Ohio certified payroll: who receives it, when it is due, and what changes by owner

If a Coordinator says your payroll is late

The Commerce guide says each public authority appoints a Prevailing Wage Coordinator no later than ten days before contractors first pay wages, and the Coordinator collects the payrolls.

1. Get the Coordinator's name and the filing channel in writing. The channel depends on the owner (table below).
2. Send every missing report. The guide gives two weeks after the first pay in one place and after the initial pay period in another. Count from the earlier unless the Coordinator gives a date in writing.
3. Check final payment. If the owner is holding it, look for a missing final affidavit.

The state portal lists wage rates and registers projects

Commerce's Prevailing Wage Portal describes itself as the source of active commercial prevailing wage rates, and its registration form lets a public authority register a project and name its Coordinator. Neither public page shows a place to file payroll, and the login area behind OHID was not read. Under theCommerce guide each contractor and subcontractor submits to the Coordinator, so the owner picks the channel, and its index says any form or format works if all the information is provided. Owners differ, and on some the prime submits for its subs (table below). Commerce's report form and instructions (footed 11/14) say the form is not mandatory. An owner can still require a system, as Cleveland, Cincinnati and ODOT do.

Where payroll goes, by owner

Columbus is not covered: columbus.gov refused automated access on November 4, 2026, so ask its Coordinator. The ODOT pages checked do not say whether CRL takes payroll on jobs with no federal money. For federal-aid work see the CRL guide.

How often payroll is due on Ohio-law jobs

Cincinnati wants no-work weeks and CRL does not, and the OPWC note wants weekly payrolls where the guide allows monthly ones. Follow the stricter rule and get your schedule in writing. The live Commerce contractor page also tells you to give the Coordinator your project dates before the first payroll so reporting can be scheduled. Cincinnati's form, citing Revised Code 4115.071(C), puts the pay-date schedule due on or before the day work begins, though the city's guide says "once construction begins."

For federal Davis-Bacon work, 29 CFR 5.5(a)(3)(ii) requires certified payroll weekly for each week in which covered work is performed, with full Social Security numbers kept off weekly transmittals. The WH-347 guide covers the form.

What an Ohio-law report has to show

• Social Security number. On jobs under Ohio's prevailing wage law only, the Commerce instructions require it, and the last four digits are enough if the public authority permits.
• Owners, partners, salaried workers and sole proprietors. The Commerce report instructions, in the column for employees who perform physical labor on the project, say corporate officers, partners and salaried employees are employees and must be paid the prevailing rate. They add that an individual sole proprietor does not have to pay himself or herself the prevailing rate but must report his or her hours on the project. The guide reprints those instructions. But its own contractor list, item 9(a)(i), says all rate and reporting requirements apply to corporate officers, owners, partners and salaried personnel who do physical work, and it names no sole-proprietor exception. The Commerce page says only that these people are employees for reporting purposes. Commerce's own documents differ on owners, so ask the Coordinator in writing which rule applies to you. If the owner does physical work on the project, list the owner's hours on the report.
• Signature. The Commerce form has a signed certification that the signer pays, or supervises payment of, the employees listed, and no notary block. But the guide's Coordinator notes call a certified report one that is "sworn to and signed." Ask the Coordinator whether yours must be notarized. The OFCC, OPWC and Cincinnati payroll forms were not read.

Employee notice and the final affidavit

Ohio Revised Code 4115.05, as the guide quotes it, requires written notice to employees not covered by a collective bargaining agreement, showing classification, hourly pay, fringes and the Coordinator's name. The Commerce page says to give it before work starts and send the Coordinator a signed copy, and the OPWC note says the first pay date. ODOT's copy of the employee notification form is marked whpw1512, the number the OPWC note also gives to payrolls.

Under the guide, which cites Ohio Revised Code 4115.07, no public authority may make final payment to a contractor or subcontractor until that firm's final affidavit is filed. The Commerce form must be sworn before a notary by the officer or agent who supervises payment of employees. Cincinnati's Form 104 (a December 1999 form) is its own notarized version, submitted through LCPtracker. In Cleveland the prime collects every firm's affidavit.

When it goes wrong

• Held final payment. No public authority may make final payment until your final affidavit is filed (guide). OFCC's 2018 document lets the contracting authority withhold payment for noncompliance, and the OPWC note has the prime contractor submit a final wage affidavit before final payment.
• Breach under an OPWC note. Where the bid documents carry the OPWC proposal note, failing to pay prevailing wages is a breach of contract that may lead to revocation of the certificate of qualification and debarment.
• Debarment for intentional violations. Willfully failing to submit payroll reports, or knowingly submitting false ones, is an intentional violation, and a finding may bar you from bidding on or performing public work (Commerce). The guide states the one-to-three-year term only in its public-authority section on debarred contractors. Its contractor section on intentional violations gives no term, and the guide does not say how a late payroll maps to either, so do not assume a late payroll alone carries that term.
• Wages owed plus 100 percent. Commerce says contractors who violate the prevailing wage law must pay the wages owed plus a penalty equal to 100 percent of those wages. The guide says the same in nearly the same words. Neither says whether the penalty reaches a late or missing report. The guide has the Coordinator report non-compliance to Commerce's Bureau of Wage and Hour Administration, so take that question to the Bureau or to counsel before you assume either way.

The Commerce contractor page and the February 2022 guide list no separate fine for a late report. The text of Ohio Revised Code Chapter 4115 itself could not be read for this page, because codes.ohio.gov would not load on November 4, 2026. Statute sections here come from the agency documents that cite them.

Does the law reach your job?

It applies to public improvements paid for in whole or part with public funds (Commerce) when the estimated cost is above these figures (2026 notice, road figures effective January 1, 2026).

The February 2022 guide and Cleveland's copy of it still list the older road figures of $96,091 and $28,789. A project with federal-aid funds is a different case: the OPWC proposal note says federal prevailing wages must be paid on such a project, so the Ohio rules on this page may not be the ones your contract carries. The exemptions in Chapter 4115 were not read for this page, so confirm with Commerce that your job is covered. Other states are in the state table.

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