If you have just won your first Delaware public-works job, you have inherited a weekly paperwork obligation that carries its own penalty, separate from whether you paid anyone correctly. This page explains what that obligation is, who it applies to, and where the traps are.
1. Are you covered? The threshold is two-tiered
Most summaries mention only the $500,000 figure. The regulations set two thresholds, and the second one catches far more contractors:
| Type of work | Covered above |
|---|---|
| New construction (including painting and decorating) | $500,000 |
| Alteration, repair, renovation, rehabilitation, demolition or reconstruction | $45,000 |
A renovation package worth $60,000 is covered. If you assumed the floor was half a million, that is the assumption most likely to cost you.
2. What has to be filed, and how often
The statute requires that every covered contract carry a stipulation that “sworn payroll information, as required by the Department of Labor, be furnished weekly.” The Department keeps it for six months from the last day of the work week covered.
29 Del. C. §6960(c) · Delaware Code, Title 29 Ch. 69The artifact is the Department's Payroll Report form. It runs four pages: a contractor and project header; employee blocks carrying name, address, Social Security number, job title, classification, and hours split straight-time and overtime for each day; a fringe-benefits page; and a Statement of Compliance that must be notarised — it ends “Sworn to and subscribed before me, a notary public.” Completed reports are emailed to [email protected].
Office of Construction Industry Enforcement, Payroll Report form dated 5.05.2025 · obtain the form3. The rate you must meet already includes fringe benefits
This is the single most misread part of the system. Delaware defines wages as “the basic hourly rate of pay plus fringe benefits,” and a wage determination is the listing of wages “(including fringe benefits)” for each classification.
19 DE Admin. Code 1322 §3.1.9 and §3.1.12So the single number published for your trade and county is the total hourly obligation. You may satisfy it entirely in cash, or partly with bona fide fringe contributions. The state does not publish a base/fringe split, and you should not invent one.
To convert a benefit into an hourly credit, the Department's own instruction on the form is arithmetic you can do:
A health plan costing the employer $10,000 a year is worth $5.00 per hour. If the determination for your trade is $86.87 and you pay $80.00 in cash, you are still $1.87 short.
Which rates apply
Rates are set by classification and county (New Castle, Kent, Sussex), and there are separate schedules for Building, Heavy and Highway construction. Determinations are issued annually. You can read the current Building determination — 26 classifications across the three counties, effective March 13, 2026 — on our prevailing wage page.
4. The apprentice traps
Three rules here catch people, and you attest to them under oath on page four of the form.
- A registered apprentice is paid the percentage of the mechanic's rate set by their own apprenticeship agreement — which is why the form has a “% Rate” field. §3.1.4.2.2
- Anyone paid at an apprentice rate who is not registered must be paid the full determination rate “for the classification of work (s)he actually performed.” Calling someone an apprentice does not make them one. §3.1.4.2.3
- Apprentices beyond the permitted on-site ratio must likewise be paid the full rate for the work they actually perform. §3.1.4.2.4
Two related rules
- Working foremen who spend more than 20% of a workweek on mechanic or laborer duties count as mechanics for the time so spent. §3.1.5
- “Helper” is not a recognised classification. Everyone is paid for the classification of work actually performed, “without regard to skill.” §3.1.6
5. What it costs to get wrong
The reporting penalty is separate from the payment penalty. An employer who knowingly fails to pay the prevailing rate, or who fails to submit payroll reports, or fails to post the applicable wage rates, is subject to a civil penalty of not less than $1,000 nor more than $5,000 for each violation.
29 Del. C. §6960(e)Read that carefully: you can pay every worker correctly and still be fined for filing late, or not at all.
Above the fine sits debarment. Delaware publishes a Prevailing Wage Debarment List for violations of §6960 and other State statutes, and the consequence is categorical — no public construction contract in the State “shall be bid on, awarded to, or received by” a listed contractor. Entries name company owners individually, not only the company.
Prevailing Wage Debarment List — check the source for current status; the published list is not updated continuously.6. What the state's form does and does not do
Delaware's Payroll Report is a fillable PDF with calculations built in: it totals each employee's weekly hours, sums FICA, federal, state and other deductions, and computes net wages. That is genuinely useful and it is free.
What it does not do — and this is the gap that produces violations — is tell you whether the rate you entered is legal. The form holds no wage-determination data. It will total a $40.00/hour electrician who is owed $86.87, and present the result for your signature and a notary's seal.
Closing that gap
SWORN applies the current Delaware determination to your weekly hours, flags underpayment, apprentice-registration and apprentice-ratio problems before you sign, and produces the official four-page Payroll Report. It runs entirely in your browser — payroll data is never uploaded. $29/month.
Open SWORN →7. If your bid also carries a participation goal
Many Delaware public bids set a small-business participation goal — the New Castle County packs for the new Newark Free Library set 32%. That goal is not a hard requirement: the county accepts either meeting it or documenting a good-faith effort. Our free tool GOODFAITH logs solicitations as they happen and produces the evidence record, and the certified-firms directory is the pool to solicit from.
Sources
- 29 Del. C. §6960 — Delaware Code, Title 29, Chapter 69, Subchapter IV
- 19 DE Admin. Code 1322 — Delaware Prevailing Wage Regulations
- Payroll Report form (Office of Construction Industry Enforcement, 5.05.2025)
- Office of Construction Enforcement — wage determinations for Building, Heavy and Highway
This page is a plain-English summary of public documents, not legal advice. Where a figure matters to a decision, follow the link and read the source.