Davis-Bacon Basics for Small Subcontractors

If you just won your first public job, this is the ten-minute version of the law that now governs your payroll.

What triggers coverage

Three conditions, all usually met the moment you sign:

• A federal or federally assisted construction contract. Directly federal jobs are covered by Davis-Bacon itself; federally funded state and local projects are covered through the Related Acts attached to the funding.
• Contract value over $2,000. Effectively everything.
• Laborers and mechanics performing construction, alteration, or repair on the site of the work. Owners who swing a hammer count for the hours they swing it.

Coverage flows down: if the prime is covered, every sub on the site is covered, at every tier.

The wage determination is the contract's price list

Your contract incorporates a wage determination: the schedule of minimum base and fringe rates per labor classification for that county and construction type. Two habits keep you safe:

• Use the contract's determination, including its modification number. Newer modifications on SAM.gov do not change an awarded contract's rates in the normal case.
• Match classifications to work performed, word for word. A worker's rate follows what they did each hour, not their job title. Someone who hangs drywall in the morning and paints in the afternoon appears on two lines.

Every determination is public on SAM.gov, searchable by state, county, and construction type. Our generator pulls them live, so the classification list you pick from is your county's actual list.

The weekly rhythm

Covered contractors submit certified payroll every week: the payroll data (commonly on form WH-347) plus a signed Statement of Compliance, within seven days of the regular payment date, flowing up through the prime to the agency. Weeks with no covered work still get a submission until the project ends. Records stay available for three years after completion.

The weekly cycle is the part that grinds people down, and it is exactly the part software should absorb: the column-by-column guide covers the form, and the fringe guide covers the math that causes most underpayments.

The 2023 rule update, in one paragraph

In late 2023 the Department of Labor issued its first major overhaul of the Davis-Bacon regulations in roughly forty years: it returned to an older method of setting prevailing rates that generally produces higher wage floors, tightened recordkeeping, and expanded some coverage definitions. If your reference materials predate 2024, treat them as suspect and check the current DOL pages linked below.

When your state piles on

Roughly thirty states layer their own prevailing-wage laws over state-funded work, several with their own certified payroll forms and portals that a federal WH-347 does not satisfy. If you work state jobs, your state's rules are a second system to learn. State-by-state guides are rolling out on this site; the guides index has the current list.