Colorado prevailing wage
State law, federal determinations, and how to find the rate that applies
- Colorado has its own prevailing-wage law (C.R.S. §§24-92-201 to 24-92-210), applying to public-works contracts over $500,000 (state-agency projects), administered by Colorado Office of the State Architect (rates via CDLE).
- The U.S. Department of Labor has 30 active federal Davis-Bacon wage determinations covering 64 Colorado counties as of (latest revision date), each setting county rates by trade for federally funded construction.
- Market context: the average private construction worker in Colorado earned $1,694/week (≈ $42.35/hour) in Q1 2026, rank #14 of 51 states, per the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages - an industry average, not a prevailing-wage rate.
Recent change: 2021 — SB19-196 requirements apply to state solicitations on or after July 1, 2021 (previously no state prevailing-wage law).
State (not municipal) public projects of $500,000+; federally funded projects follow Davis-Bacon instead; apprenticeship requirements attach at $1M (C.R.S. §24-92-115).
How to find the required rate
- State or locally funded project: use the rate schedules from Colorado Office of the State Architect (rates via CDLE) - official Colorado prevailing-wage portal.
- Federally funded project: find the county in the Colorado determination index and open the official SAM.gov document for your construction type.
- Read the classification line - base rate plus fringe (how to read a determination); compute totals and overtime with the calculator.
Federal determinations at a glance
Building: 17 · Heavy: 2 · Highway: 9 · Residential: 2 - every determination and the counties it covers are listed in the Colorado wage-determination index, each with its full rate schedule mirrored. Service contracts: 25 active SCA determinations for Colorado.
What construction actually pays here
Separate from any required rate: BLS data puts the average private construction wage in Colorado at $1,694/week (+6.7% YoY) in Q1 2026 - details and history on Colorado construction wages.
Learn the system
What a prevailing wage is · The Davis-Bacon Act · Certified payroll · Fringe calculator
Data on this page is from U.S. government public-domain sources - free to reuse with credit and a link to prevailingwageindex.com.