WageTime is payroll for landscaping and lawn-care companies that bring in an H-2B crew each season. The offered wage, the hours guarantee, and the travel reimbursements written into the application live in the payroll run itself, with H-2B and U.S. crews on one roster.
WageTime is a payroll platform, not a law firm, immigration advisor, or H-2B agent, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. Department of Labor, USCIS, or any government agency. The H-2B obligations described here are the employer’s to meet with their own counsel and agent.
Landscaping was the largest H-2B occupation in FY2024, taking 57,089 visas, or 43.4% of all H-2B visas issued, per the DOS-DOL statistical fact sheet. Every one of those jobs came with a wage, an hours guarantee, and reimbursement rules written into the application, and payroll built for salaried office staff has no field for any of them.
The wage you put on the application has to be the highest of your prevailing-wage determination or the federal, state, or local minimum, and it has to reach the worker free and clear. Pay per yard instead, and the piece rate still has to average up to that offered wage every single week, or you owe the difference. The productivity deal and the promised wage are two separate math problems on the same check.
The program says you have to offer at least 75% of the workdays in each twelve-week period. Rain out three weeks in a row and the guarantee does not care: if the hours were not offered, you pay them as if the crew had worked. That reckoning lives in a record of hours offered versus hours worked that generic payroll never keeps.
Inbound travel and daily subsistence have to be covered by the time the crew is halfway through the job order, the return trip at the end, and the recruitment, visa, and border fees can never come out of the worker’s pay. Miss a reimbursement, or bury it in a deduction, and it reads as a wage paid below the rate you certified.
The U.S. workers doing the same job cannot be paid less, or held to conditions the H-2B crew is not. Run the domestic crew in a separate system on last year’s rate while the H-2B wage moved, and the corresponding-worker rule turns a payroll shortcut into a program violation nobody notices until it is expensive.
You have to keep the earnings, the hours offered, and the hours actually worked for three years, and enforcement is real: a New York landscaper paid a $1.1 million judgment in 2024 over unpaid overtime, false records, and H-2B violations. A shoebox of paper timesheets is not the paper trail that survives that visit.
WageTime pays the H-2B offered wage exactly as you set it: entered once from your prevailing-wage determination, paid free and clear on every run, and trued up weekly when the crew earns per yard or per job.
Replaces the per-yard spreadsheet that never checked the week against the wage you put on the application.
The three-fourths guarantee turns on two numbers, and WageTime keeps both in one place: the workdays you scheduled and offered, and the hours the crew actually clocked on the GPS-stamped mobile punch.
| Worker | Workdays offered | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Mateo G.guarantee 45 | 55 of 60 | Met |
| Luis P.guarantee 45 | 52 of 60 | Met |
| Ana R.guarantee 45 | 41 of 60 | Below offered |
| Diego S.guarantee 45 | 58 of 60 | Met |
Replaces the October scramble to prove, workday by workday, that the season hit the guarantee.
Inbound travel, daily subsistence, and the return trip run as reimbursement pay codes on the same check as wages. What the job order permits stays your call with your agent; WageTime puts the math on the run, not in a side account.
Replaces the shoebox of receipts, and the deduction that quietly dropped a check below the wage you certified.
Your H-2B crew and the U.S. workers in the same jobs run on one WageTime payroll and one rate table, so the corresponding-worker rule is a rate you set once, not two systems drifting apart between seasons.
| Worker | Offered wage | Pay basis |
|---|---|---|
| Mateo G.H-2B crew | $17.20 | Per yard + hourly |
| Ana R.H-2B crew | $17.20 | Hourly |
| Kayla B.U.S. worker, same job | $17.20 | Hourly |
| Ryan T.U.S. crew leader | $22.00 | Hourly + differential |
Replaces the second system for the domestic crew, and the year-end scramble to prove everyone in the same job got the same deal.
Full-service payroll is $10 a month per person paid that month, plus $50 a month per company, with unlimited runs. No long-term contracts, no per-run charges.
Off-cycle runs and bonuses cost nothing extra. No long-term contracts; cancel anytime.
Example: 50 people paid × $10 + $50 company = $550 for the month
HR & hiring, onboarding, PTO, time tracking, benefits, and workers’ comp are optional add-ons, priced separately when you’re ready.
See a demoThe offered wage on your application, which has to equal or exceed the highest of your prevailing-wage determination or the federal, state, or local minimum, paid free and clear. If you pay per yard, the week’s piece earnings still have to average up to that offered wage for every hour worked, and WageTime trues up the difference in the run.
You have to offer at least 75% of the workdays in each twelve-week period, or six weeks if the job order runs under 120 days, and pay the shortfall if you did not offer the hours. WageTime holds offered hours and clocked hours together and reports them per period, so the comparison comes off your payroll history instead of a rebuild.
Inbound travel and subsistence have to be covered by the time the crew is halfway through the job order, and the return trip at the end; recruitment, visa, and border fees cannot come out of the worker’s pay. WageTime runs those as reimbursement pay codes on the same check and shows every deduction against the offered wage. Confirm the treatment with your agent.
Under the corresponding-worker rule, U.S. workers in the same job cannot be offered less-favorable wages or conditions than the H-2B crew. WageTime runs both on one payroll and one rate table, so the same job carries the same offered wage and the same pay codes rather than two systems that drift apart between seasons.
At least every two weeks, or your area’s prevailing pay practice if that is more frequent. WageTime treats pay frequency as configuration and runs are unlimited, so a weekly payday costs the same as biweekly, and each pay stub lists the hours offered, the hours worked, and the rate.
Yes. H-2B workers and your U.S. employees run in one payroll with year-end W-2s included, so surging for the season never means a second system. New arrivals self-onboard with e-signatures and electronic I-9, and every run is archived with hours and rates toward the three-year record.
Your offered wage, the job order dates, and last week’s hours from your field app or time clock. Twenty minutes with a payroll specialist on a live demo company: you’ll see the offered-wage true-up, the three-fourths guarantee report, travel and subsistence run as pay codes, and the H-2B and U.S. crews paid in one run.
Book a 20-minute demo