Free retainage calculator · No signup
Enter this period's completed work and your retainage rate to get the retainage withheld, your net payment due, and the running retainage balance.
Retainage (also called retention) is the slice of every progress payment an owner holds back until the work is complete — a built-in incentive to finish and a cushion against defective work. On most commercial jobs it's 5% or 10% of each pay application.
The math per period is straightforward: retainage withheld = completed work × retainage %, and your net payment = completed work − retainage. What trips contractors up is the running balance — every period adds to the retainage held, and that pile is real money owed back to you at closeout. Enter your prior retainage held to see the cumulative total.
Field PM's AIA progress billing calculates and tracks retainage automatically on every G702/G703 pay application, so the held amount and net due are always right and the release billing at the end is one line, not a spreadsheet reconstruction.
Retainage (or retention) is a percentage of each progress payment the owner withholds until the project is substantially or fully complete. It protects the owner against incomplete or defective work and incentivizes the contractor to finish. 5% and 10% are the most common rates.
Retainage withheld = work completed this period × retainage %. Your net payment for the period is the work completed minus that retainage. The amounts accumulate into a retainage balance that's released at closeout (or stepped down at substantial completion on many contracts).
Typically at substantial completion or final completion, after punch-list items are resolved and any closeout documents are submitted. Some contracts reduce retainage (e.g., from 10% to 5%) at the halfway point or at substantial completion — check your contract's retainage clause.
Yes — the held retainage becomes a final billing line (often a dedicated retainage release application) once the conditions for release are met. Tracking the running retainage balance per project, as this calculator does, tells you exactly how much is owed back to you.
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