We present the first complexity analysis of the algorithm by Plantinga and Vegter for approximating real implicit curves and surfaces. This approximation algorithm certifies the topological correctness of the output using both subdivision and interval arithmetic. In practice, it has been seen to be quite efficient; our goal is to quantify this efficiency. We focus on the subdivision step (and not the approximation step) of the Plantinga and Vegter algorithm. We begin by extending the subdivision step to arbitrary dimensions. We provide a priori worst-case bounds on the complexity of this algorithm both in terms of the number of subregions constructed and the bit complexity for the construction. Then, we use continuous amortization to derive adaptive bounds on the complexity of the subdivided region. We also provide examples showing our bounds are tight.