Guides

What a subcontractor pay application needs (NC and SC checklist)

Updated October 29, 2026.

General information, not legal advice. Laws change and your contract matters. Check the linked statutes and talk to an attorney about your situation.

A pay application can be sent back for simple things: totals that don't add up, missing paperwork, or billing that doesn't match the contract. This checklist covers what a subcontractor's pay application usually needs in North Carolina and South Carolina. Items marked law come from a statute, linked to its text. Everything else is common practice, so check your subcontract and your GC's billing instructions.

The form

• The GC's required form. Use the summary page and continuation sheet your GC asks for, and submit by the date your subcontract sets (often the pay-application cutoff each month).
• Header details: project name, your company, the GC, application number, period-to date and application date.
• Schedule of values: each line with its scheduled value, previous work, work this period, materials stored, total to date, percent complete, balance to finish and retainage.
• Summary math: original contract sum, net change orders, contract sum to date, total completed and stored, retainage, total earned less retainage, previous certificates and current payment due. Every total should tie to the continuation sheet.

Change orders

• Bill only approved change orders unless your contract says otherwise, and add them to the schedule of values and contract sum.
• List each change order by number so the GC can match it.

Retainage

• Use the retainage rate in your subcontract.
• Law (NC private): retainage can't exceed the initial percentage the owner retained (G.S. 22C-4).
• Law (NC public): no retainage on projects under $150,000 total cost, a 5% cap, and your rate can't exceed the owner's (G.S. 143-134.1(b1)).
• Law (SC state jobs): no more than 3.5% of each progress payment (S.C. Code § 11-35-3030(4)).

Notices

• Law (SC): to be owed interest on late payment, you must notify the payer of S.C. Code § 29-6-50 when you request payment (S.C. Code § 29-6-50). Add the notice line to every SC pay app.
• North Carolina's prompt-payment statutes don't require a notice on the pay application (G.S. 22C-5, G.S. 143-134.1(b)).

Attachments your GC may ask for

These are contract requirements, not statutes, so check your subcontract:

• signature, and notarization if the form has a notary block;
• lien waivers (conditional for this payment, unconditional for the last one);
• certified payroll on jobs that require it;
• stored-materials documentation (invoices, insurance, photos);
• updated insurance certificates.

Before you send it

• Re-add every column and tie the summary to the continuation sheet.
• Check that this month's "previous" column matches last month's "total to date".
• Make sure the application number and period move forward.

Sources

• N.C. Gen. Stat. Chapter 22C (ncleg.gov)
• N.C. Gen. Stat. § 143-134.1 (ncleg.gov)
• S.C. Code Title 29, Chapter 6 (scstatehouse.gov)
• S.C. Code Title 11, Chapter 35 (scstatehouse.gov)