The Disadvantaged Business Enterprise American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Bonding Assistance Reimbursable Fee Program (DBE ARRA BAP), which will be administered by the Department of Transportation’s Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU), allows small and disadvantaged businesses to apply to be reimbursed for bonding premiums and fees incurred when competing for, or performing on, transportation infrastructure projects funded by ARRA. The program will be especially helpful for businesses with traditionally less working capital than larger contractors.

Under the DBE ARRA BAP program, DBEs performing on a transportation and infrastructure projects receiving ARRA funding assistance from any DOT mode of transportation will receive financial bonding assistance in the form of bonding fee cost reimbursement. This provision is applicable to a subcontract or prime contract at any tier in the construction project. Under this program DOT will directly reimburse DBEs the premiums paid to the surety company for performance, payment or bid/proposal bonds. The range of the premium fee is between 1-3% of the total bond amount. In the event the DBE also obtains a bond guarantee from Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Surety Bond Guarantee Program (SBGP), the DOT will also reimburse the DBE for the small business concern (principal) fee of .729% of the contract price. Only qualified bonds with an issue date on or after August 28, 2009 to September 8, 2010 are eligible.

For more information, please visit http://www.dot.gov/recovery/ost/osdbu/

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