Where H-1B prevailing wages come from
In FY2026, 90% of LCAs set their prevailing wage from DOL's OES data and 8.4% from a private salary survey. A union contract's rate applies where one covers the job; otherwise the employer picks the source, and DOL's file says which.
By fiscal year
- FY2020 572,832 LCAs
- FY2021 521,088 LCAs
- FY2022 604,691 LCAs
- FY2023 510,798 LCAs
- FY2024 540,184 LCAs
- FY2025 566,291 LCAs
- FY2026 437,115 LCAs
- OES (DOL's wage data)
- A private salary survey
- A union contract
- A Service Contract Act wage
- A Davis-Bacon Act wage
- Not stated
| Fiscal year | OES (DOL's wage data) | A private salary survey | A union contract | A Service Contract Act wage | A Davis-Bacon Act wage | Not stated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2020 | 547,788 | 19,555 | 4,114 | 40 | 25 | 1,310 |
| FY2021 | 481,806 | 33,730 | 4,314 | 41 | 25 | 1,172 |
| FY2022 | 580,164 | 18,175 | 5,358 | 54 | 42 | 898 |
| FY2023 | 487,079 | 17,707 | 5,290 | 57 | 60 | 605 |
| FY2024 | 501,325 | 31,652 | 6,375 | 62 | 67 | 703 |
| FY2025 | 523,537 | 34,900 | 7,030 | 93 | 68 | 663 |
| FY2026 | 394,097 | 36,747 | 5,672 | 42 | 25 | 532 |
Survey publishers
- Radford (Aon) as Radford; Radford Global Compensation Database; Radford McLagan Compensation Database; Radford Global Technology Survey; Radford Global Compensation Database Custom Report 62,587
- Willis Towers Watson as Willis Towers Watson; Willis Towers Watson Data Services, Inc.; Towers Watson; Willis Towers Watson Data Services; WILLIS TOWERS WATSON 56,821
- Aon as AON; AON Hewitt; Aon plc; AON PLC; Aon 29,181
- Mercer as Mercer LLC; Mercer; MERCER; Mercer Benchmark Database; MERCER LLC 17,137
- Association of American Medical Colleges as AAMC; Association of American Medical Colleges; Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC); AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges); Association Of American Medical Colleges 7,793
- Pearl Meyer as Pearl Meyer & Partners, LLC; Pearl Meyer; Pearl Meyer & Partners LLC; PEARL MEYER & PARTNERS, LLC; Pearl Meyer 2021 AEC Compensation Survey Engineering 3,609
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics as U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; Bureau of Labor Statistics; U.S. DOL Bureau of Labor Statistics; BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS; US Bureau of Labor Statistics 1,406
- CUPA-HR as College and University Professional Association for HR; CUPA-HR; Coll. and Univ. Prof. Assoc. for Human Resources (CUPA-HR); College & University Professional Assoc. for Human Resources; CUPA HR 1,336
- DC SHRM as DC SHRM; DC SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management); DC Society for Human Resource Management; DC Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM); DC SHRM Compensation Survey 1,138
- D. Dietrich Associates, Inc. as D. Dietrich Associates, Inc.; D. DIETRICH ASSOCIATES, INC.; D. Dietrich Associates Inc.; D.Dietrich Associates, Inc.; D. Dietrich Associates 990
- American Institute of Architects as American Institute of Architects; The American Institute of Architects; THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS (AIA); American Institute of Architects (AIA); The American Institute of Architects (AIA) 845
- Dietrich Surveys as Dietrich Surveys; DIETRICH SURVEYS 590
- Dietrich as Dietrich; DIETRICH 495
- The Survey Group as The Survey Group; THE SURVEY GROUP 350
- OFLC Online Data Center as OFLC Online Data Center; OFLC ONLINE DATA CENTER; OFLC online data center; OFLC Online data center; OFLC online Data Center 255
Surveys named
- Radford Global Technology Survey 23,515
- Radford McLagan Compensation Database 19,220
- Radford Global Compensation Database 14,810
- General Industry Information Technology Report 4,109
- Radford Global Technology Survey (US) 3,909
- US MBD/TRS Mercer/Gartner IT Survey 3,832
- RADFORD GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY SURVEY 3,083
- Professional (Technical and Operations) Compensation Survey 2,610
- Radford Global Compensation Database Custom Report 2,587
- Towers Watson (Middle Mgmt., Professional & Support) Comp. 2,250
- Radford Global Technology Survey(US) 1,825
- General Industry Professional (Technical and Operations) 1,693
- Willis Towers Watson: Middle Management, Professional, and S 1,500
- Radford US Prevailing Wage (H-1B/PERM) Custom Report 1,430
- Survey of Resident/Fellow Stipends and Benefits Report 1,290
Employers that use private surveys most
LCAs whose prevailing wage came from a private survey, and that count's share of the employer's LCAs with a wage source on file.
- Google LLC 10,002 (15%)
- Apple Inc. 8,920 (27%)
- Amazon.com Services 6,418 (6.8%)
- JPMORGAN CHASE & CO. 5,078 (23%)
- Tesla, Inc. 3,840 (31%)
- Meta Platforms, Inc. 3,819 (14%)
- Intel Corporation 3,454 (16%)
- Wal-Mart Associates, Inc. 3,286 (15%)
- NVIDIA Corporation 2,413 (28%)
- LinkedIn Corporation 2,391 (30%)
- PayPal, Inc. 2,274 (32%)
- Cisco Systems, Inc. 2,159 (21%)
- DELOITTE & TOUCHE LLP 1,834 (18%)
- Ernst & Young U.S. LLP 1,819 (3.0%)
- Oracle America, Inc. 1,813 (26%)
- Palo Alto Networks 1,691 (55%)
- Adobe Inc. 1,602 (25%)
- Fidelity Technology Group 1,587 (15%)
- ServiceNow, Inc. 1,555 (32%)
- Qualcomm Technologies,Inc. 1,454 (11%)
- eBay, Inc. 1,304 (25%)
- Synopsys 1,293 (96%)
- Comcast Cable Communications, LLC. 1,205 (29%)
- Intuit, Inc. 1,177 (26%)
- Microsoft Corporation 1,137 (1.9%)
What this counts
Where a union contract covers the occupation, its rate is the prevailing wage. Otherwise, under 20 CFR 655.731(a)(2), an employer "is not required to use any specific methodology to determine the prevailing wage and may utilize a wage obtained from an OFLC NPC (OES), an independent authoritative source, or other legitimate sources of wage data." DOL's LCA file records the choice: the OES year, or the other source with the survey's publisher and name as the employer typed them. Spellings of one publisher are grouped (Radford, an Aon company, keeps its own line). These count 3,752,999 LCAs whose wage source this site has read so far, decided through 2026-06-30; the count grows as older quarters are read.
LCA disclosures: DOL quarterly LCA disclosure files (www.dol.gov) · data through Jun 30, 2026 · quarterly
What this data includes
LCA disclosures: Certified and denied H-1B labor condition applications only, with the wage offered.