Tennessee Construction Subcontractor Agreement (2026)

How to use this Construction Subcontractor Agreement in Tennessee

A subcontract is where the money and the risk of a construction project actually get divided. The prime contract sets what the owner owes the general contractor; this document sets what the general contractor owes the trade that does the work — and it is the document a court reads first when a crew walks off, a wall fails or an invoice goes unpaid. This template writes the scope, the schedule, the subcontract sum, the payment terms, the retainage, the insurance, the indemnity, the safety obligations and the flow-down of the prime contract into one agreement, with the rules of Tennessee applied to the clauses your state actually regulates.

Payment is the part Tennessee has an opinion about. The contractor must pay the subcontractor within 30 days after the subcontractor's application for payment, or after the contractor is paid, on the schedule the statute sets. Late payment carries the rate the statute sets. (Tenn. Code §§ 66-34-101 et seq.) Retainage may not exceed 5% of the contract sum or of any payment. (Tenn. Code § 66-34-103(a)) On contingent payment, a clearly written pay-if-paid clause is enforceable here (Koch v. Constr. Tech., Inc., 924 S.W.2d 68 (Tenn. 1996)). Where a pay-if-paid clause would be struck, this template uses pay-when-paid with a reasonable-time cap instead: the owner's payment fixes when the subcontractor is paid, not whether, and the general contractor keeps the cash-flow protection without a clause that evaporates in court.

Risk moves through three clauses, and only one of them is really negotiable. Insurance moves the loss to a carrier: general liability, auto, and workers' compensation for the sub's own employees, with the general contractor and owner as additional insureds on a primary and non-contributory basis, and the certificate in hand before the crew arrives. That last one is not paperwork — in Tennessee, a principal, intermediate contractor or subcontractor is liable for compensation to the employees of an uninsured subcontractor under it. (Tenn. Code § 50-6-113) Indemnity picks up what insurance does not, and here the state sets the ceiling: An indemnity clause in a construction contract is void to the extent it makes the subcontractor answer for the indemnitee's own negligence, whether sole or partial; indemnity for the subcontractor's own share of fault is still allowed. (Tenn. Code § 62-6-123) This template writes Section 9 to that ceiling automatically, so the clause survives instead of being struck as a whole.

Three habits keep a subcontract out of court. Put every change in writing before the changed work starts, with its price and its effect on the date — verbal extras are the single most common construction claim. Exchange a lien waiver with every payment, conditional with the application and unconditional once the funds clear; the subcontractor's own notice and filing deadlines under Tenn. Code §§ 66-11-101 et seq. (mechanics' and materialmen's liens) run from its last day of work, not from the general contractor's. And check the licence: Tennessee licenses contractors (Tenn. Code Ann. § 62-6-103) and the general contractor's licence does not cover the sub — in a licensing state an unlicensed sub can lose the right to be paid at all.