Iowa has no state prevailing wage law and no state rate schedule. That is the short answer. The longer one matters more: federal Davis-Bacon covers every federally funded Iowa job, and Iowa DOT has its own certified payroll form for the work it lets.
14-day free trial · 3 free reports · $0 setup · No credit card required
If you searched for Iowa prevailing wage rates for 2026 and could not find a state rate schedule, that is because there is not one. Iowa is one of the states with no prevailing wage law at all, so no Iowa agency issues wage determinations by county and classification, and no Iowa statute requires a certified payroll on a purely state or local job. Bills to create one have been introduced across several sessions and none has become law.
Three checks you can repeat yourself
We would rather you verify this than take our word for it, because a wrong answer here costs a contractor real money. These are the three sources we used, in the order we used them.
The federal list of state thresholds
The U.S. Department of Labor publishes a table of the dollar threshold at which each state's prevailing wage law kicks in. Iowa has no threshold listed and sits with the states that have no such law. The table itself carries a last revised date, so check that date when you read it.
dol.gov state prevailing wage thresholdsThe Iowa Code itself
The bills that would create Iowa prevailing wage would add a chapter 91F to the Iowa Code. Search the code chapter list for 91F and you will not find one. The chapters that do exist around it are 91A on wage payment collection and 91D on the minimum wage.
legis.iowa.gov Iowa CodeThe state agency that enforces wage law
Iowa's wage enforcement page lists what it administers: wage payment collection under chapter 91A and the state minimum wage under chapter 91D. Prevailing wage, public improvements and certified payroll do not appear on it, because there is nothing for the agency to administer.
dial.iowa.gov wagesNo state law is not the same as no obligation
The single most expensive mistake an Iowa contractor can make with this page is to read the headline and stop. Federal money brings Davis-Bacon with it, and Davis-Bacon carries weekly certified payroll, a signed Statement of Compliance, three-year record retention and real back-wage exposure. Iowa DOT lettings are where most Iowa contractors meet it. The rest of this page is about that.
Sources: dol.gov Dollar Threshold Amount for Contract Coverage, dial.iowa.gov Wages, legis.iowa.gov House File 28 (2019, introduced), legis.iowa.gov Iowa Code.
This is the part no general prevailing wage article tells an Iowa contractor. On federal-aid work let by the Iowa Department of Transportation, the certified payroll has a state form, a named recipient and its own numbering rule.
The form is Form 830176, or an alternate carrying the same information
Iowa DOT Construction Manual 2.20: when contract provisions state that a certified transcript of weekly payroll is required, the contractor shall submit to the project engineer one copy of Form 830176 or an alternate form which contains the information as required in FHWA-1273, Section IV 3. Form 830176 is titled Certified Transcript of Labor Payroll.
The Statement of Compliance is on the back of it
The manual describes the Statement of Compliance printed on the back of the form, covering wage kickbacks, payrolls, apprentices, fringe benefits and the penalties for falsification. It is the same substance as the federal statement on the WH-347, in a different wrapper.
It goes to the project engineer, not to a portal
One copy to the project engineer. There is no Iowa state certified payroll portal, because there is no state prevailing wage program to run one. The engineer on your project is the destination.
Numbering starts at 1 and stays sequential
Payroll transcripts shall be submitted as soon as the contractor starts any project activity at the site of work, and they shall be in sequential order starting with the number 1. Gaps and restarts are how a contractor ends up explaining a numbering history to an auditor.
Within one week after the end of a payroll period
That is the manual's timing. The federal regulation behind the requirement uses a different trigger, within 7 days after the regular payment date under 29 CFR 3.4(a). Follow what your contract and project engineer specify, and do not quietly substitute the week ending date for the payment date.
The prime signs every subcontractor payroll
Project engineers are told to ensure that Statement of Compliance information is furnished with the payrolls and that the prime contractor has signed all payrolls received from subcontractors. If you are the prime, build that signature step into your week.
Email or Doc Express is fine, originals stay with you
A scanned copy of the original Statement of Compliance and payroll transcripts may be submitted to the project engineer as email attachments, or uploaded to Doc Express, provided the contractor retains the Statements of Compliance with original signatures for the required retention period.
It is federal-aid work that triggers this
The manual frames it as regulations covering interstate, primary, secondary and city projects financed in whole or in part with federal funds, which may require submission of a Certified Transcript of Labor Payroll in accordance with the Required Contract Provisions, Form FHWA-1273. The trigger is the federal funding and the contract provisions, not an Iowa prevailing wage statute.
Where we fit, honestly. We generate the federal WH-347, not Iowa DOT Form 830176. The manual allows an alternate form that carries the information required by FHWA-1273 Section IV 3, and the WH-347 is the U.S. Department of Labor's own optional format for exactly that information. Whether your project engineer wants the state form or accepts the federal one is a question to ask before your first submission, not after your fourth. If enough Iowa contractors need Form 830176 itself, that is the kind of thing we build.
Sources: iowadot.gov Construction Manual 2.20, iowadot.gov Form 830176, fhwa.dot.gov Form FHWA-1273, 29 CFR 3.4(a).
No state law does not mean no prevailing wage. It means the obligation comes from somewhere else, and you have to know which jobs carry it.
Federal money means Davis-Bacon
Davis-Bacon applies to contracts in excess of $2,000 for construction, alteration, or repair, including painting and decorating, of public buildings or public works. The Related Acts extend prevailing wage requirements to construction that federal agencies assist through grants, loans, loan guarantees and insurance.
Federal-aid highway work is the common case
The Federal Highway Administration states that Davis-Bacon and Related Act provisions apply to all Federal-aid construction projects exceeding $2,000 and to all related subcontracts and lower-tier subcontracts regardless of subcontract size, and that the requirements apply to projects located within the right of way of a roadway functionally classified as a Federal-aid highway.
Subcontract size does not save you
The $2,000 test is applied to the prime contract. A small lower-tier subcontract on a covered project is still covered, which surprises specialty trades more than any other rule in this area.
Federally assisted buildings, housing and utilities
Related Act coverage reaches well past highways: federally assisted housing, water and sewer work funded through federal programs, airport projects and federal buildings all carry prevailing wage obligations through their funding, not through Iowa law.
No state rate schedule to check
There is no Iowa county-by-county wage determination. If a rate binds your Iowa job, it came from a federal wage determination in the contract, from the contract specifications themselves, or from a collective bargaining agreement you signed.
Local ordinances cannot fill the gap
Iowa preempted city and county ordinances on employment terms in 2017, so an Iowa city cannot impose a local prevailing wage or living wage by ordinance, and pre-existing ordinances that did were made void. A public body writing wage terms into its own construction contract is a different question, and one for your attorney.
Read the contract, every time
On a purely state or local Iowa job with no federal money, wages and reporting are contract matters rather than statutory ones. Some awarding agencies still write wage and payroll reporting terms into their specifications, and those bind you as contract terms.
Sources: dol.gov Government Contracts, Construction, fhwa.dot.gov Davis-Bacon payment of prevailing wage rates, legis.iowa.gov House File 295 (2017, enrolled).
There is no state page to bookmark. For federally funded Iowa work the governing document is the wage determination in your contract, and the official source is the federal wage determination system on sam.gov. Pay the determination that came with your contract, not whatever is newest online.
We deliberately do not print wage rates on this page. Rates change, and a stale number on a marketing site is how a contractor underpays a crew. Use sam.gov wage determinations and the determination attached to your contract. Walkthrough: how to search SAM.gov for a wage determination.
Iowa DOT's form and timing sit on top of the federal Davis-Bacon requirements. Know both. When a contract is silent or a project engineer points you back to the regulation, this is what the regulation says.
Weekly, not monthly
The contractor submits payroll information on a weekly basis for each week in which any covered work is performed. A quiet week with no covered work is handled differently from a week you simply did not file.
Within 7 days after the regular payment date
The federal deadline runs from the payment date, not the week ending date: the payroll goes to the contracting or sponsoring agency within 7 days after the regular payment date (29 CFR 3.4(a)). Getting that reference point wrong is one of the most common late-filing causes we see.
A Statement of Compliance every week
Each certified payroll carries a signed Statement of Compliance under 29 CFR 5.5(a)(3)(ii)(C), indicating that the payrolls are correct and complete and that each laborer or mechanic has been paid not less than the applicable Davis-Bacon prevailing wage rate for the work performed.
Form WH-347 is optional but standard
The U.S. Department of Labor publishes Form WH-347 as an optional format that satisfies the requirements, carrying OMB Control No. 1235-0008. On Iowa DOT work, check whether the project wants Form 830176 instead.
Keep the records three years
Payrolls and basic records are maintained during the course of the work and preserved for three years after the date of completion of the contract, covering name, classification, hourly rates including fringe contributions or cash equivalent, daily and weekly hours, deductions and actual wages paid.
Full Social Security numbers must never appear
A submitted weekly payroll must not carry a worker's full Social Security number. Use an individually identifying number such as the last four digits instead. Home addresses, phone numbers and email addresses stay off the submitted copy too.
Post the determination on site
The wage determination and the Davis-Bacon poster must be posted at all times by the contractor and its subcontractors at the site of the work, in a prominent and accessible place where workers can easily see them.
Sources: dol.gov Form WH-347 and instructions, 29 CFR 3.4, 29 CFR 5.5(a)(3). Line-by-line help: WH-347 instructions and how to fill out the WH-347 step by step.
The rates below are illustrative placeholders. They are not Iowa rates and not state rates of any kind, because Iowa does not publish any. Use the wage determination attached to your own contract.
One operator on a federally funded Iowa job. Say the wage determination in your contract shows a $34.00 base rate and a $15.00 hourly fringe rate for the classification. The crew works ten hours Monday through Thursday plus six hours Friday, so 46 hours in the payroll week, and the contract applies time and a half to the base rate for hours over 40.
| Line | Math | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Straight time | 40 hrs at $34.00 base | $1,360.00 |
| Overtime hours | 6 hrs at 1.5 x $34.00 base = $51.00 | $306.00 |
| Total cash wages before fringe | $1,360.00 + $306.00 | $1,666.00 |
| Fringe obligation | 46 hrs at the $15.00 fringe rate | $690.00 |
| Total wage and fringe obligation | $1,666.00 + $690.00 | $2,356.00 |
| Credit for bona fide plans | 46 hrs at $10.25 contributed | $471.50 |
| Cash in lieu still owed | 46 hrs at the remaining $4.75 | $218.50 |
| Cash the worker actually receives | $1,666.00 + $218.50 | $1,884.50 |
Two things trip people up. The overtime multiplier runs on the base rate, so the fringe rate is not multiplied for the six overtime hours. And the fringe obligation is owed on all 46 hours, not just the straight-time 40. Underfund the plan and the shortfall becomes cash wages, which is the $218.50 line. On the WH-347 that plan credit is a weekly dollar total in column 6B and the cash in lieu is a weekly dollar total in column 6C.
Want this done for your own numbers? Use the free prevailing wage calculator, split the fringe with the fringe benefit calculator, or read how to calculate fringe benefits on prevailing wage projects.
The left column is short, and that is the point of this page. Davis-Bacon applies to federally funded and federally assisted construction in Iowa on its own authority, whatever the General Assembly does or does not do.
| Requirement | Iowa state law | Federal Davis-Bacon |
|---|---|---|
| Governing law | No prevailing wage statute | Davis-Bacon Act and the Related Acts |
| Applies to | Nothing by statute | Federal and federally assisted construction |
| Contract threshold | None listed by dol.gov for Iowa | In excess of $2,000 |
| Agency | No state prevailing wage agency | U.S. DOL Wage and Hour Division |
| Rate source | No state determinations issued | Wage determination in the contract |
| Payroll frequency | No state requirement | Weekly |
| Payroll deadline rule | No state requirement | Within 7 days after the regular payment date (29 CFR 3.4(a)) |
| Form | No state prevailing wage form; Iowa DOT uses Form 830176 on federal-aid work | Optional Form WH-347 |
| Where it goes | Nowhere by statute; Iowa DOT payrolls go to the project engineer | Contracting or sponsoring agency |
| Certification | No state certification | Statement of Compliance (29 CFR 5.5(a)(3)(ii)(C)) |
| Record retention | No state requirement | 3 years after completion of the contract |
| Local ordinances | Preempted since 2017 | Not affected by state preemption |
One practical consequence worth planning for: an Iowa contractor who crosses a state line runs into state prevailing wage schemes Iowa does not have. Illinois files monthly transcripts through a state portal, Minnesota and Missouri both run state prevailing wage programs, and Nebraska and South Dakota do not. If your crews work across borders, the Iowa answer does not travel with them.
Sources: dol.gov state prevailing wage thresholds, dol.gov Davis-Bacon construction coverage, iowadot.gov Construction Manual 2.20. Multi-state reading: multi-state prevailing wage compliance.
We produce the reports. You file them with the contracting agency or hand them to the project engineer. We never submit anything to any agency on your behalf.
To be straight with you: the state filings we offer today are California's A-1-131 and DIR eCPR XML, the Illinois CTP portal upload file, the New York certified payroll XML and New Jersey's MW-562, and we do not generate Iowa DOT Form 830176. Iowa has no state prevailing wage form to build, and the Iowa DOT form is a federal-aid contract requirement rather than a state statute. Ask your project engineer whether an alternate form carrying the FHWA-1273 Section IV 3 information is accepted on your project.
Bidding a federally funded Iowa job?
Try CertifiedPayrollPro free for 14 days. The first 3 certified payroll reports are on us, and no credit card is required.
Start Free TrialNo. The U.S. Department of Labor's table of state prevailing wage contract thresholds lists no threshold for Iowa and groups it with the states that have no prevailing wage law. Iowa's own wage enforcement page names only two wage chapters it administers, Iowa Code chapter 91A on wage payment collection and chapter 91D on the minimum wage, and says nothing about prevailing wage, public improvements or certified payroll. There is no state rate schedule to look up for a 2026 Iowa job.
Bills have been introduced in multiple sessions that would create a new Iowa Code chapter 91F requiring local prevailing wage rates on public improvements, including House File 2421 in 2010, House File 36 in 2013 and House File 28 in 2019. None of them became law, and there is no chapter 91F in the Iowa Code today. We are not going to predict what a future General Assembly does. What we can tell you is what the code and the agencies say now.
Not state ones. If someone hands you an Iowa prevailing wage rate sheet for a 2026 job, it is almost certainly a federal Davis-Bacon wage determination, a rate written into the contract by the awarding agency, or a collective bargaining agreement rate you signed. Those are all real obligations. None of them is a state prevailing wage determination, because Iowa does not issue any.
Not by ordinance. House File 295, enacted in 2017, added language to Iowa Code section 331.304 for counties and section 364.3 for cities saying a county or city shall not adopt, enforce, or otherwise administer an ordinance, motion, resolution, or amendment providing for any terms or conditions of employment that exceed or conflict with the requirements of federal or state law relating to a minimum or living wage rate, any form of employment leave, hiring practices, employment benefits, scheduling practices, or other terms or conditions of employment. Ordinances adopted before the act that violate it were made void and unenforceable, and the act took effect upon enactment. Whether a particular wage specification inside a public body's own construction contract survives that preemption is a question for your attorney, not for a software company.
Yes, and this is the part that matters most. Davis-Bacon applies on its own federal authority to contracts in excess of $2,000 for construction, alteration, or repair, including painting and decorating, of public buildings or public works, and the Related Acts extend prevailing wage requirements to construction that federal agencies assist through grants, loans, loan guarantees and insurance. The Federal Highway Administration states that Davis-Bacon and Related Act provisions apply to all Federal-aid construction projects exceeding $2,000 and to all related subcontracts and lower-tier subcontracts regardless of subcontract size, for projects located within the right of way of a roadway functionally classified as a Federal-aid highway.
Its own. The Iowa DOT Construction Manual section 2.20 says that when contract provisions state a certified transcript of weekly payroll is required, the contractor shall submit to the project engineer one copy of Form 830176 or an alternate form which contains the information as required in FHWA-1273, Section IV 3. Form 830176 is the Certified Transcript of Labor Payroll, and the Statement of Compliance is printed on the back of it. Note the wording carefully: Form 830176 or an alternate form carrying the same information. Ask your project engineer which format that project wants before you submit the first one.
The manual says payroll transcripts shall be submitted as soon as the contractor starts any project activity at the site of work, that they shall be in sequential order starting with the number 1, and that the transcript is submitted within one week after the end of a payroll period. The federal rule behind it runs from a different reference point: the payroll goes to the contracting or sponsoring agency within 7 days after the regular payment date under 29 CFR 3.4(a). Work to whichever your contract and project engineer specify, and do not assume the week ending date is the trigger.
On Iowa DOT work, yes. The Construction Manual tells project engineers to ensure that Statement of Compliance information is furnished with the payrolls and that the prime contractor has signed all payrolls received from subcontractors. Plan for it, because a subcontractor payroll that reaches the engineer without the prime's signature comes back.
Yes. The manual allows a scanned copy of the original Statement of Compliance and payroll transcripts to be submitted to the project engineer as email attachments, or uploaded to Doc Express, provided the contractor retains the Statements of Compliance with original signatures for the required retention period. Keep the signed originals; the scan is the submission, not the record.
There is no state certified payroll statute to file under, because there is no state prevailing wage act. Whatever reporting the specifications demand is a contract obligation, which is enforceable as a contract term even without a statute behind it. Do not assume it is nothing, and do not assume it is the WH-347 either. Read the contract, and ask the awarding agency what format it expects.
We produce the certified payroll records you hand in on federally funded Iowa work. Enter hours by day and classification and we calculate straight time, overtime on the base rate, the fringe credit and cash in lieu, then generate the Rev. January 2025 federal WH-347 with its Statement of Compliance. Lydia flags wages below the rate you entered for the classification before you certify. To be straight with you: we do not generate Iowa DOT Form 830176 today. The Iowa DOT manual permits an alternate form carrying the FHWA-1273 Section IV 3 information, so confirm with your project engineer which format your project accepts. You file with the agency either way; we do not submit anything to any agency on your behalf.
Start the free trial. Enter hours by day and classification, and get a certified payroll report with the base rate, overtime, fringe credit and cash in lieu already worked out.
Start Free Trial14-day free trial · 3 free reports · $0 setup
Prevailing Wage Calculator
Free tool: base rate, fringe, and overtime math done for you.
Fringe Benefit Calculator
Work out the fringe credit and cash-in-lieu split.
Prevailing Wage Laws by State
Which states have a law in 2026, and which do not.
Davis-Bacon Act Guide
The federal rules that cover Iowa federal work.
Indiana Prevailing Wage
Repealed in 2015, and what still applies there.
Illinois Certified Payroll
The neighbor with a portal, a transcript and a deadline.