Oregon mechanics’ lien and bond deadlines
Work on Private Property
Oregon lien deadline
Based on the general 75-day period from last furnishing. Exceptions apply — treat this as a planning estimate, not legal advice.
Filing deadline
Record the Claim of Construction Lien with the county recording officer within 75 days after the claimant stopped furnishing OR 75 days after completion of construction (substantial completion, recorded completion notice, or abandonment - deemed on day 75 after work ceases), whichever is earlier. Trivial punch-list items do not extend the date.
Notice prerequisites
Two notice tracks. (1) Notice of Right to a Lien: required from most claimants not in contract with the owner (exempt: labor-only, labor+materials, or equipment rental on commercial jobs). It can be sent anytime but only protects furnishings back 8 business days before delivery, so best practice is within 8 days of first delivery; it must also go to construction lenders to gain mortgage priority. (2) Original contractors on residential contracts over $2,000 must give the CCB 'Information Notice to Owner About Construction Liens' - omission bars the lien entirely and risks CCB discipline.
Service on the owner
Service follows recording: mail a Notice of Filing Claim of Lien with a lien copy to the owner and mortgagee within 20 days of recording, and deliver a Notice of Intent to Foreclose at least 10 days before suit (the two are customarily combined). Missing these does not void the lien but forfeits costs and attorney fees in the foreclosure. Owners/mortgagees can demand itemized lists (15-day or 5-day responses) with fee-forfeiture or priority-loss for silence.
Enforcement
Foreclose in the circuit court of the property's county within 120 days of recording (or 120 days after an extended payment agreement stated in the lien expires, capped at 2 years from recording) - one of the shortest windows in the country. Prevailing party generally gets attorney fees.
ORS 87.001-87.093 (esp. 87.010, 87.021, 87.025, 87.035, 87.039, 87.045, 87.055-.060, 87.076, 87.093); ORS 701.131 (license)
ORS ch. 87 — Statutory Liens — published by the Oregon State Legislature.
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 contracting agency. ORS 279C.600(1)(b).
- When — 180 days from your own last furnishing. ORS 279C.605(1).
- How — Registered or certified mail, or hand delivery. ORS 279C.605(1).
- If late — The entire claim, for ANY claimant at any tier — Oregon has no privity exemption.
- Sue by — TWO years after you last provided labor or material. ORS 279C.610.
Is there a bond at all?
'A payment bond in an amount equal to the full contract price, solely for the protection of claimants under ORS 279C.600' (ORS 279C.380(1)(b)), owed by 'a successful bidder for a public improvement contract' who 'shall promptly execute and deliver' it, 'Except as provided in ORS 279C.390' (ORS 279C.380(1)). The trigger is in ORS 279C.380(5): 'This section applies only to public improvement contracts with a value, estimated by the contracting agency, of more than $100,000 or, in the case of contracts for highways, bridges and other transportation projects, more than $50,000.' Two consequences flatten: (a) the threshold is measured by the CONTRACTING AGENCY'S ESTIMATE of value, not by the final contract sum; (b) transportation work has its own, lower $50,000 trigger. Note also that ORS 279C.380(1)(a) lets a contracting agency waive the PERFORMANCE bond and accept a cashier's or certified check for it - that permission is written into the performance-bond paragraph only and is not repeated for the payment bond in (1)(b). For CM/GC contracts, ORS 279C.380(2) defers the bonds until the guaranteed-maximum-price amendment, with separate bonds equal to the value of any early work amendment.
Who can claim on it
Extremely broad and with no express tier stop. ORS 279C.600(1): 'A person claiming to have supplied labor or materials for the performance of the work provided for in a public contract, INCLUDING any person having a direct contractual relationship with the contractor furnishing the payment bond or a direct contractual relationship with any subcontractor, or an assignee of such person, or a person claiming moneys due the State Accident Insurance Fund Corporation, the Unemployment Compensation Trust Fund or the Department of Revenue in connection with the performance of the contract, has a right of action on the contractor's payment bond as provided for in ORS 279C.380 and 279C.400 only if: (a) The person or the assignee of the person has not been paid in full; and (b) The person gives written notice of claim, as prescribed in ORS 279C.605, to the contractor and the contracting agency.' The two named privity classes are introduced by 'including', i.e. as illustrations of the general class of persons who supplied labor or materials - not as a ceiling. ORS 279C.600(2) separately gives the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industries a right of action for unpaid prevailing wage or overtime, first against the public works bond under ORS 279C.836 and then against the payment bond for any unsatisfied balance; the commissioner's right 'exists without necessity of an assignment and extends to workers on the project who are not identified when the written notice of claim is given'.
What notice you owe
EVERY claimant, including one in direct contract with the prime. This is the single largest departure from the Miller Act pattern and from how Oregon is usually paraphrased. ORS 279C.600(1) makes the right of action exist 'only if' both (a) non-payment and (b) 'The person gives written notice of claim, as prescribed in ORS 279C.605, to the contractor and the contracting agency'. There is no privity exemption anywhere in ORS 279C.600 or 279C.605. The prime's own first-tier subcontractor and the prime's own direct supplier each owe the notice.
Who it goes to
TWO recipients: 'the contractor and the contracting agency' (ORS 279C.600(1)(b)). Both. Under ORS 279C.605(1) the notice 'may be sent or delivered to the contractor or subcontractor at any place the contractor or subcontractor maintains an office or conducts business or at the residence of the contractor or subcontractor.' (When the BOLI commissioner is the claimant under ORS 279C.600(2), notice goes to four: 'the contracting agency, the Construction Contractors Board, the contractor and, if applicable, the subcontractor.')
By when
180 days, running from the CLAIMANT'S OWN last furnishing: 'The notice of claim required by ORS 279C.600 must be sent by registered or certified mail or hand delivered no later than 180 days after the day the person last provided labor or furnished materials or 180 days after the worker listed in the notice of claim by the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industries last provided labor' (ORS 279C.605(1)). A LONGER, separate clock applies to one class of claim: 'Notwithstanding subsection (1) of this section, if the claim is for a required contribution to a fund of an employee benefit plan, the notice required by ORS 279C.600 must be sent or delivered within 200 days after the employee last provided labor or materials' (ORS 279C.605(2)) - so a Taft-Hartley trust or similar fringe-benefit trust has 200 days, not 180. Both figures were raised by Or. Laws 2009, ch. 160 (SB 50) from 120 and 150 days respectively; pre-2009 charts showing 120/150 days are stale.
How it must be served
'sent by registered or certified mail or hand delivered' (ORS 279C.605(1)). Hand delivery is expressly permitted, which is unusual. Ordinary first-class mail and email are not authorized. The notice must be signed: 'The person making the claim or giving the notice shall sign the notice' (ORS 279C.605(5)).
What it has to say
Prescribed by form rather than by list - see "The form the statute prescribes". The form calls for: the name of the contractor or subcontractor and the name of the public body; the name of the claimant; a brief description of the labor or materials performed or furnished and by whom (or, if the claim is for something other than labor or materials, a brief description of the claim); the sum claimed in dollars; identification of which bond is claimed against (public works bond or payment bond); the name of the principal and, if known, the surety or sureties; a brief description of the work for which the bond was taken; and the name of the contractor or subcontractor to whom the material or labor was supplied. ORS 279C.605(3) requires the notice to be 'in writing substantially as follows', so substantial compliance with the form is the standard. ORS 279C.605(4) adds a further mandatory statement when the BOLI commissioner's claim includes an unidentified worker.
The form the statute prescribes
To (here insert the name of the contractor or subcontractor and the name of the public body): Notice hereby is given that the undersigned (here insert the name of the claimant) has a claim for (here insert a brief description of the labor or materials performed or furnished and the person by whom performed or furnished; if the claim is for other than labor or materials, insert a brief description of the claim) in the sum of (here insert the amount) dollars against the (here insert public works bond or payment bond, as applicable) taken from (here insert the name of the principal and, if known, the surety or sureties upon the public works bond or payment bond) for the work of (here insert a brief description of the work concerning which the public works bond or payment bond was taken). Such material or labor was supplied to (here insert the name of the contractor or subcontractor). ________________________ (here to be signed)
If the notice is late, or never given
The entire claim. ORS 279C.600(1) is an 'only if' clause: without the notice the right of action never comes into existence, for any claimant at any tier. ORS 279C.610(1) reinforces it by allowing suit only by a person 'who has a right of action ... under ORS 279C.600 and, where required, who has filed and served the notice or notices of claim, as required under ORS 279C.600 and 279C.605'.
The small-claim floor
No dollar floor on an individual claim. The only dollar figures are the bond triggers in ORS 279C.380(5) ($100,000 generally; $50,000 for highways, bridges and other transportation projects), below which no bond need be furnished. Separately, ORS 279C.390 permits the Director of the Oregon Department of Administrative Services, a state contracting agency, a local contract review board, or the Director of Transportation to exempt contracts from bid security and bond requirements, while preserving the agency's discretion to require them anyway.
When the suit clock starts
The claimant's own last furnishing (or, for a commissioner's claim, the listed worker's last labor): 'two years after the person last provided labor or materials or two years after the worker listed in the commissioner's notice of claim last provided labor' (ORS 279C.610(3)). Not from completion, acceptance or final payment.
How long you have to sue
Two (2) years. 'The action shall be instituted no later than two years after the person last provided labor or materials...' (ORS 279C.610(3)). Oregon is therefore longer on the suit clock and tight on the notice clock - the reverse of most states, and the reason the 180-day notice is where Oregon claims are most often lost.
Where suit is brought
'in a circuit court of this state or the federal district court of the district' (ORS 279C.610(1)) - no county venue is fixed. But the CAPTION is prescribed and is easy to get wrong: 'The action shall be on the relation of the commissioner, the claimant, or that person's assignee, as the case may be, and shall be in the name of the contracting agency that let the contract or, when applicable, the public agency or agencies for whose benefit the contract was let. It may be prosecuted to final judgment and execution for the use and benefit of the commissioner or the claimant, or that person's assignee, as the fact may appear.' (ORS 279C.610(2)). The claimant sues in the public body's name on its own relation.
The trap
In Oregon the 180-day notice of claim is owed by EVERY claimant - the prime's own subcontractor and the prime's own supplier included - and it must reach the contracting agency as well as the contractor, so a first-tier claimant who reasons from the Miller Act that privity excuses notice loses the whole bond claim while still comfortably inside the two-year suit window.
The act itself
No popular name. The payment-bond regime lives in ORS chapter 279C ('Public Contracting - Public Improvements and Related Contracts'), the bond-claim provisions being ORS 279C.600 to 279C.625. Oregon is structurally UNLIKE the Miller Act: it does not divide claimants into privity and non-privity classes, and it makes one notice a condition of every claimant's right of action.
Where this comes from
ORS 279C.380 (performance and payment bond required; amounts; thresholds), ORS 279C.390 (exemption of contracts from bid security and bonds), ORS 279C.400 (bond forms/filing), ORS 279C.600 (right of action on payment bond or public works bond), ORS 279C.605 (notice of claim - the 180/200-day rule and the prescribed form), ORS 279C.610 (action on the bond; two-year limitation), ORS 279C.615 (preference for labor and material liens), ORS 279C.620 (rights of person providing medical care), ORS 279C.625 (joint liability when payment bond not executed). The separate prevailing-wage 'public works bond' is ORS 279C.836.
ORS ch. 87 — Statutory Liens — published by the Oregon State Legislature.
Statutory summary as of 29 July 2026. Not legal advice; confirm with a lawyer licensed in Oregon.