If you work public jobs in California, certified payroll isn’t optional paperwork — it’s a condition of getting paid and staying eligible to bid. Here’s the whole system in plain English.

The short version

  • Every contractor and subcontractor on a California public works project must file certified payroll records electronically through the DIR’s eCPR system, at least monthly.
  • You must be a DIR-registered public works contractor before you bid or work public jobs.
  • A CPR is a weekly record of each worker’s classification, hours, rates, and fringes, plus a statement of compliance signed under penalty of perjury.
  • Failing to produce records after a written request costs $100 per day, per worker after a 10-day grace period (Labor Code §1776).
  • The subs who stay clean generate CPRs from daily field timecards and file weekly, so a missed week surfaces in days — not in an audit.

Who has to file

Every contractor and subcontractor performing work on a public works project in California — generally any construction, alteration, demolition, installation, or repair work over $1,000 paid for out of public funds. If a general contractor holds the prime contract and you’re a specialty sub two tiers down, you still file your own certified payroll. There’s no “the GC handles it” on this one.

Before any of that, your company must be registered with the DIR as a public works contractor. Bidding or working on a public job without an active registration is itself a violation, and GCs are prohibited from listing unregistered subs.

What a certified payroll record contains

A certified payroll record (CPR) is a weekly report covering every worker on the project that week:

  • Full name, address, and the last four digits of their Social Security number
  • Work classification (the prevailing wage craft they were paid under)
  • Straight-time and overtime hours, day by day
  • Hourly rate, fringe benefit payments, and where those fringes went
  • Gross wages, itemized deductions, and net paid

Attached to it is a statement of compliance signed under penalty of perjury — you’re swearing the crew was paid the applicable prevailing wage. That signature is what makes it “certified,” and it’s why guessing at classifications is a bad idea.

How filing works: the eCPR portal

Since SB 854, California requires certified payroll to be submitted electronically through the DIR’s eCPR system — a paper federal WH-347 in a filing cabinet doesn’t satisfy the state requirement. You have two options:

  1. Manual entry through the eCPR web form, worker by worker, week by week
  2. XML upload in the DIR’s published format, generated by payroll or construction software

Submissions are due to the DIR at least monthly, covering every week your crew was on the project. Most subs that get in trouble don’t get in trouble for wrong data — they get in trouble for weeks that were never filed, usually the weeks a small punch-list crew was on site and nobody told the office.

What it costs to get wrong

  • Failure to furnish records: after a written request from the Labor Commissioner, you have 10 days to produce CPRs. Past that, the penalty runs $100 per day, per worker, and it adds up faster than you’d think on a six-man crew.
  • Underpayment findings: if the CPRs reveal workers paid below the prevailing rate, you owe back wages plus penalties per worker per day, and the awarding body can withhold contract payments to cover them.
  • Debarment: willful or repeated violations can get a contractor barred from bidding public work in California for one to three years.

Habits that keep you clean

  • Register every project in your system the day you’re awarded it, with its DIR project ID from the awarding body’s PWC-100 filing. Missing weeks almost always trace back to jobs the office never set up.
  • Classify before mobilizing, not after. Look up the determination for each craft and county before the first timecard, and write it down where payroll can see it.
  • Tie CPRs to timecards, not memory. If field time is captured daily with the project and classification attached, certified payroll becomes a report you generate, not a document you reconstruct.
  • File weekly even though monthly is the minimum. A weekly rhythm means a missed week is obvious in days, not discovered in an audit.