Additive manufacturing (AM) and topology optimization (TO) enable functional integration in lightweight structures. Nevertheless, joints remain indispensable for modular assembly, maintenance, and overcoming build-volume limits. Bolted joints are common mechanical fasteners, and their consideration in TO, especially their finite-element (FE) representation, can decisively influence predicted stiffness and the resulting topology. This contribution compares established and introduces novel modeling approaches for bolted joints in density-based TO. The focus lies on the treatment of the contact patch between joined parts and on the inclusion of bolt pretension. Common approaches either prescribe the bolt sleeve or the flange and tie it, prescribing boundary conditions in the contact patch. Wanninger et al. [1] optimize the global structure in the first step while excluding the bolted joint. In the second step, boundary conditions are manually updated on the first-step results, and the joint is then modelled including the bolt pretension. We enhance this approach to a stress-sensitive two-step approach, where boundary conditions are retained in areas with compression in the contact patch. As a further alternative, contact is modeled explicitly within the contact patch. The results show that applying different joint models to the same design problem changes the final displacement by up to 18% at comparable mass. For bending-dominated joints, the stress-sensitive two-step approach provides a favorable compromise between computational efficiency and structural optimality. For shear-dominated joints, the prescribed sleeve approach is sufficient while remaining computationally efficient. Explicit contact modeling reduces compliance effectively, but at substantially increased computational cost.