Certified Payroll Reports: Form WH-347, Compliance, and Recordkeeping

On a federally funded construction project subject to the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts, every contractor and subcontractor must file certified payroll reports each week that covered work is performed, documenting each worker’s classification, hours, pay, fringe benefits, and deductions against the prevailing wage rates for the project.¹ The obligation attaches to any prime contract over $2,000 for construction, alteration, or repair of public buildings or public works, and getting the reports wrong can cost withheld payments, a three-year debarment from federal work, and civil or criminal penalties reaching six figures per violation.

Who Files and How Often

Every contractor and subcontractor performing Davis-Bacon covered work files a certified payroll for each week the work occurs. The prime contractor is on the hook for making sure payrolls from every subcontractor at every tier reach the contracting agency.² The regulation requires weekly submission but does not fix a specific number of days after the pay date. Most agencies and prime contracts write a seven-day window into the contract itself, so read yours to confirm the deadline.

Miss a submission and the contracting agency can withhold progress payments until the delinquent reports arrive.² The withholding is not limited to the contract in question. The Department of Labor can request cross-withholding from other federal or federally assisted contracts held by the same prime, which turns a paperwork lapse into a threat against every government job on your books.

Submission methods vary. Many projects require electronic upload through a portal, though agencies must accept alternative methods for contractors who cannot access the electronic system.² Save the digital confirmation as proof of timely filing. Where paper is still accepted, deliver it to the contracting officer or designated representative.

Filling Out Form WH-347

Form WH-347 is the Department of Labor’s standard template, posted by the Wage and Hour Division. It is technically optional, since the regulation allows any format that captures the required data, but most agencies expect it and using it avoids arguments about completeness.³

The top of the form captures project-level information: contractor name, project name and number, and the payroll week dates. The body then lists each worker individually with:

Name and identifying number, using the last four digits of the Social Security number or another unique identifier. Full Social Security numbers must never appear on the weekly submission.³
A work classification that matches the wage determination for the project. If a worker performs duties in more than one classification during the week, report the hours separately for each.
Daily and total hours, entered in the daily columns and totaled for the week, with each classification’s hours kept separate.
The basic hourly cash rate and the fringe benefit rate from the applicable wage determination. If you pay fringes in cash rather than to an approved plan, enter the combined cash rate.
Gross wages for the covered project, kept separate from any other work, followed by itemized deductions and net pay.

The wage determination for your project area is published on SAM.gov, searchable by location and construction type.⁴ If a classification you need does not appear on the determination, the contractor requests a conformance from the contracting officer, who forwards it to the Department of Labor for approval within 30 days.²

Fringe Benefits and Annualization

The prevailing wage has two parts: a basic hourly rate and a fringe benefit rate. Contractors satisfy the fringe obligation by contributing to bona fide benefit plans, by paying the fringe amount in cash to the worker, or by combining the two.⁵

Contributions to a benefit plan must be annualized to determine the per-hour credit toward the prevailing wage. Divide the total annual cost of the benefit by all hours the employee works in the year, both Davis-Bacon and non-Davis-Bacon combined. This stops contractors from loading the full cost of a year-round benefit onto only the federally funded hours.⁵ Contributions to certain defined contribution pension plans are exempt from annualization if the plan provides immediate participation and vests within the employee’s first 500 hours.

On WH-347, indicate whether fringes go to approved plans, are paid as cash, or a combination by checking the appropriate box on the Statement of Compliance. This is one of the most common audit findings, because an investigator can compare reported fringe contributions against your actual plan records in an afternoon.

The Statement of Compliance

Page two of WH-347 is the Statement of Compliance, and it carries the legal weight. The signer, whether the employer, an officer, or an authorized agent, certifies under penalty of law that every figure on the payroll is accurate and that each worker received at least the prevailing wage.³

Submitting false information triggers two separate bodies of law. Under 18 U.S.C. 1001, knowingly making a false statement to a federal agency is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for an individual.⁶⁷ Separately, using a fraudulent certified payroll to obtain payment on a federal contract can violate the False Claims Act (31 U.S.C. 3729). The inflation-adjusted civil penalty as of 2025 runs from $14,308 to $28,619 per false claim, plus three times the damages the government sustains.⁸

Legally valid electronic signatures are accepted on the Statement of Compliance, but the signature method must include identity verification. Photocopied or scanned images of a handwritten signature do not qualify.³

What You Can and Cannot Deduct

The Copeland Anti-Kickback Act prohibits inducing a worker on a federal project to give up any part of their pay. The criminal penalty for a kickback violation is a fine and up to five years in prison.⁹ Because of that, deductions on covered payrolls are tightly controlled.

Under 29 CFR 3.5, the following deductions do not require special approval from the Department of Labor:¹⁰

Federal, state, and local income taxes, plus Social Security and Medicare.
Court-ordered payments such as garnishments or child support, unless the deduction benefits the contractor or an affiliate.
Contributions to health insurance, pension, disability, unemployment, vacation, or similar plans, if the worker consented in writing or a collective bargaining agreement authorizes it, and the contractor takes no profit from the arrangement.
Loan repayments or share purchases at federally or state-chartered credit unions.
Voluntary charitable contributions to government agencies or 26 U.S.C. 501(c)(3) organizations, and regular union dues (not fines or special assessments).
Meals or lodging charged at reasonable cost under Fair Labor Standards Act standards.
Voluntary purchases of personal safety gear at actual cost, if the equipment is not something the contractor is legally required to furnish.

Any deduction not on that list requires written approval from the Secretary of Labor before you take it. An unauthorized deduction that pulls a worker’s pay below the prevailing wage is a wage violation even when the worker agreed to it.

Apprentices and Trainees

Apprentices in a program registered with the Department of Labor or a state apprenticeship agency can be paid less than the full prevailing wage, but only inside strict limits. The reduced rate must match what the registered program specifies for the apprentice’s current level of progress, and you can only employ apprentices up to the ratio of apprentices to journeyworkers that the program allows.¹¹

Ratio compliance is measured daily, not weekly. If you exceed the permitted ratio on any given day, the excess apprentices must be paid the full journeyworker rate for that day’s work. Only the apprentices who were already working before the ratio was exceeded keep the reduced rate.¹¹

Documentation matters here more than almost anywhere else. Each apprentice must be covered by a written apprenticeship agreement submitted to the Office of Apprenticeship, either electronically through the RAPIDS system or on ETA Form 671.¹² If an investigator asks for proof of registration and you cannot produce it, the worker is treated as a journeyworker, and you owe back pay for the difference.

Fixing Errors After Filing

Discovered a wrong rate, a misclassified worker, or miscounted hours after you filed? File a corrected certified payroll. The corrected report replaces the original for the affected pay period and should clearly indicate it is a revision. If the error caused underpayment, you owe the workers wage restitution and may need to submit proof of payment, such as a corrected pay stub.

Misclassification is the expensive error. If you listed a worker as a laborer when they were doing electrician work, you owe the difference between what you paid and the electrician’s prevailing rate for every hour of misclassified work, and the Department of Labor will direct make-whole relief to the affected workers.¹³ File corrections promptly. A pattern of late or uncorrected payrolls reads as intentional noncompliance, not honest mistakes, and investigators know the difference.

Recordkeeping: Three Years

Contractors and subcontractors must preserve basic payroll records (timecards, work logs, fringe benefit contribution records, and evidence of costs incurred for benefit programs) for at least three years after all work on the prime contract is completed.² The certified payroll reports themselves carry the same three-year retention. Contracts, subcontracts, bids, proposals, amendments, and modifications also must be kept for three years after project completion.

Records must be stored so they can be retrieved promptly. When the Department of Labor or the contracting agency requests an inspection, you are legally obligated to produce every document. Electronic submission systems must preserve access to certified payrolls for the contracting agency and the Department of Labor for at least three years.²

Refusing to produce records or blocking worker interviews during working hours can trigger payment suspension on its own, independent of whether any wage violation actually occurred, and can serve as independent grounds for debarment.²

What Noncompliance Actually Costs

Enforcement runs on parallel tracks, and a serious violation can trigger all of them at once.

Withholding of contract payments. The federal agency withholds enough from accrued payments or advances to cover unpaid wages, monetary relief, and interest owed to workers, whether the underpayment was by the prime or any subcontractor. The government can also cross-withhold from other federal contracts the same prime holds.²

Debarment. A contractor found to have disregarded its obligations to workers or subcontractors becomes ineligible for any federal or federally assisted contract for three years. The debarment extends to responsible officers and to any firm in which those individuals hold an interest, and names are published on SAM.gov.¹⁴

Criminal prosecution. Knowingly submitting a false certified payroll to a federal agency violates 18 U.S.C. 1001: up to five years in prison and fines up to $250,000 for an individual or $500,000 for an organization.⁶⁷

False Claims Act liability. A fraudulent certified payroll used to support a payment request can trigger civil liability under 31 U.S.C. 3729. The inflation-adjusted penalty range for violations assessed after July 2025 is $14,308 to $28,619 per false claim, plus treble damages.¹⁵⁸

Overtime violations. Work exceeding 40 hours in a week on a covered contract triggers overtime under the Contract Work Hours and Safety Standards Act. Failure to pay the required overtime rate results in liquidated damages of $33 per affected worker for each calendar day the violation occurred, on top of back wages owed.¹⁶

One boundary worth flagging for primes: if a subcontractor underpays workers, the contracting officer can withhold funds from the prime to cover the shortfall.¹⁷ The prime does not get to point downstream. From the government’s perspective, the prime owns the problem, which is why the labor standards clauses from 29 CFR 5.5 have to flow down into every subcontract in full text or by specific citation, not through vague “prime contract applies” language.¹⁸

1
U.S. Department of Labor. Davis-Bacon and Related Acts
2
eCFR. 29 CFR 5.5 – Contract Provisions and Related Matters
3
U.S. Department of Labor. Instructions for Completing Davis-Bacon and Related Acts Weekly Certified Payroll Form WH-347
4
SAM.gov. Wage Determinations
5
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 66E – The Davis-Bacon and Related Acts – Compliance With Fringe Benefit Requirements
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1001 – Statements or Entries Generally
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3571 – Sentence of Fine
8
eCFR. 28 CFR Part 85 – Civil Monetary Penalties Inflation Adjustment
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 874 – Kickbacks From Public Works Employees
10
eCFR. 29 CFR 3.5 – Payroll Deductions Permissible Without Application to or Approval of the Secretary of Labor
11
U.S. Department of Labor. Davis-Bacon Compliance Principles
12
Apprenticeship.gov. Requirements for Apprenticeship Sponsors Reference Guide
13
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 66 – The Davis-Bacon and Related Acts
14
eCFR. 29 CFR 5.12 – Debarment Proceedings
15
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 31 USC 3729 – False Claims
16
U.S. Department of Labor. Contract Work Hours and Safety Standards Act
17
U.S. Government Accountability Office. Liability of Prime Contractor for Wage Underpayment by Subcontractor
18
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 66C – The Davis-Bacon and Related Acts – Labor Standards Clauses and Subcontract Agreements