AIA Documents on the Florida Contractor Exam: What A201, A401, and A701 Actually Do

The DBPR publishes a separate reference list per exam, and both lists that matter here carry the same three AIA documents at the same editions. The General, Building and Residential Contractor list valid January through December 2026 covers Contract Administration and Project Management together. The Business & Finance list, valid over the same period, covers the shared exam every candidate takes.

Read the edition rule literally, because the state prints it at the top of both lists: exam answers are based on the editions listed, earlier or later editions may be brought at your own risk, and only one copy of each reference is allowed. A used 2007 A201 is a materially different document. Among other changes, the 2017 revision points the insurance requirements back to the owner-contractor agreement instead of spelling them out in Article 11, so a superseded copy sends you to the wrong place on a question you know.

• A201, General Conditions of the Contract for Construction, 2017 (listed as reference R5 on both lists).
• A401, Standard Form of Agreement between Contractor-Subcontractor, 2017 (R6).
• A701, Instructions to Bidders, 2018 (R7).
• The rest of the Contract Administration and Project Management list: the Contractors Manual, OSHA 29 CFR 1926 (July 1, 2025), Principles and Practices of Commercial Construction (11th edition, 2024), Energy Efficient Building Construction in Florida (2024), the BCSI metal-connected wood truss guide, and five 2023 Florida Building Code volumes.
• Lists are reissued annually and editions move mid-cycle, sometimes on different dates for different exams. Check the list for your exam part and test date at myfloridalicense.com before buying.

A201 is fifteen articles. Questions cite conditions rather than page numbers, so fast candidates navigate by article, and "change directive" sends them to Article 7 without a search. Learn the map before you tab and most Contract Administration lookups take seconds.

Articles 2, 4, 5, and 6 define the owner, architect, subcontractors, and separate contractors, and they matter mostly for questions about who owes what to whom. Article 10 covers safety and hazardous materials, Article 13 the miscellaneous provisions including tests and inspections. The heavy traffic runs through the articles below.

• Article 1, General Provisions. Section 1.1.1 defines the Contract Documents and states that the instructions to bidders, the advertisement for bids, sample forms, and your own bid are excluded unless the agreement enumerates them. That exclusion is a question in its own right.
• Article 3, Contractor. Warranty (3.5), permits and compliance with laws (3.7), concealed or unknown conditions (3.7.4), allowances (3.8), superintendent (3.9), construction and submittal schedules (3.10), shop drawings, product data and samples (3.12), indemnification (3.18).
• Article 7, Changes in the Work. Change orders (7.2), construction change directives (7.3), minor changes (7.4).
• Article 8, Time. Definitions (8.1), progress and completion (8.2), delays and extensions of time (8.3).
• Article 9, Payments and Completion. Schedule of values (9.2), applications for payment (9.3), certificates for payment (9.4), decisions to withhold certification (9.5), progress payments (9.6), failure of payment (9.7), substantial completion (9.8), partial occupancy (9.9), final completion and final payment (9.10).
• Article 11, Insurance and Bonds. The surety bond obligation sits at 11.1.2 and waivers of subrogation at 11.3.
• Article 12, Uncovering and Correction of Work, including the one-year correction period at 12.2.2.
• Article 14, Termination or Suspension. By the contractor (14.1), by the owner for cause (14.2), suspension for the owner's convenience (14.3).
• Article 15, Claims and Disputes. Time limits (15.1.2), notice of claims (15.1.3), initial decision (15.2), mediation (15.3), arbitration (15.4).

A401 is the contractor-subcontractor agreement, and it reads as the mirror image of your prime contract. Its subcontract documents include the prime contract itself, which is the flow-down principle the exam likes to test: what the owner can require of you, you can generally require of your subcontractor. Payments live in Article 11, insurance and bonds in Article 12, claims and disputes in Article 6, and termination, suspension, and assignment in Article 7.

A701 governs the stretch before anyone signs: bidding documents and addenda (Article 3), bidding procedures including bid security and withdrawal (Article 4), consideration of bids (Article 5), post-bid information (Article 6), and performance and payment bonds (Article 7). Two of its rules answer a fair number of Preconstruction Activities questions. Addenda go out no later than four days before bids are due, unless the addendum withdraws the request for bids or postpones the date. A bidder who discovers a clerical error after bids are opened has two days to notify the architect and request withdrawal, subject to the law of the jurisdiction.

Contract Administration questions are mostly procedural: who signs what, in what sequence, within how many days. A201 carries all of it, and the items below are worth knowing cold rather than looking up, because every lookup you skip is a minute back on the clock.

• A change order is agreed by owner, contractor, and architect. A construction change directive is signed by the owner and architect, the contractor may or may not agree, and it is the instrument used when there is no total agreement on a change order. A minor change is ordered by the architect alone and involves no adjustment to contract sum or contract time.
• If you believe a minor change affects sum or time, A201 requires you to notify the architect and not proceed. Perform it without that notice and you waive the adjustment.
• Payment sequence: schedule of values before the first application; the application submitted at least ten days before the payment date; the architect issues, partly issues, or withholds a certificate within seven days; the contractor pays each subcontractor no later than seven days after being paid.
• Claims notice runs 21 days from the event or from first recognizing the condition, and all claims are cut off ten years after substantial completion.
• Substantial completion (9.8) triggers the architect's certificate, the punch list, and the one-year correction period (12.2.2). That correction period is separate from the contractor's warranty at 3.5, and mixing the two is a reliable wrong answer.
• Claims go to the initial decision maker first, and that initial decision is a condition precedent to mediation. The architect serves as initial decision maker unless the agreement names someone else. Mediation then precedes binding dispute resolution.

In the field the pay application is a G702 with a G703 continuation sheet, substantial completion gets certified on a G704, and the surety signs a G707. None of those forms appear on Florida's reference lists.

The pay-application material is still tested. Everything a G702 records (the schedule of values, work completed to date, materials stored, retainage, the architect's certification) is written as procedure into A201 Article 9, which is on the list. So the answerable version of any pay-application question is the sequence and the arithmetic in Article 9, since the box numbers on the form are not in the room with you.

Both lists print the AIA's ordering address and aiacontracts.org, and the Business & Finance list also gives the Florida Association of AIA in Tallahassee. Exam-prep vendors sell bound, pre-tabbed printings of the three-document set. Whichever route you take, the exam wants a bound original of the listed edition, and the rules for preparing it are stricter than most candidates assume.

Reference materials must be bound and stay bound during the exam. Underlining in pen and highlighting are allowed. Handwritten and typewritten notes are not, and any existing notes have to be blacked out or removed so they cannot be read. Movable tabs are prohibited, with Post-it flags named specifically, so your tabs have to be permanent. You may not make any marks in a reference during the exam, and writing tablets and electronic tablets stay out of the room.

One thing to check rather than assume: the lists permit a bound PDF printout only where the list marks a reference that way, and on the Contract Administration and Project Management list nothing is marked. (On the Business & Finance list, Florida Statutes Chapter 455 is the single PDF exception.) If you plan to print the AIA documents from a subscription rather than buy printed copies, confirm with the exam administrator before you count on getting them through the door.

• Tab A201 by article number and title. Article numbers are how questions and cross-references are written, and they survive reprints.
• Add second-level tabs only where you will live: 3.7.4, 7.2 and 7.3, 9.2, 9.3, 9.8, 9.10, 12.2.2, 15.1.3.
• Tab A401 at payments, insurance and bonds, and claims. Tab A701 at bidding procedures and at bonds. Both are thin enough that more tabs would slow you down.
• Test the tabs before exam day: have someone call out "construction change directive" or "retainage" and time your hand.

No sugarcoating: reading A201 straight through once does almost nothing for your score. It is a reference document, and the exam treats it as one. What works is drilling procedural questions and looking up every miss until the article number arrives before you finish reading the question. Our Contract Administration exam guide covers the rest of that blueprint, and the books and tabs guide covers the full reference stack the same way.

The clock is the other half. Contract Administration gives GC candidates 60 questions in 4.5 hours, and building and residential candidates 50 and 45 in the same window, so a lookup that takes a minute longer than it should costs you real questions by the end. At $215 per part, it is worth knowing where you stand before you book a seat. The free readiness quiz is 12 exam-style questions with domain-by-domain feedback, and if contracts come back weak, you have just learned which articles of A201 to live in.