claim, you repay the surety. Keep it continuous: the license expires September 30 and the renewal is due by August 1.
You need this bond if you are
Claims, renewal, filing, and what sets the price.
If a claim is made
A claim comes from the party the bond protects, the obligee named on the form, when the duty the bond guarantees is not met.
The surety investigates and pays a valid claim, up to the bond amount. You then repay the surety: a surety bond is a guarantee of your performance, not insurance for you.
Renewal and term
The premium covers a one-year term from the effective date you choose.
Renew before the expiry date to keep the bond in force: the license, permit or contract it backs expects continuous coverage.
How to file it
File with DIFS. Your executed bond and power of attorney arrive by email, ready to file with the Office of Consumer Finance alongside your license application or your August renewal. Wet-ink original mailed on request.
What sets the price
The premium is 1.5% of the bond amount, $100 minimum: the amount the obligee sets moves the price, not your business profile.
No credit check up to $100,000. Above that, the carrier may run a soft pull, which never affects your score.
Where a check runs, it decides approval; the rate is the same for everyone approved.
One application, no credit check up to $100,000.
These are the actual issuing fields — submit them with the bond amount your license requires. Five-figure penal sums sometimes draw a brief underwriter look before the bond releases.
Start the application →Common questions.
Other Michigan bonds.
Price and requirements checked on the carrier’s application, . Page updated .
Payday-lending license waiting on one filing.
Enter the $50,000 amount, see your exact price at the application, and file with DIFS the same day. Free until issued.