Can you still get a bond in Georgia? What SB 63 changed

By Ben Sessions on October 20th, 2026 in Criminal Defense

The short answer, and then the real one

Yes. You can still get a bond in Georgia for most offenses.

What changed is not whether bond exists. What changed is what kind of bond a judge is allowed to give you.

Senate Bill 63 took effect July 1, 2024. It rewrote several sections of Georgia’s bail code at once, and its central move was to expand a list of offenses for which a person may only be released through secured means. Not a signature. Not a promise to appear. Money, or a bondsman, or property.

If you have read our page on bond in a Georgia criminal case, the four factors and the bond types on that page are still good law. This post is the update on top of it. SB 63 is the piece that page does not yet cover, and for a lot of families it is now the piece that decides how the first 48 hours go.

“Bail restricted offense” is the phrase that matters now

Before SB 63, a judge setting bond in a misdemeanor or lower-level felony had a full range of options, including release on the defendant’s own recognizance — what most people call a signature bond.

SB 63 took that option off the table for a defined list of charges.

The list lives in O.C.G.A. § 17-6-12. A person charged with an offense on it is eligible for release only through secured means. The judge still sets the amount, and there is no statutory floor on how much — but the judge may not release on a signature.

The bill added roughly thirty offenses to that list. The Judicial Council of Georgia’s bench card for judges, issued in July 2024, describes the resulting list as running to about seventy enumerated offenses.

The list is not what most people picture

When people hear “bail restricted,” they picture murder and armed robbery.

Those are on it. So is a great deal else.

Violent felonies and sex offenses, as expected. Drug trafficking. Gang and racketeering charges. Firearms offenses. Kidnapping, arson, aggravated assault and battery.

But also: family violence offenses, including misdemeanor ones. Theft by taking, deception, and extortion. Forgery. Financial transaction card fraud. Identity fraud. Bribery. Criminal trespass. Possession of tools for the commission of a crime. Fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer. Reckless driving. Racing and laying drags. Repeat DUI. Bail jumping. Cruelty to animals. Domestic terrorism, riot, inciting to riot, and unlawful assembly.

Read that list again with a real person in mind.

A second DUI. A shoplifting charge that crossed a threshold. A domestic argument where somebody called the police and a family violence battery got written up. A trespass. These are the everyday cases in every State and Superior Court in middle Georgia, and for a lot of them the signature bond is simply gone.

That is the practical shift. Not the headline offenses. The ordinary ones.

What SB 63 changed, and what it did not

Changed: the availability of unsecured release. For a bail restricted offense, secured means only.

Changed: the timing of unsecured release generally. A judge may not order unsecured judicial release before the accused appears before a judge, for charges carrying potential jail time.

Changed: the treatment of people and organizations that post bail for others, though that piece is currently enjoined — more on that below.

Not changed: the four factors. A Georgia court deciding bond still asks whether the accused poses a significant risk of fleeing or failing to appear, a significant threat or danger to any person, the community, or property, a significant risk of committing a felony pending trial, and a significant risk of intimidating witnesses or otherwise obstructing the administration of justice. That framework survives SB 63 intact.

Not changed: the requirement that a court consider the accused’s financial resources, earnings, and financial obligations, along with the purpose of bail, in setting the amount.

Not changed: the superior-court-only offenses. The most serious charges still require a superior court judge to set bond, and no magistrate can do it.

Not changed: your right to ask. A bond that was denied or set out of reach can be revisited, and a motion for bond reduction is still a motion a court can grant.

The charitable bail restriction is on hold, and “on hold” is not “gone”

SB 63 also said that no individual, corporation, organization, charity, nonprofit, or group may post more than three cash bonds per year in any jurisdiction unless it meets the regulatory requirements imposed on professional bonding companies.

Three. Per year. Including an individual posting for friends and neighbors.

That provision was challenged in federal court before it ever took effect. A judge in the Northern District of Georgia entered a temporary restraining order on June 28, 2024 and a preliminary injunction on July 12, 2024, finding the limit unconstitutionally vague and holding that posting bail for another person can be protected expression. The State appealed. The Eleventh Circuit heard argument on July 29, 2025.

So as this is written, that piece of SB 63 is not being enforced.

Two cautions. A preliminary injunction is not a final ruling, and an appellate court can reverse it. And this injunction reaches the charitable bail provision — it does not touch the bail restricted offense list, which is in force everywhere in Georgia today.

There is also a separate state-court challenge to SB 63’s mandatory secured bail requirements, filed in Fulton County Superior Court in 2025.

Your driver’s license is still collateral in Georgia, but not for a DUI

This one gets stated wrong constantly, including by people who should know better.

Georgia law still allows a sheriff to accept a valid Georgia driver’s license as collateral for a misdemeanor bond. It is narrow. The bond must be $1,000 or less, the license must be valid and not suspended, expired, or revoked, and the person must have already been held at least five days. They sign an agreement acknowledging that failing to appear forfeits the license by operation of law and exposes them to a bail jumping charge.

The exclusion is the part that matters here. A person charged with DUI does not go through that door. Georgia’s DUI statute routes the license through a different process entirely — the officer takes it and issues the administrative paperwork at arrest.

So: license as collateral is real, it is rare, and it has never been the DUI answer.

Forty-eight hours, seventy-two hours, and what happens in that room

If the arrest was without a warrant, O.C.G.A. § 17-4-62 requires that the person be brought before a judicial officer within 48 hours. Not “should be.” The statute says a person not brought before such an officer within 48 hours shall be released.

If the arrest was on a warrant, the outside limit is 72 hours, set by the uniform rules that govern superior, state, magistrate, probate and municipal courts.

That hearing is first appearance, and it is short. The judge advises the person of the charges and their rights, addresses counsel, and — in most misdemeanor and many felony cases — sets bond.

It is also the first and sometimes only early moment where anyone speaks on the person’s behalf. Whether a lawyer is there matters more than families expect, because for a bail restricted offense the argument is no longer whether the person can be released on a signature. It is about the amount, and about the conditions attached to it.

Our page on arraignment covers the hearing that comes after this one, and they are not the same thing.

Cash, surety, property: what each actually costs

A cash bond means someone posts the full amount with the sheriff or the clerk. It comes back at the end of the case if the person appears, minus fees. It is the cheapest option and the hardest one to fund.

A surety bond means a licensed bonding company posts it for a nonrefundable fee. Georgia sheriffs publish their local rules, and the fee is commonly quoted around 15 percent of the bond with a per-charge minimum. That money is gone whatever happens in the case. Acquittal does not get it back.

A property bond means pledging real estate. Counties typically require clear, unencumbered equity well above the face amount of the bond — one Georgia sheriff’s office publishes a requirement of twice the bond amount plus a homestead exemption cushion — along with a certified deed, current tax receipts, current mortgage statements, and an affidavit from everyone on the deed. A lien goes on the property. It takes days, not hours.

Rules and fees vary county by county, and the sheriff’s office running the jail is the authority on its own.

What to do in the first 24 hours

Find out the exact charge, in the exact words on the paperwork. Not “assault.” The Code section. Whether an offense is on the bail restricted list changes everything that follows.

Find out which jail, which court, and whether a first appearance has been calendared.

Do not let the person in custody discuss the facts on a jail phone. Those calls are recorded and they are routinely used.

Gather what a bond argument runs on: proof of residence, length of time in the community, employment, family responsibilities, medical needs. That is the material a court weighs.

Call before first appearance, not after. Once bond is set, changing it is a motion.

Bring money together but do not commit it until you know what type of bond the court will accept. Paying a nonrefundable premium on a bond that could have been posted in cash is a mistake families make in the first frightened hour.

Talk to someone who tries these cases

SB 63 did not end bail in Georgia. It narrowed the judge’s options for a long list of ordinary charges, and it made the first appearance more consequential than it used to be.

We handle criminal cases throughout middle Georgia from our office on Mulberry Street in Macon.

Start with our page on bond in a criminal case, our criminal defense overview, or Ben’s profile.

Free consultation. Call (478) 254-2665.