How to Fill Out and Submit the DOL Wage Inquiry Form

The DOL wage inquiry form is the Wage and Hour Division’s General Inquiry Form at webapps.dol.gov/contactwhd, and you submit it online by answering a short series of screens about yourself, your employer, and the wage problem. After you send it, the nearest WHD field office contacts you within two business days.¹ You don’t need a lawyer. You don’t need to be a U.S. citizen. The whole thing takes a few minutes if your pay records are handy.

How to Submit the Form

The form lives at webapps.dol.gov/contactwhd. The first screen asks whether you have a question, a potential complaint, or aren’t sure, and your answer routes you into the right sequence of screens. Work through them, review your answers, and submit.

If you would rather not use the online form, two other routes reach the same place:

Call 1-866-487-9243 (1-866-4-US-WAGE), Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. local time. A representative takes your information and forwards it to the nearest field office.
Visit a WHD field office in person. Locations are listed at dol.gov/agencies/whd/contact/local-offices. Walk-in hours vary, so call ahead.

Online is the fastest option, and it produces the same intake result: your inquiry is routed to the field office covering your work location.¹

What the Form Asks For

The screens collect four categories of information. Have these ready before you start so you can move through without hunting for details.

About you: your full legal name, mailing address, and a phone number where WHD can reach you.

About your employer: the company’s legal name, the physical address of the workplace where the problem happened, and the name of an owner or manager if you know it.

About the problem: the form gives you checkboxes for the most common issues, including not being paid for hours worked, not receiving overtime for hours over 40 in a week, improper wage garnishment, and employer retaliation.² Pick everything that applies and use the free-text space to describe what happened in your own words.

About your job: your title and a short description of what you actually do day to day. Duties matter because some violations turn on whether your job qualifies for an exemption, not just what your paycheck says.

Records to Gather Before You File

The form itself doesn’t require uploads, but the investigator who calls you back will ask for supporting records. Pulling these together first makes the follow-up conversation shorter and your case stronger:

Recent pay stubs.
Your own log of hours actually worked, if you kept one, and the schedules or timesheets your employer used.
Notes on any pre-shift or post-shift tasks you performed without pay, such as cleaning equipment, mandatory meetings, or workstation setup. Under the FLSA, work your employer “suffered or permitted” you to perform counts as compensable time even if no one told you to do it.³
Notes on interrupted meal breaks. A meal period is only unpaid if you were completely relieved of duties for at least 30 minutes. Rest breaks of about 20 minutes or less count as paid time.³

If your employer didn’t keep proper time records, that doesn’t sink your claim. WHD will work from your personal logs and testimony to reconstruct the hours.

What WHD Will Investigate

Your inquiry can cover any federal wage-and-hour law WHD enforces. The most common ground is the FLSA: the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, and time-and-a-half for every hour over 40 in a workweek for non-exempt workers.⁴ If your state’s minimum is higher, that higher rate applies, but federal law is the floor.

For tipped workers, direct wages must be at least $2.13 per hour, and if tips plus that base don’t reach $7.25, the employer has to make up the difference. Tip theft and improper tip pooling are also within WHD’s authority.⁵

WHD also handles Family and Medical Leave Act complaints: denial of leave you were entitled to, firing for taking leave, or failure to restore you to your position afterward.⁶ Being labeled “salaried” doesn’t automatically mean you’re overtime-exempt; if your pay or duties don’t match the exemption your employer claims, WHD can look at that too.

What Happens After You Submit

The nearest field office contacts you within two business days to talk through your situation and decide whether an investigation is warranted.¹ Not every inquiry becomes a formal case. Some fall outside federal jurisdiction, and some facts don’t add up to a violation.

When investigators do open a case, the process runs in four steps:

An initial conference with the employer, including a workplace tour.
Private interviews with employees, away from management.
A review of payroll records, time records, and other employment documentation.
A final conference with the employer to lay out any violations, explain how to fix them, and request payment of back wages if owed.⁷

Straightforward cases can close in a few months. Cases involving multiple worksites or years of records take longer. The investigator generally keeps you informed as things move.

If violations are confirmed, the primary remedy is back wages: what you should have been paid but weren’t. The law also provides liquidated damages in an equal amount, which effectively doubles the recovery. A $5,000 overtime shortage can turn into $10,000 owed.⁸

Will My Employer Find Out

Your inquiry is confidential. WHD does not disclose your name or the nature of your complaint to your employer. The only exceptions are when revealing your identity is necessary to pursue the allegation, and then only with your permission, or when a court orders disclosure.⁹

Retaliation is illegal. Section 15(a)(3) of the FLSA prohibits firing or discriminating against an employee for filing a complaint, participating in an investigation, or testifying in a related proceeding.¹⁰ Oral complaints are protected, not just written ones, and most courts have held that internal complaints to an employer are protected as well.¹¹ If your employer retaliates anyway, WHD can seek reinstatement, lost wages, and an equal amount in liquidated damages.

Immigration status doesn’t affect any of this. WHD does not ask about documentation, and undocumented workers are entitled to the same minimum wage and overtime protections as everyone else.⁹

How Long You Have to File

You can recover back wages for violations that occurred within the past two years. If the violation was willful, meaning the employer knew it was breaking the law or showed reckless disregard, the window is three years.¹² Filing with WHD does not pause the clock. Every week you delay is a week of wages aging out of your claim, which is the strongest reason to submit the form now rather than later.

If WHD has already collected wages from your employer in an earlier action and hasn’t been able to locate you, check the Workers Owed Wages tool at dol.gov/agencies/whd/wow to see whether money is waiting.¹³

1
Worker.gov. Filing a Complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD)
2
Department of Labor. Wage and Hour Division General Inquiry Form
3
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #22: Hours Worked Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
4
U.S. Department of Labor. Wages and the Fair Labor Standards Act
5
U.S. Department of Labor. Tips
6
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #77B: Protection for Individuals Under the FMLA
7
U.S. Department of Labor. How to File a Complaint
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 216 – Penalties
9
U.S. Department of Labor. Frequently Asked Questions: Complaints and the Investigation Process
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 215 – Prohibited Acts; Prima Facie Evidence
11
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 77A: Prohibiting Retaliation Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
12
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 255 – Statute of Limitations
13
U.S. Department of Labor. Workers Owed Wages