California prevailing wage per diem, travel, and subsistence pay
Under Labor Code section 1773.1, "per diem wages" is not a travel allowance. It is the legal name for the whole daily rate a worker is owed on a public works job, and travel and subsistence are two of nine payment categories folded into it. Whether your crew is owed a travel or subsistence check depends on the wage determination for that specific craft and county, not on the word "per diem" alone.
The short answer
"Per diem" sounds like a daily travel or meal allowance, the way the IRS uses the term. California's prevailing wage law uses it differently. Labor Code 1773.1(a) defines per diem wages as employer payments for nine things: health and welfare, pension, vacation, travel, subsistence, apprenticeship training, worker protection programs, industry advancement fees, and similar purposes under a collective bargaining agreement. Travel and subsistence are numbers 4 and 5, not the whole list.
Whether a worker is owed a travel or subsistence payment on top of the base wage depends on the general prevailing wage determination for that craft, county, and bid date. Some determinations include a travel and subsistence schedule. Most local work with no significant travel distance does not.
Where travel and subsistence come from: Labor Code 1773.1 and 1773.9
Two statutes work together here, and neither one sets a dollar figure by itself.
- Section 1773.1 defines the nine categories of employer payment that count as per diem wages, including travel and subsistence, and sets rules for how an employer can credit those payments against the total rate owed.
- Section 1773.9 tells the Director of Industrial Relations how to build the general prevailing rate itself: start with the basic hourly wage a majority of workers in that craft and locality are paid, then fold in the employer payments described in section 1773.1, then add whatever holiday and overtime rate the underlying agreement sets.
Neither section states a mileage rate or a subsistence dollar amount. Those numbers live in the individual wage determination for the craft, published by the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR), because the determination usually reproduces a rate a collective bargaining agreement already set for that trade in that area.
How a determination shows a travel and subsistence obligation
DIR's general prevailing wage determination pages carry a standard line wherever a travel or subsistence obligation applies to a craft. The Los Angeles County subtrades determination, for example, states it this way for every classification that has one: "In accordance with Labor Code sections 1773.1 and 1773.9, contractors shall make travel and/or subsistence payments to each worker to execute the work." Next to that language sits a "Travel & Subsistence" link to a short PDF for that craft and locality. The PDF, not the statute, is where the trigger distance and dollar amount live. If a craft's row has no such link, no obligation applies beyond the base wage and any fringe categories listed separately, covered in our fringe benefit statement guide.
A worked example: bricklayers in the Los Angeles area
The Bricklayer travel and subsistence provision, ID 18-4-1, covers Bricklayer, Stonemason, Marble Mason, Cement Blocklayer, Pointer, Caulker, Cleaner, and Mason Finisher in Inyo, Kern, Los Angeles, Mono, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare, and Ventura counties. It shows the two pieces separately:
- Subsistence. On any job more than 90 miles from the employer's principal place of business as recognized by the Contractors State License Board, the employer pays a subsistence allowance of $100 per day. That rate steps up to $120 per day starting May 1, 2027, for the remainder of the agreement.
- Parking. If free parking is not available within a half mile walking distance of the job site, the employer must set a fair, local-market parking reimbursement, paid against a receipt submitted within 7 working days.
A related classification covering nearly the same counties, Brick Tender and Forklift Operator, carries no dollar figure of its own. Its locality list adds Imperial County and drops Tulare County compared to the Bricklayer schedule above. It simply ties Brick Tenders to whatever subsistence and travel pay Bricklayers receive in the shared portion of that area, rising automatically when the Bricklayer rate does. Two crafts on the same job, and one borrows its number from the other rather than stating its own.
That is the pattern industry wide: the trigger distance, the daily amount, and whether a number even exists are set trade by trade and county by county. Nothing here generalizes across crafts, and nothing is safe to reuse from an older determination cycle.
AB 889 and what it did not change
Assembly Bill 889, titled "Prevailing wage: per diem wages" and enacted as Chapter 626 of the Statutes of 2025, amended Labor Code 1773.1's annualization rule in subdivision (e), the formula that spreads an employer's fringe benefit contributions across all hours an employee works in a year, not just the public works hours, before crediting them against the prevailing rate. It also revoked any annualization exemption the director had issued before January 1, 2026.
Travel and subsistence themselves, items (4) and (5) on the 1773.1(a) list, were not rewritten. What changed is the annualization math for employer payment credits generally, a sign that DIR is actively tightening this statute, so treat a determination or worksheet from before 2026 as something to re-check, not copy forward.
How this lands on your certified payroll
Travel and subsistence usually pay as a flat amount tied to the day or the trip, not as an hourly rate multiplied by hours worked the way the base wage and hourly fringe credits are. That makes them easy to record in the wrong place. They are not the same line as the hourly fringe credit covered in the WH-347 guide, and folding a $100 subsistence payment into an hourly wage column will make that day's rate look wrong on both the federal WH-347 and the DIR certified payroll record, the kind of mismatch covered in our overtime and holiday pay guide. Keep the payment on its own line, matched to the determination's figure and trigger, with the receipt or mileage record behind it, the same as any other prevailing wage record described in our prevailing wage project thresholds guide.
A short check before you run payroll
- Confirm the craft, county, and bid date that set which wage determination applies to this job.
- Open that determination on DIR's site and look for a "Travel & Subsistence" link next to the classification.
- If there is no link, no obligation applies beyond the base wage and any listed fringe categories.
- If there is a link, open the PDF and note the exact trigger and the dollar amount or method.
- Record the payment on its own line, separate from the hourly wage and fringe columns, with the receipt or distance record behind it.
- Re-check every determination cycle. As the bricklayer example shows, a $100 rate today can already carry a scheduled step up.