H1B Prevailing Wage: How DOL Determines Your Level

Behind every H-1B salary number sits a legal floor: the prevailing wage. It decides the minimum an employer can pay you, it produces the four wage levels everyone now talks about, and since February 2026 it feeds directly into lottery odds. Yet most explanations stop at "DOL sets it." This one goes one level deeper — where the numbers actually come from, how they get updated, and where employers go wrong. To see the prevailing wage thresholds for your own role, check your wage level →.

The legal requirement in one paragraph

The Immigration and Nationality Act (§ 212(n)) requires an H-1B employer to pay the higher of two figures: the actual wage it pays other workers with similar experience and qualifications in the same job, or the prevailing wage for the occupation in the area of intended employment. The same concept runs through H-1B1, E-3, and PERM. The policy goal is simple: hiring a foreign worker must not undercut U.S. wages. Everything below is the machinery for computing that floor.

OEWS: the survey under everything

The data source is the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program, run by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. OEWS surveys roughly a million-plus establishments on a rolling cycle and publishes wage estimates — mean, median, and percentile distributions — for ~800 occupations, cut by:

• National and state totals
• Metropolitan areas (e.g., San Jose–Sunnyvale–Santa Clara)
• Nonmetropolitan areas

New OEWS data publishes annually (the May 2025 estimates landed in spring 2026), and DOL's Foreign Labor Certification program reloads its prevailing wage tables around July 1 each year. That annual refresh matters: thresholds are living numbers. A salary that cleared Level II last July can sit at Level I this July if local wages rose.

One technical note: OEWS publishes standard percentiles (10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, 90th). It does not publish the 17th, 34th, or 67th directly, so DOL derives the Level I, II, and IV values from the published distribution. That is why you will sometimes see "approximately 17th percentile" in official-adjacent writing.

From survey to four levels

DOL collapses each occupation-area wage distribution into four tiers:

Level	DOL label	Current percentile basis	Typical role profile
Level I	Entry	~17th percentile	Routine work, close supervision
Level II	Qualified	~34th percentile	Moderate complexity, some judgment
Level III	Experienced	50th percentile (median)	Independent work, sound judgment
Level IV	Fully competent	~67th percentile	Broad discretion, expert-level

The mapping key is SOC code + area. SOC (Standard Occupational Classification) pins down the occupation — 15-1252 Software Developers versus 15-1251 Computer Programmers are different lines in the table, with different thresholds. Area pins down the labor market. The same SOC code can differ by 50%+ between metros.

So "the prevailing wage" is never one number. It is a grid: occupation × location × level × year.

A proposed DOL rule published in March 2026 would raise the percentile targets themselves (17→34, 34→52, 50→70, 67→88). It is proposed, not final — details and status in DOL Proposed Rule: Wage Percentile Changes.

The FLC Wage Search — and a faster way

The official lookup tool is DOL's FLC Data Center Wage Search: pick an area, pick an occupation, get the four wage levels (annual and hourly). It is authoritative and free, and it is what employers and attorneys cite.

It is also slow, session-based, and gives you no context. Our wage level calculator runs on the same OEWS data and adds what the official tool lacks: SOC autocomplete from plain job titles, metro→state→national fallback when an area has no OEWS estimate, the exact dollar gap to the next level, and a direct handoff to the lottery odds simulator.

A note on formal determinations. Employers can also request an official Prevailing Wage Determination (PWD) from DOL's National Prevailing Wage Center. A PWD is optional for H-1B but standard practice for PERM, and it takes weeks to arrive — which is why most H-1B LCAs cite the published OEWS tables directly. The tradeoff: a PWD gives the employer a government-confirmed wage number; the self-service tables give speed.

Where the level enters the H-1B process: the LCA

Before an H-1B petition exists, there is a Labor Condition Application (Form ETA-9035). On it, the employer attests to:

• The offered wage and pay unit
• The prevailing wage for the SOC code and worksite, and its source
• The wage level assigned (I–IV)
• Working conditions and notice requirements (internal posting or notice to the bargaining representative)

DOL's OFLC certifies complete, non-obviously-inaccurate LCAs — typically within seven working days. Certification is a paperwork check, not an investigation; enforcement happens later, on complaint or audit. The certified LCA then accompanies the USCIS petition, and since 2026 the same SOC/location/level logic declared at registration is expected to stay consistent through the petition.

After certification, the data goes public. OFLC publishes disclosure files every quarter — employer, job title, wage, level, worksite, status. Those certified LCAs filed are the raw data behind the H1B Levels database, which is why you can look up what a specific employer attested for a specific role instead of relying on self-reported salary sites. A filing history shows a company has gone through the process; it does not mean any company will sponsor you for a given role.

The underreporting trap — and why 2026 raised the stakes

Assigning a level lower than the job warrants is the classic violation, and the classic rationalization is "the LCA got certified, so it was fine." That logic never held — certification is not adjudication — and DOL's Wage and Hour Division has long been able to order back wages, civil money penalties, and debarment (typically one to three years out of the program) for willful prevailing wage violations.

The weighted lottery added a second exposure. The level now does double duty: it sets the pay floor and the number of lottery entries. That creates two new failure modes:

• Inflating the level for entries. A registration declaring Level III for a job that is genuinely Level I work invites scrutiny when the LCA and petition follow — and the wage must actually be paid at the Level III threshold if the worker is selected.
• Registration-petition drift. Dropping the level between March registration and petition filing is exactly the pattern the rule's consistency provisions are built to catch.

For workers, the practical takeaway is not to police your employer — it is to know your number. If your offer letter says $95,000 and the Level II threshold for your SOC and metro is $98,000, your registration is going in at Level I whether anyone says so or not. Better to know that in July than to discover it in April.

What actually determines your level, restated

1. SOC code — the occupation classification, chosen from the job duties, not the title.
2. Work location(s) — metro first, state/national fallback; multiple worksites use the lowest applicable level.
3. Offered wage — compared against the four thresholds; your level is the highest threshold it meets.
4. OEWS vintage — thresholds refresh annually, usually effective July 1.

You can check all four in under a minute with the wage level calculator, then see what the level means for your chances in the odds simulator. For the four-level system itself, see H1B Wage Levels Explained; for the selection rule that made levels matter, H1B Weighted Lottery Explained.

Frequently asked questions

What is the H-1B prevailing wage? The minimum salary an employer must pay an H-1B worker for a given occupation and location, set by DOL from BLS OEWS survey data. The employer owes the higher of the prevailing wage or its own actual wage for comparable employees.

How does DOL calculate the four levels? By mapping the OEWS wage distribution for each occupation and area to percentiles: ~17th (Level I), ~34th (II), 50th/median (III), ~67th (IV). Values refresh annually as new OEWS data publishes.

What if an employer underreports the level on an LCA? The correct prevailing wage is still owed. DOL can impose back wages, civil penalties, and debarment for willful violations — and since 2026, a level inconsistent with the registration and petition adds USCIS scrutiny under the weighted lottery.

Sources

• BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program: https://www.bls.gov/oes/
• DOL Foreign Labor Certification Data Center, Wage Search: https://flag.dol.gov/wage-data/wage-search
• DHS final rule on weighted selection (registration-petition consistency), December 29, 2025: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-12-29/pdf/2025-23853.pdf
• SalaryTruth: OEWS percentile mapping and interpolation methodology: https://www.salarytruth.org/prevailing-wage/mechanical-engineer/nashville
• Boundless: DOL 2026 proposed prevailing wage rule overview: https://www.boundless.com/blog/dol-h1b-prevailing-wage-nprm-2026

This site is an independent data tool and is not affiliated with any government agency. Nothing on this site constitutes legal advice or immigration advice. Lottery odds shown are statistical estimates based on DHS-published figures and assumptions; actual outcomes depend on the annual registration pool and USCIS processing. Consult a licensed immigration attorney for advice about your specific situation.

Data source: U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC) disclosure files, updated quarterly. LCA filing data reflects applications certified by DOL; an LCA is a labor condition application and does not by itself constitute an approved H-1B petition or an employment offer. Wage level thresholds are derived from BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS). Last data update: Q2 FY2026.