AIA G702/G703 — Pay Applications Explained

The AIA G702 (Application and Certificate for Payment) and G703 (Continuation Sheet) are the most widely used pay application forms in commercial construction. Published by the American Institute of Architects, they're the standard format most GCs and owners require for processing payments.

G702 — The cover sheet

The G702 is the summary page. It shows your total contract amount, how much you've billed to date, how much you're billing this period, retainage being held, and the net amount due. It also includes a notarization section — many GCs require this to be signed and notarized before they'll process payment. Key fields include: Application Number (sequential, starting at 1), Period To (the billing cutoff date), Contract Date, Original Contract Sum, Change Orders to date, Revised Contract Sum, Work Completed (from G703), Retainage, and Amount Due This Application.

G703 — The continuation sheet

The G703 is where your Schedule of Values lives and where you track progress on each line item. For each line item you'll fill in: the scheduled value (from your approved SOV), work completed from previous periods, work completed this period, materials presently stored, total completed to date, percentage complete, and balance to finish. The totals from the G703 feed directly into the G702.

Retainage

Retainage is a percentage of each pay app — typically 5% to 10% — that the owner or GC holds back until the project reaches substantial completion. It's common practice and written into most contracts. Track it carefully. If your contract is $500,000 and retainage is 10%, you won't collect the last $50,000 until the project is substantially complete and retainage is released.

Common mistakes to avoid

When to submit

AIA documents are copyrighted by the American Institute of Architects. Licensed copies are available at aiacontracts.org. This article is for general educational purposes only and is not legal advice.