Construction is governed by more regulatory regimes than almost any other industry — federal labor (Davis-Bacon, OSHA, EEOC, E-Verify), state lien + licensing laws, environmental (EPA, USACE, state DEQ), tax (1099/W-2/independent-contractor tests), insurance + bonding statutes, and increasingly Buy Clean / sustainability mandates. This page is the hub — it maps each regime to which contracts trigger it, what documents you need, and which Trueleveler page covers it in depth.
Each regime below is a separate set of forms, deadlines, and audit triggers. Most contractors are familiar with three or four; getting blindsided on one of the others usually means a six-figure surprise. The shorthand for each card: who regulates it, the headline document, and the page that covers it in depth.
Federal occupational safety + state OSHA equivalents. OSHA 300/300A/301 logs, 30-hour training for supervisors, written safety plans, near-miss reporting, fatality reporting within 8 hours.
Triggers: any covered employer with 11+ workersFederal DBA + state little-Davis-Bacon + CBA stacking. Wage determinations, certified payroll (WH-347), classification, fringe accounting, apprentice ratios.
Read the full guide →Title VII, ADA, EEO-1 reporting (50+ employees + federal contractor), OFCCP affirmative-action plans for $50K+ federal contracts. Goals for minority + female participation tracked at apprenticeship level.
Triggers: federal contracts > $10K (basic) / $50K (AAP)I-9 employment-eligibility verification on every hire. E-Verify mandatory for federal contractors + 25 states (AZ, GA, MS, NC, SC, TN, UT, others). 1099-vendor scrutiny rising under USCIS audits.
Triggers: federal contracts ≥ $150K + state mandatesEvery state has its own lien statute. California: 20-day preliminary notice. New York: 8 months to record. Texas: notice required by 15th of 2nd month following work. Miss the deadline = lose lien rights.
Lien waivers guide →General liability, workers comp (state-mandated), commercial auto, builder's risk, pollution liability. Federal projects ≥ $150K: Miller Act payment + performance bonds; state Little Miller Acts for state work.
Insurance guide →NPDES Construction General Permit (CGP) for site > 1 acre. Clean Water Act §404 (wetlands), §401 (water-quality cert). RCRA hazardous waste. Asbestos (NESHAP). Lead-paint (RRP rule).
Triggers: virtually every commercial projectFederal Buy Clean (GSA + DOT + DoD), state Buy Clean (CA, CO, NY, OR, NJ, MN, WA), LEED v5 embodied-carbon prereq, EPDs for covered materials.
Sustainable procurement →W-2 employee vs. 1099 independent contractor. IRS 20-factor test, state-specific ABC test (CA, NJ, MA). Misclassification = back FICA + state UC + employee benefits clawback + penalties.
Triggers: every payment to a workerContractor's license (state-issued, exam-required in 35 states), municipal business licenses, specialty trade licenses (electrical, plumbing, HVAC, low-voltage), occupational permits.
Triggers: any work in a licensing statePer-state public works codes — competitive bidding requirements, low-bid statutes, P3 procurement frameworks, design-build authorization, escalator clauses. Read before bidding.
RFP/RFQ guide →FAR Disputes Clause for federal contracts, AAA Construction Industry Rules for arbitration, state prompt-payment statutes, mediation-first stepped clauses. Path is contract-set.
Dispute prevention →Every contract triggers a subset of the twelve. Read the bid documents + spec division 01 with a compliance lens before pricing.
Certified payroll weekly, OSHA 300 yearly, EEO-1 yearly, preliminary lien notice within 20 days, NPDES NOI before disturbance. Each has its own clock.
"Compliance is everyone's job" = nobody's job. Assign safety, wage, EEO, and lien to specific named owners with backup.
Flow-down clauses for Davis-Bacon, E-Verify, EEO, OSHA training, Buy Clean. Subcontractor signs in writing; you collect their compliance docs at first payment.
Daily logs, JHAs/AHAs, toolbox talks, training certs, payroll, OSHA 300, E-Verify confirmations — every regime is a documentation regime first, a process second.
Cycle through the regimes — what's current, what's lapsed, what's coming. Better one self-flag per quarter than one DOL surprise per year.
Final lien waivers, retention release, OSHA 300A annual posting, certified payroll archive, Buy Clean rollup, AAP recordkeeping. Bundle for owner + your own archive.
Audits are documentary exercises. The contractor who can produce every document within the retention window from a clean filing system passes; the contractor with a banker's box and someone's laptop fails. Below — what each regime's audit looks at first.
Sources: OSHA penalty schedule (annual adjustment per 29 CFR §1903.15); DOL Wage & Hour Division 2023 enforcement statistics; USCIS I-9 audit summaries; EPA Clean Water Act §309 penalty schedule; FAR Subpart 9.4 debarment data. Worker-classification multipliers derived from IRS Section 3509 + state-level penalty add-ons.
Most compliance failures aren't bad intent — they're documentation gaps under operating pressure. Six projects active, four superintendents, twelve subs each, twelve compliance regimes — the math doesn't work with manual tracking. Trueleveler's engines were built for exactly this shape of problem.
Trueleveler reads contracts pre-signing, flags compliance regimes triggered, tracks subcontractor flow-down, and bundles closeout deliverables — across every active project. Founding 25 cohort: $99/mo locked for life, 25 spots, no card required to try.
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