How the Service Contract Act wage determination affects a cleaning bid
On a federal cleaning or grounds contract, you don't choose the minimum pay. The Service Contract Act requires contractors and subcontractors on service contracts over $2,500 to pay at least the wages and fringe benefits the Department of Labor finds prevailing in the area (DOL: Service Contract Act). Those amounts are set out in a wage determination attached to the solicitation. Labor is most of the cost of cleaning, so this one document sets the floor under your price. This page explains how to find it, read it and carry it into a bid. For the overall bidding steps, see how to bid on federal janitorial contracts.
It explains how the rules work. It is not legal or payroll advice; the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division and your state's free APEX Accelerator can answer questions about your situation.
1. Find the wage determination for this contract
The Labor Department issues wage determinations for agencies to put into covered contracts, along with the required clauses (DOL Fact Sheet #67). For a covered contract over $2,500, the contracting officer includes the clause and the matching wage determination (FAR 22.1003-4). In practice:
- Look in the SAM.gov notice's attachments, or the solicitation's list of attachments, for "Wage Determination" followed by a number such as 2015-4043 and a revision number.
- Use the one attached to the solicitation you are bidding, at that revision. You can look any number up on SAM.gov wage determinations, but a newer revision doesn't change the solicitation unless the agency amends it.
- Check the area at the top: each determination lists the state and counties it covers, and it should match the place of performance.
2. Read the parts that matter for cleaning
A worked example: wage determination 2015-4043, revision 34 (last revised May 13, 2026), covers Chester, Derry, Londonderry and Windham in Rockingham County, New Hampshire, and was attached to a VA custodial solicitation in 2026. The figures below are from that document; yours will differ by area and revision.
- Occupation rates. Find the job titles your crew will hold. Here, 11150 Janitor is $21.12 an hour and 11210 Laborer, Grounds Maintenance is $22.77.
- Health and welfare. Paid on top of the hourly rate: here $5.55 an hour, up to 40 hours a week (or $222.00 a week, or $962.00 a month). This one also lists a second, lower figure marked "EO 13706", tied to that executive order's paid sick leave rule; the notes say when each applies.
- Vacation. Here, 1 week after 1 year of service, 2 weeks after 2 years, 3 weeks after 10 years. Service includes time with predecessor contractors doing similar work at the same federal facility, so a crew kept on from the last contractor brings its years with it.
- Holidays. Here, at least eleven paid holidays a year, named in the document.
- Notes. The end of the document covers the uniform allowance, any executive-order minimum wage that applies, and the "conformance" process for job titles not on the list, which goes through the contracting officer.
The fringe benefits are in addition to the hourly wage, not part of it (DOL Fact Sheet #67). You can meet them with equivalent bona fide benefits or with equivalent cash payments (FAR 52.222-41(d)); the Labor Department lists poor records of such cash payments as a common violation.
3. How it enters your price
The determination gives a minimum per hour; your price is per month or per year. The arithmetic that connects them, using the example above:
- Wage plus health and welfare: $21.12 + $5.55 = $26.67 for each hour a janitor is paid, before anything else.
- Paid hours not worked: eleven holidays at 8 hours is 88 hours a year per full-time employee, plus vacation as service builds. If the building still needs cleaning on those days, someone else covers those hours, so you pay for more hours than the schedule shows.
- Then the costs the determination doesn't list: payroll taxes, workers' compensation, supplies and equipment, supervision, insurance, overhead and profit.
How you set each of those is your own business decision. What the rules fix is the floor: a price built on less than the determination's wage and fringe for the hours the work needs either loses money or underpays the crew, and solicitations that include a price realism review are checking for exactly that.
4. When the incumbent's crew has a union contract
If the previous contractor had a collective bargaining agreement, the new contractor may not pay less than the wages and fringe benefits in that agreement, including accrued amounts and any increases it provides for (FAR 52.222-41(f)). Read the solicitation's attachments for it before you price: the agreement's rates can be above the area rates for the same county.
5. Option years and rate changes
Most cleaning contracts run a base year plus option years. Under FAR 52.222-43, the wage determination in effect at each anniversary or option start applies, and the contract price is adjusted for the actual increase in wages and fringe benefits the new determination requires, along with the related social security, unemployment tax and workers' compensation. Three things to know when bidding:
- You warrant that your prices contain no allowance for the increases this clause covers, so they are handled by adjustment, not built into option-year prices.
- The adjustment doesn't include overhead, general and administrative costs or profit.
- You must claim an increase within 30 days of receiving the new determination, unless the contracting officer extends that in writing.
6. After award
You must tell each employee what they are owed or post the wage determination, and display the Labor Department poster WH-1313 where the work is done (FAR 52.222-41(g)). Keep separate records of hours on the contract and other work for employees who do both; DOL lists this as a common problem (Fact Sheet #67).
Where we fit
Every open cleaning notice comes with its own wage determination, and the numbers differ from county to county. The free weekly list sends you the open janitorial and grounds solicitations plus upcoming rebids, your state first. The bid desk ($149 a month, 14-day trial) adds a go/no-go note on each one, and we can draft the response when you decide to bid.
Checked October 20, 2026 against the linked pages and wage determination 2015-4043 rev. 34. Wage determinations are revised often; the one attached to the solicitation you are bidding is the authority.