How to Look Up a Wage Determination

A wage determination is the document that turns the Davis-Bacon Act or the Service Contract Act into dollar figures for a particular place and kind of work. Since 2019 the Department of Labor has published them on SAM.gov, the General Services Administration’s System for Award Management, which replaced the older Wage Determinations OnLine site. This site does not copy determinations: they are revised whenever the underlying data changes, there is no documented bulk download, and the determination incorporated into a contract is the one that governs it. What follows is how to find and read one.

Finding a Davis-Bacon determination

On SAM.gov’s wage determinations page, choose Davis-Bacon Act, then the state and county where the work will be performed, and the construction type: building, residential, heavy or highway. These categories are defined in Department of Labor guidance; a project can involve more than one, in which case more than one determination may apply to different parts of the work. The search returns a general wage determination identified by a number such as the state abbreviation, a year and a serial (for example a determination numbered for a 2026 series in a given state), with a modification number and date.

Each determination lists classifications grouped by their source. Lines beginning with a union identifier (for example an electricians’ local) come from a collective bargaining agreement; lines beginning with “SU” come from a survey in which no single union rate prevailed; and lines marked “UAVG” come from a weighted average of union rates. For every classification the document gives a basic hourly rate and a fringe benefit figure. Under 29 CFR 5.5 the contractor owes at least the total of the two, in cash or in bona fide fringe benefits.

Finding a Service Contract Act determination

For the Service Contract Act, choose that Act on the same page, then the state and county of performance. Most localities have a standard determination (identified by a number beginning with 2015 followed by a serial, with a revision number) that lists hundreds of occupations by code and title from the SCA Directory of Occupations, each with an hourly rate. The same document states the health and welfare benefit rate, the vacation schedule by years of service, and the paid holidays. Where a predecessor contract had a collective bargaining agreement, the contracting officer may instead obtain a determination based on that agreement, which is not on the public list.

A contracting agency, not the contractor, is responsible for selecting the determination and incorporating it into the solicitation and contract; 29 CFR 4.4 and 4.5 set out when the agency must obtain one and when it must update it.

Reading the dates

Two dates matter. The publication or modification date on the determination tells you which revision you are looking at. The lock-in rule tells you which revision applies to a contract. For Davis-Bacon, 29 CFR 1.6(c) provides that a modification published before contract award (or before bid opening in a sealed-bid procurement, with a ten-day rule) is effective for that contract, and that later modifications generally are not, except for certain long-term contracts and contracts with options. For the Service Contract Act, a new determination applies to a new contract and to each option or extension period of an existing one, which is why SCA contractors see new rates when an option year begins.

A determination also carries a contractor minimum wage notice for Executive Order 13658 and, on determinations issued before March 2025, Executive Order 14026, stating that the Executive Order rate applies if it is higher than any listed rate. Since the March 2025 revocation of Executive Order 14026 by Executive Order 14236, which the Department of Labor says it no longer enforces, only the 13658 notice still carries a rate that applies.

Checking an occupation that is not listed

If the work needed is not on the determination, the contractor requests a conformance through the contracting officer (29 CFR 5.5(a)(1)(iii) for Davis-Bacon; 29 CFR 4.6(b)(2) for the SCA). The Department of Labor approves a classification and rate that bears a reasonable relationship to those already on the determination. Until then, the closest listed classification that covers the duties is the reference point, and the rules do not allow a lower unlisted rate.

What survey data can and cannot tell you

The occupation and state pages on this site show the full OEWS wage distribution for each occupation. For the Service Contract Act those percentiles are the raw material the Department of Labor uses, and the SCA rate for an occupation in an area is often close to one of them. For Davis-Bacon the rates come from the Department of Labor’s own construction surveys and collective bargaining agreements, not from OEWS. In neither case is a figure on this site a substitute for the determination incorporated into the contract.