The filing itself · Wage year 2026-27
The prevailing wage determination request, Form ETA-9141
A published wage table is a lookup. A determination is the department stating a figure for one described job. Only one of the two is something the department has to stand behind.
Read this firstThis is a computed reading of published federal data and published federal guidance, not legal advice. Only the Department of Labor issues prevailing wage determinations, and only the Department of Labor decides whether an obligation has been met. Where a rule below is our reading rather than a verbatim quotation, the text says so.
Form ETA-9141, the Application for Prevailing Wage Determination, is how an employer asks the Department of Labor to state the prevailing wage for a specific job in a specific place. It’s filed through the department's FLAG system and answered by the National Prevailing Wage Center. What comes back is a determination: an occupation code, a wage level, a wage, and a validity period, on a document issued by the department rather than assembled by the employer.
When it’s required and when it’s a choice
For a permanent labor certification case, obtaining a determination is part of the process. The regulations governing PERM wages, at 20 CFR 656.40, put the National Prevailing Wage Center in the middle of it, and the comparison with the H-1B route is drawn out in PERM prevailing wage, and how it differs from H-1B.
For a Labor Condition Application the position is different. An employer may look the figure up in the published tables and enter it on the form without asking anyone. Most do. The reason to ask anyway is the safe harbour: our reading of 20 CFR 655.731 is that an employer that obtains a determination from the department and pays it’s treated as having met the prevailing wage obligation in a Wage and Hour investigation, which a self-service lookup doesn’t achieve.
What the form asks for
- The employer, including its identifying numbers and contact.
- The job title, the occupation code the employer believes applies, and the duties in enough detail for the center to check that belief.
- The minimum requirements: education, experience, training, licenses, and any special skills or conditions.
- Whether the position supervises, and how many people.
- The worksite address, which is what sets the area.
- Whether an alternative wage source is being offered in place of the published tables.
The duties and requirements are the load-bearing part. They’re what the center reads to assign a level, and they’re the same text that would be read later if anyone questioned the level. Writing them to fit a wage rather than to describe the job is the single worst decision available at this stage.
What comes back
The determination states the occupation, the level, the wage, the area and a validity period on its face. That validity period is the operative date range for filing, and it’s not the same thing as the wage year: the tables move every 1 July, and a determination carries its own window. The distinction is set out in The wage year calendar, and when the figures change.
As an illustration of what a determination is choosing between, the published 2026-27 figures for Software Developers in New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ are the following. A determination picks one row and states it.
| Level | Hourly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Level I | $52.81 | $109,845 |
| Level II | $66.21 | $137,717 |
| Level III | $79.61 | $165,589 |
| Level IV | $93.01 | $193,461 |
Computed from ALC_Export.csv in OFLC_Wages_2026-27.zip, wage year 2026-27.
Practical notes
- Processing takes time and the queue length changes. The department publishes current processing times; plan against the published figure rather than against the last case.
- A determination that comes back at a higher level than expected is information, not an accident. Read the requirements you submitted and see what produced it.
- The determination and the documentation supporting it belong in the file. For an LCA that means the public access file, described in What a public access file has to contain.
- A determination answers the job as described. Change the job materially and the determination is describing something else, which runs into Amended petitions and material change.
Working out in advance what level a described job is likely to land on is the point of the Prevailing wage calculator, which shows the step-by-step reasoning rather than only the result. The reasoning follows How the four wage levels are determined.
More in the filing itself
- 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.
- 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.
All 24 guides are indexed at Guides. Wage figures throughout are read from ALC_Export.csv, wage year 2026-27.