Prevailing wage vs certified payroll: the difference
Two sets of rules travel together on every public works job and get blurred together in every conversation about them. One dictates what you pay. The other proves you paid it. Failing either one, independently, can cost you the same progress payment.
The clean distinction
| Prevailing wage | Certified payroll | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | The substantive rule: minimum wage rates, by craft and locality, that must be paid on public works | The reporting rule: the sworn weekly record proving what was actually paid |
| Where it comes from | Wage determinations published by DIR for California work, and by the U.S. DOL under Davis-Bacon for federal work | The federal WH-347 and California's DIR eCPR filing |
| How you fail it | Paying below the determination, misclassifying the work, mishandling fringes | Not filing, filing late, filing in the wrong place, filing records that do not reconcile |
| What failure costs | Back wages plus penalties assessed on the underpayment | Withheld payments, and the records request penalty under Labor Code 1776 |
The two failure modes are independent. A sub paying perfect rates with no filings has a certified payroll problem. A sub filing beautiful records of underpayment has a prevailing wage problem, and has helpfully documented it. Compliance means both.
How California wage determinations work
DIR's Office of Policy, Research and Legislation publishes prevailing wage determinations, indexed by craft and by county, at dir.ca.gov. Reading one correctly means catching five things:
- The craft and its scope. Determinations key to the work performed, not your license or the worker's title. An electrician doing drywall hours owes drywall determination reading for those hours.
- The county. Rates differ by locality. The determination that governs is the project's location, which is one reason our county requirement pages point at the determination lookup for each county.
- The base rate and the fringes, separately. A determination states a basic hourly rate plus fringe benefit amounts: health and welfare, pension, vacation and holiday, training. Your obligation is the total package. You can satisfy the fringe portion with payments to bona fide plans, or pay it as cash on the check, or mix the two, and the choice changes what your certified payroll must show. Fringe handling is the single most common thing we fix during setup.
- The dates. Determinations carry effective dates, and some include predetermined increases that raise rates mid project. Bidding a two year job on day one rates without reading the increase schedule is a classic self-inflicted wound.
- Overtime and shift rules. The determination's daily and weekly overtime multipliers apply on top of the base structure.
Where the two rule sets meet: your filings
Certified payroll is where prevailing wage compliance becomes visible. Every line of the WH-347 and every eCPR record states a classification, a rate, hours, and fringes, and every reviewer, portal, and auditor reads those lines against the published determination. This is why we sanity check classifications and rates against the project's published determination on the filings we prepare, and why the check happens before submission rather than after a question arrives. Catching a rate drift on Friday is bookkeeping. Catching it in an audit is a liability with interest.
The questions subs actually ask
Does prevailing wage apply to my small public job?
We are open shop. Do union rates still apply?
Can I average the fringe package across workers?
Who checks any of this?
Both halves, handled
WellStanding produces your certified payroll filings from the payroll export you already run: the WH-347 with its Statement of Compliance and the validated DIR eCPR file, weekly, with classifications and rates sanity checked against the project's published determination and a person reviewing every file. First weekly filing free, flat published pricing on the home page. The wage side of the bargain, paying the determination correctly, stays yours, and our checks are built to catch the drift before it compounds.