An employer can't file a PERM application until the Department of Labor has told it what the job pays. That number is the prevailing wage. It isn't negotiated, and the person who will hold the job has nothing to do with it. DOL builds it from a wage survey, an occupation code and a geography. Here's how each one works. To see DOL's four levels for a job and area, use PERM Tracker's free wage level lookup, which reads them from DOL's own wage search.
What DOL is actually being asked
The employer files Form ETA-9141. It describes one job and leaves the person out. It gives the duties, the education and experience required, the worksite address, and how many people the role supervises. DOL reads that description and answers with a single wage.
That wage is a floor. The employer can offer more, and usually does. It can't offer less.
Where the number comes from
Unless something displaces it, the source is the wage component of the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey, run by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 20 CFR 656.40(b)(2) names it directly and says the prevailing wage is the arithmetic mean of the wages of workers similarly employed in the area of intended employment.
Two phrases in that sentence do most of the work.
Similarly employed means DOL has to decide what occupation the job is before it can price it. Its staff pick an O*NET-SOC code by comparing the whole job description against the tasks and knowledge listed for each occupation. The guidance says the code "should not be based solely on the title of the employer's job offer", and that a role straddling two occupations defaults to the higher paying one.
Area of intended employment is defined at 20 CFR 656.3 as the area within normal commuting distance of the worksite address. The same job in a different metro falls in a different survey cell and gets a different wage.
Older DOL documents call the survey OES, newer ones OEWS. It's the same survey, renamed in 2021.
What the four wage levels mean
The survey produces four numbers for each occupation and area, because the statute requires it: a government survey used for prevailing wage has to give at least four levels "commensurate with experience, education, and the level of supervision" (8 U.S.C. 1182(p)(4)).
DOL's prevailing wage guidance describes them this way:
| Level | Name | The worker it describes |
|---|---|---|
| I | Entry | Basic understanding of the occupation. Routine tasks, little judgment, close supervision. |
| II | Qualified | A good understanding through education or experience. Moderately complex tasks, limited judgment. |
| III | Experienced | A sound understanding plus special skills. Exercises judgment, may coordinate or supervise staff. |
| IV | Fully competent | Plans and conducts work independently, solves unusual and complex problems, receives technical guidance only. Usually has management responsibility. |
Behind the label is a worksheet with strict rules. Every request starts at Level I. Points are added for experience above the range the occupation normally calls for and for education above what it usually requires. Special skills the O*NET description doesn't already cover add points too, and so do supervisory duties. The points are summed, and anything above four is capped at Level IV.
Two details are easy to miss. Education and experience are each counted once, so a degree can't be claimed as equivalent experience in one step and as education in the next. And supervision earns no point when supervising is a customary duty of the occupation, because those survey wages already account for it.
DOL also tells its own staff that the process "should not be implemented in an automated fashion" and that judgment applies. Keep that in mind before treating a level as arithmetic.
Why two similar jobs get different numbers
Three inputs set the number, and none of them is about the candidate. Adjacent-sounding roles sit in different survey cells: across certified PERM cases the median committed wage is $139,027 for Software Developers and $128,939 for Computer Systems Analysts. Each occupation is then priced against local employers only. And a job written as entry level lands nowhere near the same job written with a master's requirement and five direct reports.
So when a colleague's number comes out higher, DOL didn't judge the two people differently. It only ever saw two job descriptions. The full distribution by occupation shows how wide the spread gets.
How long a determination stays valid
The validity period depends on the date DOL issues the determination. 20 CFR 656.40(c) says the validity period can never be less than 90 days or more than one year from the determination date, and DOL anchors it to the wage year ending 30 June.
| Determination issued | Valid until | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| 1 January to 1 April | 30 June of the same year | 90 to 180 days |
| 2 April to 30 June | 90 days from the determination date | 90 days, flat |
| 1 July to 31 December | 30 June of the following year | 181 to 364 days |
The seam matters more than the rule. A determination issued on 30 June 2026 is good for 90 days. One issued the next morning is good for 364. Recruitment has to finish inside that window, the 30-day job order and the 30-day quiet period included. So the side of the line a determination lands on decides whether the schedule is comfortable or tight. The deadline calculator works the rule out from a determination date.
When the survey isn't the source
There are three exceptions, all in the same regulation.
- A collective bargaining agreement negotiated at arm's length controls. Its rate is the prevailing wage.
- The employer may submit its own survey. If it qualifies and gives a median but no arithmetic mean, the median is used.
- For universities, affiliated nonprofits, and nonprofit or government research organizations, the wage level counts only employees at institutions of that kind in the same area. It's why an academic post and an industry post with the same title in one city can be far apart.
How long the answer takes to arrive
DOL runs two wage-request queues, one for wages from the OEWS survey and one for every other source, and they move at different speeds. By our daily check of DOL's case status on November 9, 2026, DOL is deciding PERM wage requests filed on August 4, 2026, about 3 months after they were filed. DOL's own table, dated September 30, 2026, names June 2026. The processing times page carries both of DOL's queues with the date DOL published them.
If you have a P- number, the case status lookup checks it against DOL's own record, pending requests included.
What this can't tell you
This guide can't tell you why a determination came out at its level or whether a level is right for a job. It also can't say which queue a request is in, how fast DOL clears the backlog, or what the employer will pay.
- Why a determination came out at the level it did. DOL publishes the wage without the worksheet. Nobody outside the National Prevailing Wage Center sees the points assigned or the reasoning.
- Whether a level is right for a given job. That's a legal judgment about a job description, and it's what immigration counsel is for. Nothing here is advice.
- Which of the two queues a request is in. DOL doesn't put it on the case record, so an estimate has to cover both.
- How fast DOL clears the backlog. It publishes the size of the pile but not the rate it moves. Where a date is estimated on this site it's graded against real decisions on the estimate scorecard.
- What the employer will actually pay. The prevailing wage is a floor in a federal filing. The offer can be higher, and the eventual salary is a separate matter again.
Related
- Track a prevailing wage request, the companion walkthrough
- Wage request search, to find a request by employer or job title
- Prevailing wage queue calculator, month by month from DOL's published backlog
- Methodology, where each figure comes from and how often it's refreshed
