Form WH-347 is the Department of Labor's weekly certified payroll report for Davis-Bacon projects. It has two parts — a payroll grid (page 1) and a signed Statement of Compliance (page 2) — and it must be submitted weekly, within seven days of each pay date, for every covered project. The most common errors involve worker classification and fringe benefit math, and both are audit triggers.
Certified payroll is the recurring compliance task on any Davis-Bacon project, and it is where most contractors quietly accumulate risk. The form itself is not complicated, but it is unforgiving: a classification that doesn't match the wage determination, or fringe math that is off by a few cents, repeats every week and compounds. This guide walks through the WH-347 field by field, flags the 2025 changes, and points out where contractors most often go wrong.
What the WH-347 is
The WH-347 is the standard certified payroll report for federally funded or federally assisted construction over $2,000. Page one is the weekly payroll grid — every worker, their classification, hours, rates, and deductions. Page two is the Statement of Compliance, a sworn certification that the payroll is accurate and that every worker was paid at least the required prevailing wage. Using the DOL's form is technically optional — the agency accepts any format that contains the same information and a signed Statement of Compliance — but almost everyone uses the WH-347 because it matches exactly what reviewers expect to see.
The 2025 form change you need to know
The DOL released a revised WH-347 that took effect in January 2025, and the previous version is only accepted through September 30, 2026. If you are still using the old form, now is the time to switch. The main changes are worth knowing because they signal what the DOL is paying closer attention to:
- The old separate signature page was folded into the main form.
- A new field for the Wage Determination Number was added, so the applicable wage decision is identified up front.
- The "Number of Withholding Exemptions" column was removed.
- New fringe benefit fields were added, including a total fringe benefit credit and payments made in lieu of fringe benefits.
- The Statement of Compliance was expanded with more specific attestations, an apprenticeship program section, and a field for the certifying official's name and title.
Before you start: what to gather
Most of the pain of certified payroll comes from hunting for information mid-form. Pull these together first:
- The wage determination tied to your contract, by its modification number — not just the project name.
- Each worker's full legal name, the last four digits of their Social Security number, and their exact classification.
- Daily hours for the pay period, separated into straight time and overtime.
- Each worker's base rate, fringe amounts, gross pay, deductions, and net pay.
Page 1: field by field
Start with the header, then the worker grid.
- Prime contractor's or subcontractor's business name: your company's full legal name, including any d.b.a., with the box checked for whether you are the prime contractor or a subcontractor.
- Prime contractor's or subcontractor's business address: the complete address — street number and name, city, state, and ZIP code.
- Project name and location: the project name exactly as it appears on the prime contract, plus the jobsite address or county. If you are a sub, copy it from the general contractor — don't invent your own version.
- Project or contract number, and wage determination number: the contract number assigned by the agency, and the applicable wage determination.
- Certified payroll number: sequential, starting at "1" for your first submission on the project and incrementing each week. Mark your last submission "Final."
- Week ending date: the last date of the workweek covered.
- Columns 1A through 1E — Name and identifying number: the worker's full legal name and the last four digits of their SSN. Never the full SSN, never a nickname. If two workers share a name, use middle initials to distinguish them.
- Column 2 — Journeyworker or apprentice status: enter (J) for a journeyworker or (RA) for a registered apprentice.
- Column 3 — Labor classification: the classification exactly as listed on the wage determination. "Operator" alone is not valid if the determination lists "Backhoe Operator." If a worker performed two classifications in the same week, use a separate line for each, with the same identifying number on both.
- Columns 4 & 5 — Hours worked and total: the day and date, with straight-time and overtime hours separated, and only the hours worked on this project — not hours from any other job.
- Columns 6A through 6C — Rate of pay: the hourly rate, including any cash paid in lieu of fringe benefits.
- Columns 7A and 7B — Gross amount earned: gross wages on this contract in column 7A, and gross across all projects in column 7B.
- Column 8 — Deductions: FICA, federal and state withholding, and any other deductions, each identified and totaled. All deductions must comply with the Copeland Anti-Kickback Act.
- Column 9 — Net wages paid: gross minus total deductions.
Fringe benefits: where most contractors go wrong
The prevailing wage has two parts — a base hourly rate and a fringe benefit rate — and the fringe portion is where errors concentrate. You have two ways to satisfy the fringe obligation: pay it into bona fide benefit plans (health, pension, vacation), or pay it as cash in lieu of benefits, or a split of the two. Whichever you choose, the math has to be exact. A fringe shortfall of even a few cents per hour, repeated across a crew and a project, becomes a back-wage liability. On the revised form, you report the total fringe benefit credit and any payment made in lieu, and the page-two fringe section documents each plan's name, type, funded or unfunded status, and hourly credit.
Page 2: the Statement of Compliance
Page two is short but carries the legal weight. It is a sworn certification, signed under penalty of perjury, that the payroll is correct and complete and that every worker received at least the proper prevailing wage. It must be signed by an owner, officer, or authorized payroll agent who actually has current knowledge of the payroll — not someone signing blind. The fringe benefit paragraph asks you to indicate how you satisfied the fringe obligation, with any exceptions noted in the exceptions section. The revised form also captures the certifying official's name and title and, where relevant, apprenticeship program details.
Timing and the "no work" report
Certified payroll is filed weekly, within seven days of each regular pay date, for the life of the contract. The schedule does not pause. For weeks in which no covered work was performed, the standard practice is to file a "no work" report so there are no gaps in the sequence — though some contracting agencies instead want to be notified directly rather than receiving a no-work payroll, so confirm your agency's preference. Either way, sequential numbering with no unexplained gaps is what reviewers look for.
Prime contractors: you carry the whole job
Each contractor and subcontractor submits certified payroll for its own employees, but the prime contractor collects every subcontractor's reports and transmits the full set to the contracting agency — and remains responsible for the compliance of the entire job. If a sub's certified payroll is late, inaccurate, or missing, that is the prime's problem to resolve. In practice, a prime's compliance is only as clean as the weakest sub on the project.
The mistakes that trigger audits
Certified payroll errors rarely announce themselves. The ones that most often draw scrutiny are:
- Workers classified below the work they actually performed.
- Fringe benefit calculations that don't reconcile.
- Missing apprenticeship documentation for anyone paid at apprentice rates.
- Hours that don't match between timecards and the certified payroll.
- Unsigned or incomplete Statements of Compliance.
Because certified payroll repeats weekly, a single unnoticed error doesn't stay small — it reproduces on every submission until it surfaces, usually at the worst possible time.
The takeaway
The WH-347 asks for information you already track, but it demands precision the rest of your paperwork may not. Get the wage determination, the classifications, and the fringe math right, keep the numbering sequential, and make sure the person signing the Statement of Compliance genuinely knows the payroll. Certified payroll is not hard so much as relentless — it is the weekly discipline that, done consistently, keeps you off the DOL's radar entirely.
Certified payroll never stops. FWCA can carry it.
If keeping the WH-347 accurate every single week is pulling you away from the work, we can manage certified payroll for you — and make sure it stays audit-ready. Start with a free consultation.
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Kim X Riggle
Kim has fourteen years in the federal compliance ecosystem, working both the DOL enforcement side as an investigator and the contractor-defense side. She founded Federal Wage Compliance Authority to help federal construction contractors keep certified payroll clean, classifications correct, and projects audit-ready.