Texas Prevailing Wage

Texas requires prevailing wages on all public works construction regardless of contract value, so there is no dollar threshold to shelter behind when bidding. Under Government Code Chapter 2258, the contracting public body, not a single statewide schedule, sets the prevailing rate for the locality, either through its own local wage survey or by adopting federal Davis-Bacon rates. That means the rates can vary from one awarding authority to the next, and your first estimating step on any Texas public job is to pull the specific rate determination included in the bid documents and price every trade classification to it.

Certified payroll is required, so account for the weekly reporting burden and disciplined classification in your overhead. Texas also imposes overtime at 1.5 times the rate for hours worked over 40 in a week or over 8 in a day, which is a meaningful cost driver on accelerated or shift-based schedules; if your sequence pushes crews past eight hours daily, model that premium into your labor budget rather than discovering it during execution. Underbidding labor because you assumed straight time is a frequent and avoidable margin killer here.

Watch the enforcement exposure. Workers may file complaints directly with the contracting public body or the Texas Workforce Commission, and unpaid prevailing wages trigger back-wage liability plus penalties, with intentional violations carrying potential criminal consequences. Because the public body itself administers the rate and fields complaints, errors are caught close to the source. Confirm whether the awarding authority is using a local survey or Davis-Bacon rates, lock those numbers into your bid, and keep clean records from day one to protect both your payment and your eligibility for future Texas public work.