Tennessee prevailing wage
State law, federal determinations, and how to find the rate that applies
- Tennessee has its own prevailing-wage law (Tenn. Code Ann. §§12-4-401 to 12-4-415), with no contract-size threshold (highway contracts — no dollar threshold), administered by Tennessee Dept. of Labor & Workforce Development (Prevailing Wage Commission).
- The U.S. Department of Labor has 120 active federal Davis-Bacon wage determinations covering 95 Tennessee counties as of (latest revision date), each setting county rates by trade for federally funded construction.
- Market context: the average private construction worker in Tennessee earned $1,524/week (≈ $38.10/hour) in Q1 2026, rank #35 of 51 states, per the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages - an industry average, not a prevailing-wage rate.
Recent change: 2026 — Pub. Ch. 1042 extended coverage to non-state public-highway projects using federal or state highway funds.
Highway and bridge construction only; state building projects were removed from coverage effective Jan 1, 2014 (Pub. Ch. 280 of 2013).
How to find the required rate
- State or locally funded project: use the rate schedules from Tennessee Dept. of Labor & Workforce Development (Prevailing Wage Commission) - official Tennessee prevailing-wage portal.
- Federally funded project: find the county in the Tennessee 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: 58 · Heavy: 33 · Highway: 1 · Residential: 28 - every determination and the counties it covers are listed in the Tennessee wage-determination index, each with its full rate schedule mirrored. Service contracts: 36 active SCA determinations for Tennessee.
What construction actually pays here
Separate from any required rate: BLS data puts the average private construction wage in Tennessee at $1,524/week (+1.9% YoY) in Q1 2026 - details and history on Tennessee 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.