Arkansas mechanics’ lien and bond deadlines
Work on Private Property
Arkansas lien deadline
Based on the general 120-day period from last furnishing. Exceptions apply — treat this as a planning estimate, not legal advice.
Filing deadline
Statement of Account and Claim of Lien (notarized, with property description, amount, owner and claimant identities, invoices, an Affidavit of Notice, and the name of a person authorized to release the lien) is filed with the circuit clerk of the project county within 120 days of the last substantial work or last materials furnished; trivial or remedial touch-up work does not restart the clock. Filing may occur no sooner than 10 days after the Notice of Intent.
Notice prerequisites
Residential: a statutory Pre-Construction Notice to Owner must reach the owner before materials/work are supplied; the contractor is obligated to give it (one notice covers all claimants; if the notice was given after work started, the lien secures only labor and materials supplied after it was given). A residential contractor who skips it cannot sue on the contract at all, and it is exempt if the contractor bonds the job or the sale is direct to the owner. Commercial: subcontractors, suppliers, service providers and laborers must send the owner and the contractor the statutory notice that they are owed payment and have not been paid. It must go out within 75 days after the labor or materials were supplied. The clock runs separately for each delivery or item of work, so send it within 75 days of the earliest unpaid furnishing. Both project types also require a Notice of Intent to File a Lien served on the owner at least 10 days before recording.
Service on the owner
Pre-lien notices go to the owner (and GC on commercial jobs) by personal service, restricted-delivery return-receipt mail, or any method with third-party delivery verification; the 10-day Notice of Intent must precede filing. After recording, notice of the lien should be sent to the owner by registered mail - attorney fees are recoverable only if the claimant sent this post-filing demand and remains unpaid 20 days later.
Enforcement
Foreclosure suit must be filed within 15 months after the lien is filed, joining all contract parties and everyone with an interest in the property (prime contractor is a necessary party); a lis pendens must be filed contemporaneously with the petition.
Ark. Code Ann. sec. 18-44-101 et seq. (esp. 18-44-114, -115, -117, -118, -119)
Code of Arkansas Public Access — published by LexisNexis, for the Arkansas Bureau of Legislative Research. This state publishes no code on its own servers; this is the free public access it points to.
Work on Public Property
No mechanics lien attaches to public property in any state. On a government job the remedy is the prime contractor’s payment bond, and it runs on its own act with its own deadlines — not the lien deadlines above.
- Who — BOTH the contractor AND the surety. Arkansas needs both. § 18-44-508.
- When — 90 days from your last furnishing. § 18-44-508.
- How — Any means giving written third-party verification of delivery. § 18-44-508.
- If late — The whole claim, for a claimant not in privity with the prime.
- Sue by — 1 year on a payment bond; 2 years on a performance bond.
Is there a bond at all?
$50,000. § 18-44-503(a): 'A public construction contract in a sum exceeding fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) shall not be entered into by the State of Arkansas or any subdivision of the state, by any county, municipality, school district, or other local taxing unit, or by any agency of the state, a subdivision of the state, a county, a municipality, a school district, or any other local taxing unit, unless the contractor furnishes to the party letting the contract a payment bond in a sum equal to the amount of the public construction contract.'
Who can claim on it
§ 18-44-508: 'All persons, firms, associations, and corporations who have valid claims against the payment bond or performance bond may bring an action thereon against the corporate surety.' What counts as a valid claim is defined by coverage rather than by tier — § 18-44-503(b) makes the bond cover wages of construction workers; wages or salaries of supervisory and administrative personnel; use of temporary facilities; purchase or rental of machinery, equipment or hand tools; building permits; construction testing fees; fuel oil and gasoline; bond and insurance premiums; and taxes or payments to the state or a political subdivision arising from wages. The subchapter states no tier cutoff; its notice provision presupposes claimants with no contractual relationship with the prime.
What notice you owe
Only a claimant with no contractual relationship with the prime contractor. A claimant in privity with the prime owes no notice.
Who it goes to
BOTH the contractor AND the surety. Arkansas is one of the few in this tranche that requires the surety to be served as well as the prime.
By when
90 days, running from LAST furnishing — 'within ninety (90) days after the last date labor was performed or the last of the material or services for which the claim is based were furnished or supplied.'
How it must be served
By a means that provides written, third-party verification of delivery, or in a manner authorized by the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure for service of process.
What it has to say
The amount claimed and the name of the party to whom the labor, material or services were furnished or supplied.
If the notice is late, or never given
The whole claim, for a non-privity claimant — the notice is a precondition to bringing the action on the payment bond, not a step that merely preserves part of it.
When the suit clock starts
Not the claimant's last day of work. § 18-44-508 runs the payment-bond period from 'whichever of the following occurs first': the date the contractor receives final payment, or the date the contractor ceases work under the contract.
How long you have to sue
One year on a payment bond. Two years on a performance bond, measured from the same 'whichever occurs first' pair.
Where suit is brought
No court or venue is prescribed beyond the territorial rule in § 18-44-508: 'A civil action under this subchapter shall not be brought outside the State of Arkansas.' Relatedly, § 18-44-507 requires the contractor to file the payment bond with the circuit clerk of the county in which the construction work is to take place before commencing work, and if it does not, the party letting the contract 'is not required to pay the contractor' until the bond is filed and a file-marked copy delivered — which is also where a claimant goes to find the bond.
The trap
The one-year suit clock is not measured from anything the claimant does — § 18-44-508 runs it from the earlier of the prime's final payment or the prime's cessation of work — so an early-finishing supplier can serve a perfectly timely 90-day notice and still find its year already spent while the project is visibly ongoing, and it has no way to know the trigger date without going to the circuit clerk for the bond and asking.
The act itself
No popular name. The bond subchapter is headed simply 'Bonds'; the companion statutory-liability provisions sit in the Public Works chapter.
Where this comes from
Ark. Code Ann. §§ 18-44-501 to 18-44-508 (Title 18, subt. 4, ch. 44, subch. 5 — Bonds), read with §§ 22-9-401 to 22-9-405 (Contractors' Bonds).
Code of Arkansas Public Access — published by LexisNexis, for the Arkansas Bureau of Legislative Research.
Statutory summary as of 31 July 2026. Not legal advice; confirm with a lawyer licensed in Arkansas.