What Is Certified Payroll? WH-347, Fringe Benefits, and Deadlines

Certified payroll is a weekly wage report that every contractor and subcontractor on a federally funded construction project worth more than $2,000 must file with the contracting agency, showing that each worker was paid at least the prevailing wage set by the U.S. Department of Labor for that classification and location. The report is submitted on DOL Form WH-347 and carries a signed Statement of Compliance. Getting it late, wrong, or falsified can cost you contract payments, back wages, a three-year federal debarment, and in the worst cases criminal charges.

Who Has to File

Two federal statutes create the obligation. The Davis-Bacon Act requires contractors on federal construction contracts above $2,000 to pay laborers and mechanics the locally prevailing wage plus fringe benefits.¹ The Copeland Anti-Kickback Act adds the reporting piece, requiring a weekly statement of compliance showing wages paid to each worker.² Together with the broader Davis-Bacon and Related Acts (DBRA), they cover most federally funded or federally assisted construction, including work paid for through federal grants or loans to state and local governments.

The duty runs down the entire contracting chain. A prime contractor files its own certified payroll and is responsible for making sure every subcontractor files too. Subcontractors at each tier file their reports, which travel up to the contracting agency either directly or through the prime.³ If a sub misses reports, the agency can hold up payments to the prime until they come in.

One boundary matters here. Many states and cities have their own prevailing wage laws, sometimes called “Little Davis-Bacon Acts,” covering projects funded entirely with state or local money. Those projects follow state forms and rules, not the federal WH-347. If you work across jurisdictions, sort out which regime applies before the first payroll goes out.

The Prevailing Wage Your Report Is Measured Against

The prevailing wage is a combination of a basic hourly rate and a fringe benefit rate, set for a specific worker classification in a specific geographic area.⁴ DOL publishes a “wage determination” for the project, and that determination gets incorporated into the contract before bidding. Your certified payroll will be measured against it week after week.

Each worker has to be listed under the classification that matches the work they actually did, not their job title and not whichever classification pays less. A laborer who spends part of the week doing carpentry has to be reported and paid at the carpenter rate for those hours. When a project needs a worker type that isn’t on the wage determination, the contractor can ask DOL to add (“conform”) a classification.⁵ Wanting to pay less than a listed rate isn’t a valid reason to ask.

What Goes on the Weekly Report

Certified payroll tracks granular data for every laborer and mechanic who worked on the covered project that week. Each worker’s entry must include name, address, Social Security number, work classification, hourly rate, and daily and weekly hours, along with gross wages, all deductions, and the net amount actually paid.⁶

Keep the tracking segregated by project. A worker who splits time between a Davis-Bacon job and private work may be paid different rates, and the certified payroll should only reflect hours and wages tied to the covered project. Mixing them together is one of the fastest ways to draw a compliance review.

Form WH-347 and the Statement of Compliance

The standard document is DOL Form WH-347, “Payroll (For Contractor’s Optional Use).” The form itself is technically optional, but the information it collects is mandatory, and most contracting agencies require or strongly prefer it.³ The top of the form captures business name, sequential payroll number, contract number, project name and location, and the week-ending date. The body carries a row for each worker with classification, basic hourly rate, daily hours split between regular and overtime, gross wages, deductions, and net pay. Every figure has to line up with your time sheets and payroll ledger. Rounding, estimating, or copying numbers forward from a prior week creates the kind of discrepancy reviewers pick up on.

Page two is the Statement of Compliance, a signed certification that the payroll is accurate, complete, and that every worker was paid at least the applicable prevailing wage. It has to be signed by an owner, officer, or authorized employee who supervises wage payments, either by original handwritten signature or a legally valid electronic signature.⁶ The Statement also asks how you satisfied the fringe benefit obligation: Section 4(a) if fringes were paid into approved plans, 4(b) if the full fringe was paid to the worker in cash, and 4(c) for exceptions that need explanation. Signing is a legal act. Willful falsification can lead to civil or criminal prosecution, contract termination, and debarment.⁷

Fringe Benefits: Where Most Contractors Slip

The wage determination lists a total package: a basic hourly rate and a separate fringe benefit rate. You can satisfy the fringe piece in three ways. Contribute the full fringe amount to approved benefit plans like health insurance or a pension. Pay the entire fringe amount to the worker as additional cash wages. Or combine the two.⁴

If your employer contributions to benefit plans fall short of the required fringe rate, the gap has to be paid to the worker in cash. Keep records showing the cost and distribution of the plan contributions so you can prove the total was met. This is what auditors scrutinize most, because the math has multiple moving parts and the shortfall calculation changes worker by worker.

Apprentices and Overtime

Apprentices enrolled in a registered apprenticeship program can be paid less than the full journeyworker rate, but only within the ratio the registered program allows, and compliance is measured daily, not weekly.⁸ If you have more apprentices on site than the ratio allows on a given day, the extras have to be paid the full prevailing wage for the classification of work they performed. Only the apprentices who were working before the ratio was exceeded keep the apprentice rate. Apprenticeship programs are generally not portable across geographic areas, so if you’re working outside the locality where your program is registered, follow the ratios and rates of a program registered where the project sits. The certified payroll must list each apprentice separately and show their program-approved pay rate as a percentage of the journeyworker rate.

Overtime is governed by the Contract Work Hours and Safety Standards Act (CWHSSA), which runs alongside Davis-Bacon on most federal construction contracts. Any hour beyond 40 in a workweek has to be paid at one and a half times the basic rate.⁹ That’s why the WH-347 splits regular and overtime hours: reviewers check whether the overtime rate was properly computed and paid. A contractor that misses the overtime rate owes the unpaid wages plus liquidated damages of $33 per affected worker for each calendar day the violation occurred.¹⁰ That figure is adjusted for inflation periodically, and it stacks up quickly on a large crew.

Deadline and Record Keeping

Certified payrolls are due weekly. Specifically, within seven days after the regular payment date for the payroll period covered.¹¹ The report goes to a representative of the contracting agency on site, or by mail or other reliable delivery if no one is on site. The schedule runs for the full duration of covered work. If no work happened during a week, most agencies still want a statement saying so.

Many agencies now accept, or require, electronic submission through a compliance portal, and DOL accepts electronic signatures on the Statement of Compliance.³ Check with the contracting agency about the specific method they require.

Both the contractor and the agency have to keep records for at least three years after all work on the prime contract is completed.¹¹ The underlying records — time cards, payroll ledgers, benefit plan documentation — have to support every figure on the WH-347. DOL can ask to see them at any point during the retention window, and any daylight between the certified payroll and the backup records will be treated as a compliance failure.¹²

What Happens If You Get It Wrong

The consequences scale with how bad the failure is. For late or incomplete reports, the agency can withhold contract payments until the reports are fixed and delivered.¹³ On a job where subs and suppliers are waiting to be paid, that alone can be a serious problem.

Underpaying workers triggers back-wage liability. The contractor owes each affected worker the difference between what was paid and what the wage determination required, for every hour of covered work. CWHSSA overtime violations pile liquidated damages on top. In serious cases the contract can be terminated, with the contractor on the hook for any extra cost the government pays to finish the job.¹³

The heaviest penalty is debarment. A contractor found to have committed willful or aggravated violations can be barred from all federal contracts for three years.¹³ For a firm that lives on government work, that ends the business. And knowingly filing false information on a certified payroll can lead to criminal prosecution under federal false-statement law, with fines and up to five years in prison.¹⁴

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 40 USC 3142 – Rate of Wages for Laborers and Mechanics
2
Acquisition.GOV. 48 CFR 22.403-2 – Copeland Act
3
U.S. Department of Labor. Instructions For Completing Davis-Bacon and Related Acts Weekly Certified Payroll Form WH-347
4
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 66E – The Davis-Bacon and Related Acts Compliance With Fringe Benefit Requirements
5
U.S. Department of Labor. Davis-Bacon Wage Determination Conformance FAQs
6
eCFR. 29 CFR 3.3 – Certified Payrolls
7
U.S. Department of Labor. Employment Law Guide – Prohibition Against Kickbacks in Federally Funded Construction
8
U.S. Department of Labor. Davis-Bacon Compliance Principles
9
Acquisition.GOV. 48 CFR 52.222-4 – Contract Work Hours and Safety Standards
10
eCFR. 29 CFR 5.8 – Liquidated Damages Under the Contract Work Hours and Safety Standards Act
11
eCFR. 29 CFR 3.4 – Submission of Certified Payroll and the Preservation and Inspection of Weekly Payroll Records
12
Acquisition.GOV. 48 CFR 52.222-8 – Payrolls and Basic Records
13
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 66 – The Davis-Bacon and Related Acts
14
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1001 – Statements or Entries Generally