How to fill out Form WH-347, field by field
WH-347 is the Department of Labor's optional certified-payroll form for Davis-Bacon and federally assisted construction. If your project's contract includes federal prevailing-wage labor standards, you submit a certified payroll every week — on WH-347 or any equivalent form with the same information. Here is what each field wants, in the order you'll meet it.
The header block
| Field | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Contractor or Subcontractor | Check one. Subcontractors file through the prime, who reviews and forwards to the contracting agency. |
| Name and address | Your firm's legal name and address as it appears on the contract documents. |
| Payroll No. | Sequential, starting at 1 for your first week on the project. Gaps invite questions — if no work was performed, many agencies want a "no work" payroll to keep the sequence unbroken. |
| For week ending | The last date of this payroll week. Your workweek definition must stay consistent across the project. |
| Project and location | The project name and city/state as they appear in the contract. |
| Project or contract no. | The federal or state contract/project number from your contract paperwork. |
The employee columns (1–9)
| Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| (1) Name and individual identifying number | Worker's full name plus an identifying number — in practice the last four digits of the Social Security number. Never the full SSN: payrolls become public records subject to disclosure requests, and DOL's own instructions dropped full SSNs and addresses years ago. |
| (2) No. of withholding exemptions | Optional — a convenience column from the old W-4 era. Many contractors leave it blank; no agency should reject for it. |
| (3) Work classification | The classification from the wage determination in your contract — not your internal job title. "Laborer, Group 2" beats "helper." A worker in two trades in one week gets two lines, with hours split. Rates come from the wage determination; look yours up at sam.gov/wage-determinations. |
| (4) Day and date / hours worked | Seven day columns with the date, each split into O (overtime) and S (straight) rows. Overtime is over-40-in-a-week under the Contract Work Hours and Safety Standards Act on covered contracts. |
| (5) Total hours | Sum of the daily entries, straight and overtime shown on their own lines. |
| (6) Rate of pay (incl. fringe) | The actual hourly rate. If you pay fringe in cash (election 4(a)), show base plus cash fringe here — e.g. "$28.50/$4.75". Overtime must be at least 1.5× the basic rate; the fringe portion is not multiplied. |
| (7) Gross amount earned | This project's gross on top; if the worker earned wages on other jobs the same week, show the split (project gross over weekly total) so the deductions column reconciles. |
| (8) Deductions | FICA, federal withholding, and up to two "other" columns — anything in "other" must be identified and be a permissible deduction under 29 CFR Part 3. Total deductions must equal the sum. |
| (9) Net wages paid for week | Weekly gross minus total deductions. What the paycheck actually says. |
Page 2 — the Statement of Compliance
This is the "certified" in certified payroll. An owner or authorized officer signs, under the language of 29 CFR 3.3, that the payroll is correct and complete, that no impermissible deductions were taken, and that every worker was paid not less than the applicable wage determination rate for the classification of work performed.
The fringe-benefit section is where most first-timers stall:
- 4(a) — you pay fringe benefits to approved plans, funds, or programs (health, pension, apprenticeship). Basic hourly rate on the payroll may then exclude fringe.
- 4(b) — you pay the fringe amount in cash on the paycheck. Column 6 shows base/fringe split.
- 4(c) — exceptions: any craft where you do part plan, part cash, explained in the remarks.
Falsifying the statement is criminal exposure — 18 U.S.C. § 1001 and § 231 of Title 31 are cited on the form itself. Which is exactly why the signature belongs to your officer, on paper, after review — never to software.
The fast way
Every field above is a question in our wizard, with your figures placed verbatim onto a WH-347-equivalent report and Statement of Compliance — DOCX and PDF, ready for review and signature. $5 per weekly report.
Generate this week's certified payroll
Document preparation only — not legal, accounting, or payroll advice. Official form and instructions: dol.gov/agencies/whd/forms/wh347.