What is Form WH-347 (the Certified Payroll Report)?

If you just won your first federally funded construction job, someone probably told you that you now have to submit "certified payroll." That's Form WH-347 — a U.S. Department of Labor form that reports, week by week, exactly who worked on the job, what you paid them, and a signed promise that those wages met the law. It looks intimidating, but it's really just a payroll timesheet with a certification stapled to the back. This guide walks you through the whole thing.

What Form WH-347 is and who has to file it

Form WH-347 is the standard federal certified payroll report. You file it under the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts, which require contractors and subcontractors on covered federal (and federally assisted) public-works contracts over $2,000 to pay local prevailing wages and to document that they did.

If you are a subcontractor on a covered project, you file one WH-347 every week, for every project, for as long as your crew is on site — even a week where nobody worked (that's a "no work" payroll). You submit it to whoever is above you in the chain (usually the prime contractor or the awarding agency), typically within a week of the pay date. Miss them and your payments can be held. Using the form is optional — you may use your own equivalent format — but WH-347 is the free, pre-approved layout, and it's what most agencies expect.

The two pages: the payroll grid and the Statement of Compliance

The form has two parts, and both have to be filled in every week:

• Page 1 — the payroll grid. A wide spreadsheet with one block of rows per worker. Down the left you list each employee; across the top are the days of the week; the columns on the right capture rates, gross pay, deductions, and net.
• Page 2 — the Statement of Compliance. A signed certification. You (or an officer of your company) sign to state that the payroll is correct, that everyone was paid at least the required wage, that deductions were lawful, and how you handled fringe benefits. Signing something you know to be false is a federal crime — the form cites Section 1001 of Title 18 and Section 3729 of Title 31 of the U.S. Code — so the numbers on page 1 have to actually be right before you sign page 2.

A quick tour of the nine columns

Almost all the work is on page 1. Here is what each numbered column is asking for:

Where the wage rates come from

WH-347 does not tell you what to pay — it just records what you did. The required rates live in your wage determination, the schedule of prevailing wages the contracting agency incorporated into your contract. For each classification it lists a basic hourly rate plus a fringe benefit rate. Together those are the minimum you must provide. Column 3 classifications and Column 6 rates on your WH-347 should trace straight back to that document, so keep a copy handy while you fill out the form. Certiwage does not maintain a rate database — you enter the classifications and rates off your own determination, which keeps you in control of the numbers you certify.

Current form vs. the legacy version (and OMB 1235-0008)

You may run into two versions of WH-347. The older Rev. December 2008 form uses columns numbered 1 through 9 and a Statement of Compliance written as numbered paragraphs. The current revised form(per DOL's January 2025 instructions) splits some columns (1A–1E, 6A/6B/6C), adds a header field for the Wage Determination No., and turns the certification into checkboxes plus an apprenticeship attestation. Both carry the same federal control number, OMB No. 1235-0008, printed at the bottom. The underlying math is identical on either version. One practical note: the older revision's OMB approval runs out 09/30/2026 and the current one runs through 01/31/2028, so use the latest form when you can. Certiwage renders a clean, current-format layout that carries all the required data either way.

The three mistakes that cause the most trouble

Certified payroll gets rejected — or triggers back-wage findings — for the same handful of reasons over and over:

• Getting fringe wrong. This is the number-one audit issue. The wage you owe is base + fringe. If your wage determination says $25.00 base and $12.00 fringe, the worker's total package has to reach $37.00 an hour — whether you meet the fringe with contributions to a bona-fide plan, pay it in cash, or a mix. Pay only the $25.00 base and forget the $12.00 fringe and you're short $12.00 for every hour worked.
• Overtime math. Under Davis-Bacon and CWHSSA, overtime is 1.5× the basic hourly rate, plus the fringe at straight time— not 1.5× the whole base-plus-fringe package. The fringe is added at 1× on overtime hours, never inflated by the time-and-a-half multiplier. (See the worked example below.)
• Stale forms and gaps.Filing on an outdated layout, skipping the weeks nobody worked (you still owe a "no work" payroll), or numbering payrolls out of order all draw kickbacks. Keep them consecutive, weekly, and per project.

A worked overtime example

Take a laborer whose wage determination sets a $20.00 basic rate and $8.00 fringe, which you pay in cash. She works 10 hours a day, five days — 50 hours, so 40 straight-time and 10 overtime.

• Overtime rate: (1.5 × $20.00) + $8.00 = $38.00/hr — time-and-a-half on the base, fringe added straight.
• Straight-time gross: 40 × ($20.00 + $8.00) = $1,120.00
• Overtime gross: 10 × $38.00 = $380.00
• Total gross for the week: $1,500.00

The common wrong method — 1.5 × ($20.00 + $8.00) = $42.00/hr — overpays by $4.00 an hour, or $40.00 on those 10 overtime hours. It feels generous, but on an audit it flags your whole payroll as computed incorrectly. Getting this one formula right is most of the battle. For a deeper walkthrough, see our guides on certified payroll fringe benefits and filling out WH-347 line by line.

How Certiwage builds it for you

You enter each worker's classification, daily hours, wage-determination base and fringe, and deductions. Certiwage's free builderdoes the rest: it splits straight-time and overtime rows, computes the overtime rate the correct way (1.5× base plus straight-time fringe), fills the diagonal gross split in Column 7, stores only the last four digits of each SSN, and flags any week where the total package falls short of base-plus-fringe before you sign. It outputs a print-ready page 1 and a matching Statement of Compliance in the current format. Your first report is free; if you run payroll every week, our plans start at $29/mo with no setup fee. Certiwage is a preparation tool — not legal advice, and not affiliated with the Department of Labor — so you stay responsible for verifying the numbers against your wage determination before you file.

The fastest way to understand WH-347 is to build one — try the free builderwith this week's hours and watch the form fill in.