How to Fill Out Standard Form 28: Affidavit of Individual Surety

Standard Form 28, the Affidavit of Individual Surety, is a three-page sworn form you complete when pledging personal assets to back a contractor’s bid, performance, or payment bond on a federal contract. To fill out Standard Form 28, work through its twelve numbered sections, list each pledged security by CUSIP number in Section 7, sign in front of a notary, and route the original to the contracting officer through the contractor as part of the bond package.¹ The current version was revised in October 2023 and is available for download from GSA.gov; contracting officers may also provide a copy, since the form is authorized for local reproduction.

Before You Start: What You’ll Need

The single most common reason an SF 28 gets rejected is pledging the wrong kind of asset. Federal law limits individual sureties to “eligible obligations” as defined by the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service, and the FAR sends every eligibility question to Treasury’s acceptable collateral list under 31 CFR Part 225.²³

That list is narrow. Only government-backed securities qualify:⁴

U.S. Treasury bills, notes, bonds, inflation-indexed notes and bonds, and floating rate notes
Ginnie Mae (GNMA) I and II mortgage-backed securities, multiclass securities, platinum securities, REMICs, and callable class securities
Federal Housing Administration debentures
Department of Veterans Affairs securities, including VA-backed mortgages, collateralized mortgage obligations, and REMICs
Small Business Administration securities, including development company participation certificates, SBIC debenture and participating security trust certificates, guaranteed interest certificates, guaranteed loan pool certificates, and first mortgage loan pool certificates
Public Housing Agency bonds issued under Section 11 of the U.S. Housing Act of 1937
HUD Section 108 guaranteed notes and participation certificates

Real estate, corporate stock, private bonds, cash deposits, and certificates of deposit are not eligible. Older guidance permitting real property no longer applies; the 2016 rewrite of the FAR aligned it with the eligible-obligations requirement in 31 U.S.C. 9310.

The value of what you pledge matters as much as the type. The net adjusted value must equal or exceed the bond’s penal amount. Net adjusted value is current market value minus a margin (a haircut) that Treasury publishes at TreasuryDirect.gov. Because the margin reduces the recognized value, you will usually need to pledge more than the face amount of the bond in par value. Pull your CUSIP numbers before you sit down with the form; your financial institution or broker can supply them.

Completing the Twelve Sections

Work through the form in order. Every field must be filled in or affirmatively marked as not applicable.

Section 1 — Name. Your full legal name: first, middle, last.
Section 2 — Home address, phone, and email. Current residential address with ZIP code, telephone, and email.
Section 3 — Occupation. The type and duration of your current occupation.
Section 4 — Employer. Employer name, full address, and email. If you are self-employed, say so.
Section 5 — Individual surety broker. If a broker is involved, list their name, address, phone numbers, and email. Leave blank if no broker is involved.
Section 6 — Financial institution. Name and address of the institution that will submit the pledge on your behalf, its routing transit number (RTN), and a contact person’s name, phone, and email.
Section 7 — Pledged assets. List each security by CUSIP number and par (face) amount, one line per security.
Section 8 — Liens and encumbrances. Disclose any liens, judgments, or other encumbrances on the pledged assets. If there are none, state that clearly.
Section 9 — Prior bond activity. List every bond (including bid guarantees) for which the same assets have been pledged in the three years before you sign.
Section 10 — Signature. Your original signature, executed under oath.
Section 11 — Bond and contract identification. The specific bond number and the contract the affidavit relates to.
Section 12 — Notary certification. The notary completes this: date, city and state, printed name, title, signature, and commission expiration date.

Section 7 is where most forms fail. The CUSIP is a nine-character alphanumeric code that uniquely identifies each security; vague descriptions instead of CUSIPs will get the form returned. Sections 8 and 9 also deserve care. Missing an existing lien or a prior pledge is the kind of omission that turns a paperwork error into a false-statement problem.

Getting the Form Notarized

SF 28 is an affidavit, so it has to be sworn before a notary public.¹ Sign Section 10 in the notary’s presence. The notary then completes Section 12 with the date the oath was administered, the city and state, their printed name and title, their signature, and their commission expiration date.

All signatures must be originals. Photocopies and faxes will not be accepted. Before the appointment, confirm two things: the notary’s commission has not expired, and they will affix the official seal or stamp required by your state. An expired commission or a missing seal is an instant rejection. The notary verifies your identity and confirms you are signing voluntarily; they do not review the asset pledge itself.

Submitting the Form

The completed, notarized SF 28 goes to the contracting officer (CO) handling the solicitation or contract. In practice the contractor submits it with the rest of the bond package, not the individual surety directly.

The CO then coordinates with Treasury. Using the information from your form, the CO contacts Treasury’s collateral operations support team at BMT@fiscal.treasury.gov or 888-568-7343 and provides your identity, the pledged assets, and the bond amount.³ Treasury confirms whether the assets are eligible under 31 CFR Part 225 and returns a valuation using its margin tables. If Treasury does not respond within three business days, the CO can escalate to the Director of Bank Policy and Oversight at 202-504-3502.

Based on Treasury’s response, the CO decides whether the bond is acceptable and notifies both the contractor and the surety. When the bond is accepted, the CO asks Treasury’s collateral operations team to open a pledged asset collateral account, and the securities sit in that Treasury-controlled account for the life of the bond. If the bond is rejected because assets are ineligible, undervalued, or the documentation is incomplete, the contractor has to find another surety or lose the award.

How Long the Pledged Assets Stay Locked Up

The pledge does not end when the work does. Under the FAR’s individual surety clause, the security interest continues for a set period after final payment, depending on the contract:⁵

Performance bonds on construction contracts under 40 U.S.C. 3131: until the end of any warranty period or one year after final payment, whichever is later.
Payment bonds on construction contracts: one year after final payment.
Performance and payment bonds on other contract types: 90 days after final payment.

During that period you cannot sell or transfer the pledged securities. If you need to swap one qualifying security for another, submit a written substitution request with a revised SF 28 to the CO, who will run the replacement through the same Treasury review.⁶

Penalties for Getting It Wrong

SF 28 is a sworn statement to a federal agency, which puts it inside 18 U.S.C. 1001. Knowingly making a materially false statement on the form is a felony carrying up to five years in prison.⁷ The maximum fine for an individual is $250,000, or twice the government’s loss if the false statement caused one.⁸ The recurring problem areas are overstating par values in Section 7, hiding encumbrances in Section 8, and leaving prior pledges off Section 9.

Separately, an agency’s Senior Procurement Executive can exclude an individual from acting as a surety on any bond submitted to the executive branch, following legal review by the Office of General Counsel.⁹¹⁰ For anyone who operates as a professional individual surety, that ends the practice.

1
General Services Administration. Standard Form 28 – Affidavit of Individual Surety
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 31 USC 9310 – Individual Sureties
3
Acquisition.GOV. Federal Acquisition Regulation 28.203-1 – Acceptability of Individual Sureties
4
TreasuryDirect. Acceptable Collateral for 31 CFR Part 225
5
Acquisition.GOV. 48 CFR 52.228-11 – Individual Surety-Pledge of Assets
6
Acquisition.GOV. Federal Acquisition Regulation 28.203-2 – Substitution of Assets
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 1001 – Statements or Entries Generally
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3571 – Sentence of Fine
9
eCFR. 48 CFR 28.203-5 – Exclusion of Individual Sureties
10
Acquisition.GOV. GSAM 528.203-7 – Exclusion of Individual Sureties