Certified payroll
Certified payroll is the weekly wage report a contractor submits on a federal public works project to prove every worker was paid at least the prevailing wage required for their job classification. The standard report, Form WH-347, lists each worker's classification, hours, gross wages, deductions, and net pay for the week, signed under penalty of perjury.
What a certified payroll report includes
A certified payroll report identifies every worker on the project that week, their job classification, such as electrician or laborer, the number of straight-time and overtime hours worked, the hourly rate and any fringe benefits paid, gross wages earned, deductions taken, and net wages paid. Because prevailing wage rates are set per job classification and can change by location, a worker who performs more than one classification's work in the same week needs hours and pay split accurately across each classification on the report. The statement of compliance attached to Form WH-347 is a sworn certification, not a formality, so an inaccurate report carries real legal exposure beyond a simple paperwork correction.
Who has to file certified payroll
Contractors and subcontractors on federal construction contracts over $2,000 subject to the Davis-Bacon Act must submit certified payroll reports weekly for the life of the project, and many state and local governments impose similar requirements, sometimes called "little Davis-Bacon" laws, on state-funded public works. A general contractor is typically responsible for collecting and reviewing certified payroll from every subcontractor on the job, not just filing its own report, since the awarding agency can hold the general contractor accountable for a subcontractor's violation.
Building an accurate weekly certified payroll report by hand means re-deriving each worker's classification, hours, and prevailing wage rate from timesheets and pay records every week the project runs. WageTime generates WH-347 reports directly from the payroll run, with job-costing segments, offered as an add-on and scoped and priced on the demo.
See how WageTime handles certified payrollFrequently asked
Is certified payroll the same as prevailing wage?
No. Prevailing wage is the minimum rate a job classification must be paid on a covered project; certified payroll is the weekly report that proves the prevailing wage was actually paid.
Does certified payroll apply to private construction jobs?
Generally no. Certified payroll requirements come from laws covering government-funded public works; a purely private construction project with no government contract or funding typically isn't subject to certified payroll reporting.