Certified payroll, explained

The weekly report every prevailing-wage contractor owes - and how to get it right

Certified payroll is the weekly wage report that contractors on prevailing-wage projects must submit, listing every covered worker's classification, hours, pay rate, and deductions, together with a signed Statement of Compliance certifying the records are accurate and workers were paid the required rates. On federal Davis-Bacon work the requirement comes from the Copeland Act and 29 CFR part 3.

The mechanics

• Weekly. Each payroll must be submitted within seven days of the pay date to the contracting agency (or funding recipient), with subcontractor payrolls flowing up through the prime.
• Form WH-347 is optional; the content isn't. DOL's Form WH-347 is the standard template, but any format is acceptable if it contains the same information and the signed Statement of Compliance.
• The signature has teeth. The Statement of Compliance is signed under penalty of law - falsification is a federal crime (18 U.S.C. §1001) and grounds for debarment.
• States have their own systems. Many states with prevailing-wage laws require certified payroll through their own forms or electronic portals (California's eCPR, New York's requirements, and others) - check the state agency listed on your state's page.

Doing it right

The recurring failure points are misclassification (paying a laborer rate for mechanic work), missing fringe accounting (see the fringe calculator), and wrong overtime math (time-and-a-half applies to the base rate only - worked example in the prevailing-wage calculator). Our WH-347 guide walks the form column by column.