Certified payroll for sole proprietors with no employees

Yes. If you are a sole proprietor or a one person crew on a California public works job, you still register with the Department of Industrial Relations, still owe workers, including yourself, the prevailing wage, and still file a certified payroll record with your own name on it. DIR's own guidance says a public works contractor "includes sole proprietors and brokers who are responsible for performing work on a public works project, even if they do not have employees or will not use their own employees to perform the work," under DIR's public works FAQ.

Having no crew does not shrink your paperwork. Every line that would normally belong to an employee now belongs to you: registration, the prevailing wage rate, and your own name on the certified payroll record.

Do you have to register with DIR if you have no employees

Yes, if you meet the definition above and your project is not covered by the small project exemption below. Registration under Labor Code section 1725.5 attaches to the contractor, meaning the business, not to a headcount. A one person plumbing shop that bids, is listed in a bid proposal, or works on a covered public works contract is a contractor under the statute the same way a 40 person mechanical sub is. There is no carve out in the statute for owners who do the work themselves, and DIR's FAQ makes the point directly for the exact situation this page is about.

Fees, renewal dates, and what a lapse costs are in DIR public works contractor registration. Registration runs on its own July 1 to June 30 fiscal year cycle no matter when you sign up. DIR's public works FAQ confirms that registration "covers one fiscal year ... regardless of the date on which a contractor registers," per DIR's public works FAQ, so a solo operator who registers mid project tracks the same renewal date as everyone else.

The small project exemption: what it actually covers

Two different dollar thresholds do two different jobs, which is where most confusion starts.

Contract amount	Prevailing wage owed	DIR registration required	Electronic certified payroll (eCPR) required
$1,000 or less	No, per Labor Code section 1771	No	No
Over $1,000, up to $25,000 ($15,000 for maintenance work)	Yes	No, per the small project exemption in Labor Code section 1725.5	No, but written records must still be kept and produced on request
Above $25,000 ($15,000 for maintenance work)	Yes	Yes	Yes

DIR's FAQ states the middle row plainly: contractors under the small project exemption "are still required to maintain certified payroll records on a continuous basis, and provide them to the Labor Commissioner's Office upon request," per DIR's public works FAQ. The exemption waives the registration step and the electronic filing step. It does not waive the duty to pay prevailing wage or the duty to keep a payroll record on yourself that you can hand over if asked, which is the recordkeeping duty in Labor Code section 1776. The same DIR page also warns that a job cannot be split into smaller pieces to duck the threshold: yearly totals for the same vendor still count.

How to fill out certified payroll when you do not pay yourself a wage

Most sole proprietors above the small project exemption run into the same wall: the certified payroll form assumes an hourly rate and a paycheck, and you might take a draw, a lump contract payment, or nothing at all on a regular schedule. DIR's FAQ addresses this directly, for exactly this situation, and gives a method rather than a shortcut. You still need to provide the same five things a certified payroll record asks for on any worker:

Name, address, and SSN (or FEIN if you have no SSN).
The work classification for the prevailing wage work you personally performed.
The hourly rate that classification carries under the wage determination for the county and craft.
The hours you actually worked in that classification.
The estimated amount paid to you for that labor.

For that last line, DIR's instructions are specific: "subtract all your other expenses (including materials, pro rata share of business overhead, and payments to other workers or subcontractors) from the gross contract price," and the amount left over is your labor cost, under DIR's public works FAQ. That net figure has to work out to at least the prevailing rate for your classification, multiplied by your hours.

A worked example. Say your contract for a public works fencing job pays $30,000. Materials ran $11,000, and you paid a $2,000 permit and disposal cost as overhead. That leaves $17,000 as your labor cost. If you personally worked 200 hours as a fence erector, that is $85 an hour, which has to be at or above the prevailing rate the wage determination sets for a fence erector in that county. If it is not, that is a pricing problem to catch before you sign the certification, not a paperwork problem to fix after.

Signing your own Statement of Compliance

The certified payroll record ends with a certification, signed under penalty of perjury, that workers, including you, were paid the required rate. As a sole proprietor there is no one else at the company to sign it. You review the numbers and sign for yourself. WellStanding prepares the filing from your numbers, but the contractor always signs their own Statement of Compliance; we never sign on your behalf. More on the two forms in California certified payroll: the complete guide and the WH-347 guide.

1099 subs, federal jobs, and DAS 140

Bringing in another sole proprietor as a 1099 sub does not remove either of you from the filing. Each contractor and subcontractor on a covered project files its own record under its own registration; a prime cannot report a sub's hours, and being paid on a 1099 rather than a W-2 changes nothing about who owes the filing. How that flows through a written subcontract is covered in the subcontractor flow down clause.

On projects with federal funding, the weekly WH-347 runs alongside the state filing. The federal standard covers "laborers and mechanics" performing the work and requires weekly certified payrolls to the contracting agency, per the Department of Labor's Fact Sheet 66 on the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts. That fact sheet does not spell out a separate procedure for sole proprietors the way DIR's FAQ does, so most solo operators apply the same classification and pay method to both forms, since a mismatch between the two is its own red flag. See WH-347 vs eCPR.

A covered contract also still triggers the DAS 140 notice to the applicable apprenticeship committee, but the DAS 140 requirement carries its own dollar threshold. Under Labor Code section 1777.5, subdivision (o), the notice requirement does not apply to a general contractor's contract, or a specialty contractor's contract not bid through a prime, worth less than $30,000. That threshold is separate from the $25,000 and $15,000 small project exemption above, so a contract that clears DIR registration can still fall under the DAS 140 threshold. Deadlines are in DAS 140 and DAS 142.

Where WellStanding fits

We prepare the WH-347 and file the DIR eCPR from whatever export your payroll or bookkeeping tool produces, QuickBooks, ADP, Paychex, Gusto, or Sage, and a person reviews every filing before it goes out. For a sole proprietor that export is often just your own hours and pay, computed the way DIR's FAQ describes above. Setup is $995 one time, then $249 a month for a crew up to 25 workers, and your first filing is free. We answer questions Monday to Friday, 7:00 to 5:00 Pacific. Pricing is on the home page.

Questions

Do I need to register with DIR if I am a sole proprietor with no employees?

Usually yes, if your public works contract is above the small project exemption threshold. DIR's own definition of a public works contractor includes sole proprietors who perform the work themselves, with no carve out for having no employees.

What is the small project exemption, and does it apply to me?

It exempts public works projects of $25,000 or less for construction, alteration, installation, demolition, or repair, and $15,000 or less for maintenance work, from DIR registration and electronic certified payroll filing. You still have to pay prevailing wage on any project over $1,000 and keep payroll records you can produce on request.

How do I report certified payroll for myself if I do not pay myself an hourly wage?

DIR's guidance is to subtract your materials, your pro rata overhead, and any payments to other workers or subcontractors from the gross contract price. What is left is your labor cost. Divide that by the hours you worked in your prevailing wage classification to check that you are at or above the required rate.

Who signs the Statement of Compliance if I work alone?

You do. There is no separate payroll officer at a one person company, so the sole proprietor reviews the record and signs their own certification under penalty of perjury.

Does the federal WH-347 treat sole proprietors differently than California's eCPR does?

The Department of Labor's Davis-Bacon guidance does not spell out a separate procedure for sole proprietors the way DIR's FAQ does. Most solo operators apply the same classification and pay reporting method to both forms so the two filings match.

If I hire another sole proprietor as a 1099 sub, does that get either of us out of filing?

No. Each contractor and subcontractor on a covered project files its own certified payroll under its own DIR registration. Being paid on a 1099 rather than a W-2 does not change who owes the filing.

Does a one person crew still need a DAS 140?

The DAS 140 notice requirement is tied to having a covered public works contract, not to how many workers you employ, but it carries its own $30,000 threshold under Labor Code section 1777.5, subdivision (o), separate from the registration threshold above. See our DAS 140 and DAS 142 guide for the deadline and what triggers it.