Wage year 2026-27

Guides

24 reference pieces on how a prevailing wage is determined, what a filing says, and what the wage obligation actually requires. Every figure in them is computed from the published wage file at build time rather than typed in.

Guides: 24Sections: 5Wage file: ALC_Export.csvFiling data: FY2025 Q1 to Q4

How a determination is built

The machinery underneath every figure on this site: what a prevailing wage is, how the four levels get set, and the two occupation attributes that decide where a job starts.

Guide	What it settles
What the prevailing wage is, and why it exists	The floor, what it measures, and the statutory reason it exists at all.
How the four wage levels are determined	The step-up logic, plus the exact arithmetic relationship between the four figures.
Job Zones, and how they set the experience baseline	Where the experience ceiling comes from, and why five years means different things in different occupations.
Appendix A, and which occupations are on it	The professional occupations list, what it does to the education step, and the name it gets confused with.
SOC codes, and how a job maps to one	How the classification is structured, how duties drive the match, and the pairs that get confused.

5 guides. Wage figures throughout are read from ALC_Export.csv in OFLC_Wages_2026-27.zip, wage year 2026-27.

Geography, vintage and the underlying survey

Which county the job sits in, whether the figure was surveyed there or borrowed from somewhere larger, when it changes, and the federal survey it all rests on.

Guide	What it settles
Area of intended employment, and why the county matters more than the city	How an address becomes an area code, and what a county boundary is worth in dollars.
What GeoLvl means, and when a wage figure is imputed	The flag that says whether your wage is a local survey or a borrowed one, and what to do when it’s borrowed.
The wage year calendar, and when the figures change	When the figures change, what happens to a case that straddles the rollover, and how to date a number.
Where the DOL wage data comes from, and the OEWS survey behind it	The survey underneath the tables, what it measures, and the limits that come with it.

4 guides. Wage figures throughout are read from ALC_Export.csv in OFLC_Wages_2026-27.zip, wage year 2026-27.

The filing itself

Reading a Labor Condition Application field by field, what it does and doesn’t certify, and the two forms that surround it.

Guide	What it settles
Reading an LCA: the fields that matter	The eight or so fields on Form ETA-9035 that carry the wage promise, and how to check each one.
What an LCA actually certifies, and what it doesn’t	The narrow thing certification establishes, and the four things it leaves entirely open.
The prevailing wage determination request, Form ETA-9141	The form that gets you a figure the department issued, when it’s required, and what it buys.
Using a private wage survey instead of the OES figure	When an alternative survey is allowed, what it has to look like, and why most commercial data fails.
Full time versus part time, and how the wage is stated	Hourly to annual, how part-time hours are stated, and what’s owed when the work stops.

5 guides. Wage figures throughout are read from ALC_Export.csv in OFLC_Wages_2026-27.zip, wage year 2026-27.

Across programs and over time

How the wage rules shift between H-1B, H-1B1, E-3 and PERM, what happens when the job moves, and where the wage level does and doesn’t touch the cap.

Guide	What it settles
Multiple worksite locations on one filing	Per-site obligations, posting at each place, and the short-term placement allowance.
H-1B versus H-1B1 versus E-3, and how the wage rules differ	One wage rule, three classifications, and a table of what actually differs.
PERM prevailing wage, and how it differs from H-1B	The mandatory determination, the 100 per cent rule, and the timing difference that surprises people.
Amended petitions and material change	What counts as material, the geographic rule, and what happens to the wage when the job moves.
Wage level and the H-1B lottery, including what changed and what didn’t	What’s settled about the cap and the wage obligation, and the selection question we won’t answer.

5 guides. Wage figures throughout are read from ALC_Export.csv in OFLC_Wages_2026-27.zip, wage year 2026-27.

Pay, records and enforcement

The two-part wage obligation, the file an employer has to be able to hand over, the mistakes that surface on review, and how to check your own pay.

Guide	What it settles
Prevailing wage versus actual wage, and the two-part obligation	The two figures, which one binds, and why the internal one is the one that moves.
What happens when the offered wage is below the prevailing wage	How a shortfall arises, how it surfaces, and the range of consequences.
Common wage level mistakes on filings	Ten recurring errors, what each one looks like on the form, and the check that catches it.
What a public access file has to contain	The contents, the deadlines, and the one item employers most often can’t produce.
How to check whether you're being paid correctly as a visa holder	Five inputs, one lookup, one comparison, and what to do if the numbers don’t meet.

5 guides. Wage figures throughout are read from ALC_Export.csv in OFLC_Wages_2026-27.zip, wage year 2026-27.

Where the figures in these guides come from

Every wage figure quoted in a guide is read at build time from the Office of Foreign Labor Certification wage file for wage year 2026-27, covering 449,440 rows, 848 occupation codes and 530 areas. The pages here use 60 occupations and 40 areas of that, selected by certified filing volume in FY2025 Q1 to Q4. Nothing is estimated and nothing is typed in as a literal.

Guides are reference material, not legal advice. Only the Department of Labor issues prevailing wage determinations. ALC_Export.csv, OFLC_Wages_2026-27.zip, wage year 2026-27.