NYS Certified Payroll: The NYSDOL Certified Payroll Portal, Labor Law §220-j, and Deadlines Explained

What NYS Certified Payroll Means

In New York, NYSDOL's Article 8 FAQ defines certified payrolls as original payrolls or transcripts of them, subscribed and affirmed as true under the penalty of perjury. The obligation comes from Article 8 of the Labor Law, the state's prevailing wage article, and covers public work projects, privately owned projects covered by prevailing wage requirements under Section 224-a, and certain renewable energy system projects under Section 224-d. Section 220-j also lists projects under Section 224-f.

Two exclusions are worth knowing. NYSDOL's FAQ says electronic submission is not required for Article 9 building service work, and that federal projects where state prevailing wage law does not apply do not submit payroll through the state system. A project that carries both federal Davis-Bacon funding and New York prevailing wage coverage is still inside the state system.

The NYSDOL Certified Payroll Portal and Its Start Date

Labor Law §220-j requires each contractor and subcontractor on a covered project to furnish payroll records in an electronic format, in a manner prescribed by the commissioner, on the department's website. NYSDOL runs that as the Certified Payroll portal, and you need a NY.gov account to log in.

NYSDOL's Bureau of Public Work page says the electronic requirement started December 31, 2025; its Electronic Payroll FAQ says contractors must submit at least once every 30 days starting January 1, 2026, for new and existing covered projects: all work completed in 2026 has to be entered even if the project began earlier, and payrolls for work completed before 2026 do not need to be entered retroactively. It also applies when the general contractor doesn't ask for certified payroll, and to contractors based outside New York, who must also be registered in the Public Work Contractor and Subcontractor Registry.

What You Need Before the First Submission

NYSDOL lists four items to submit in the portal: your FEIN from the IRS, your NYS contractor registration number from the Certificate of Contractor Registration, the prevailing rate case (PRC) number for the project, and, for public improvement projects only, a copy of the payment bond.

NYSDOL tells contractors to get the PRC number from the public entity that let the project, and to contact the Bureau of Public Work and Prevailing Wage Enforcement if the entity can't provide it. Its two pages differ on what happens without one: the Electronic Payroll FAQ still says a PRC number is required to enter a project, while the Electronic Payroll Submission page says contractors "are no longer blocked from submitting payroll when a PRC number is not yet available" and can use the same PRC number more than once, with the system adding a modifier (-1, -2, -3…) to tell projects apart. If a contract has its own PRC number or a different general contractor, it is entered as its own project.

What Each Payroll Has to Contain

For each employee, NYSDOL requires name, address, Social Security number (if applicable) or birth date, hours and days worked, occupations worked, hourly wage rate, and any supplements or benefits provided. Section 220-j also requires documentation of each fund, plan or program where a supplement was paid; NYSDOL accepts any document that shows the benefits were paid and identifies the plan and its contact information, with union remittance forms preferred.

A few entry rules from the FAQ: classifications must match the portal's dropdown list, fringe benefits paid in cash are added to the reported wage rate, and Social Security Disability Insurance and Paid Family Leave are listed as "other" deductions, not as supplements. Each payroll covers that project only, even if the worker had other jobs that week.

This is where the federal WH-347 layout and the New York portal part ways: the DOL's WH-347 instructions say a worker's full Social Security number must not be included, while the New York portal asks for each employee's address and a Social Security number or birth date.

Is There a NYS Certified Payroll Form?

Not in the paper sense. NYSDOL describes two ways to submit: entering payroll directly in the Certified Payroll portal, or bulk-uploading an XML file. For the upload, it publishes a Bulk Upload Formatting Guide, a sample XML file and an XSD file that defines the required structure and validation rules.

That format changes. NYSDOL's Electronic Payroll Submission page notes that a new work classification field in the supplemental benefits section changed the XML file structure, so anyone generating XML from their own system has to follow the current guide and XSD.

Frequency, Deadlines, and Weeks With No Work

Section 220-j defines "monthly" as at least once every 30 days while work is being performed on a covered project, and within 30 days after the final day of work; a contract can require more frequent reporting. NYSDOL counts the 30 days from the project start date, and the portal shows payroll due dates on the contractor dashboard.

Weeks with no work are still reported: the FAQ says you must report them in the portal, which has a feature to mark a pause of several weeks. NYSDOL also says it extended the window to edit a payroll submission from 30 to 44 days.

New York City, Agency Systems, and the Public Dashboard

Certified payroll for public work performed by or on behalf of New York City, and for roadway excavation projects with NYC-issued permits, goes to NYC's online database for certified payroll, not the state portal. Other covered projects in the city go through NYSDOL's portal.

Under §220-j, the electronic submission to NYSDOL satisfies the Section 220(3-a) requirement to submit a payroll transcript to the department of jurisdiction, but NYSDOL notes that agencies may still impose local or contractual submission requirements. LCPtracker and e-Mars are not required by NYSDOL; they are letting-agency specific. Submitted payrolls are published without worker names, showing number of workers, hours and pay rates, so a general contractor can check that its subcontractors have filed.

Penalties and Record Retention

Section 220-j sets a penalty of $100 for each day a contractor or subcontractor fails to furnish the electronic records, which can only be levied once the records are 14 days late, and only against the contractor or subcontractor that failed to file. NYSDOL's FAQ adds that willfully failing to provide accurate payroll records can be a class E felony with a civil penalty of up to $1,000.

When NYSDOL's FAQ was read on October 11, 2026, it said the department was exercising its discretion not to issue fines for late payrolls while contractors adjust, and that it will announce publicly and email registered contractors before fines begin. Payrolls for work from January 1, 2026 are still required. Separately, NYSDOL's Article 8 FAQ says contractors must keep weekly certified payroll records for at least six years.

What a WH-347-Style Spreadsheet Does and Doesn't Do for New York Jobs

To be direct: a WH-347-style Excel template, including the templates on this site, and LeaveSheet Certified Payroll produce a WH-347-style report and Statement of Compliance as PDF and Excel files. Neither files into the NYSDOL Certified Payroll portal, generates the NYSDOL XML bulk-upload file, obtains a PRC number, or produces the proof of benefit payments the portal asks you to attach.

What they're useful for on a New York job is an internal, calculating record of each worker's classification, hours, rates, fringe and deductions for the week, which you can use as the source when keying the payroll into the portal, and as a backup alongside the six-year record you keep anyway. If the project also has federal funding, the same record supports the separate federal certified payroll.

If your volume makes manual entry impractical, the route NYSDOL offers is XML bulk upload, which needs software that writes to NYSDOL's current XSD, not a spreadsheet template.