Subbing out installs fits a roofing company that can’t keep a crew busy every week, because the sub’s price per square already carries his own payroll taxes and comp. Your own crew fits once there is steady work to keep it on roofs, or once you want to control how every install goes. Either way, the IRS decides whether a crew is really a sub by who controls the work and the money.
A sub’s price per square already carries his taxes and comp
A roofer on your payroll costs more than his wage. The employer pays 7.65% of wages in social security and Medicare tax and withholds the same from the roofer, while a properly classified sub pays both halves himself as self-employment tax.
At the BLS median roofer wage of $55,440, your share of that tax comes to about $4,241 a year. Federal unemployment tax adds $42 per employee with the full state credit, and state unemployment tax comes on top.
Workers’ comp is where roofing gets expensive. Washington publishes its state-fund rates by the hour: $5.7930 per hour worked for roof work this year, against $0.2223 for clerical office work. For a full-time roofer that comes to about $11,120 a year at base rate, though the worker pays part of the rate and a company’s claims history moves it. Other states price roofing comp as a percent of payroll through private carriers, so get a quote for the roofing class in your state before you compare.
A sales manager on Reddit says subs typically charge $75 to $125 a square, and that price carries the sub’s own version of every cost above. Compare total cost per square: add up a year of your crew’s wages, taxes, comp and insurance, then divide by the squares it installs, slow months included. Roofing Labor Rates per Square: What Sub Crews Charge and How They Get Paid covers what crews charge and how they get paid.
The IRS and the Labor Department judge a sub by who controls the work
The IRS sorts the evidence on worker status into three groups. One is whether you control what the worker does and how he does it. Another is how he is paid and who supplies the tools. The last is the relationship itself, including contracts, benefits and whether the work is a key part of your business.
Installing roofs is the core of a roofing company. That worried an owner on r/Construction in 2024, who asked whether he could still use 1099 crews alongside his W-2 employees.
If you treat an employee as a contractor with no reasonable basis, the IRS says you may be held liable for that worker’s employment taxes, and its relief provisions don’t apply. State unemployment, comp and wage laws can use their own tests.
In February 2026 the Labor Department proposed going back to its 2021 contractor test, whose two core factors are control over the work and the worker’s chance of profit or loss. It includes a roofing example: a worker joins a construction company’s roofing crew with no roofing skills, and the company trains him. There the skill factor points toward him being an employee. The proposal was not final as of October 2026.
A crew looks more like a sub when it brings its own tools and helpers, bids by the square, carries its own insurance and decides how to do the work. If you are hiring green workers and teaching them to shingle, put them on payroll.
In some states an uninsured sub’s comp lands on the company that hired him
Two owners on Reddit describe the annual comp audit billing them for subs without their own coverage. A contractor on r/GeneralContractor wrote, “You can 1099 them but they need their own liability and work comp.” An owner on r/smallbusiness said an audit treated underinsured subs as uncovered, and the carrier wanted three times the annual premium.
Florida and Washington put that duty on the hiring company by law. In Florida, a contractor who sublets work is liable for comp on the sub’s employees unless the sub has secured coverage, and must get proof of coverage or an exemption certificate from the sub. Washington makes whoever lets the contract primarily responsible for the premiums on that work, unless the sub is registered or licensed and meets the state’s independence conditions.
Texas lets most private employers go without comp. There, a sub’s crew does not count as the general contractor’s employees if a written agreement has the sub taking on an employer’s responsibilities. A covered contractor who hires a sub with no employees is treated as that sub’s employer. Contracts and government jobs can still require coverage, so have an attorney check the agreement’s wording.
Collect a current comp certificate or exemption from every crew before its first job. Put the expiry date on your calendar and keep the copy for the audit. Roofing Workers’ Comp and General Liability: What It Costs and How Audits Work covers how the audit runs.
A sub’s safety and immigration problems can still reach you
Under OSHA’s multi-employer policy, a company with general supervisory authority over a jobsite, including the power to make others correct a violation, counts as a controlling employer. It owes reasonable care, which is less than it owes its own employees, and it should inspect more often when a sub has a poor safety record. Fall protection was the most cited OSHA standard in fiscal 2025, and a serious violation can cost up to $16,550.
Immigration law also reaches through the subcontract. Using a subcontract to get the labor of workers you know are unauthorized counts as hiring them unlawfully. You don’t complete I-9s for a sub’s workers, but the 2025 civil penalty for a first offense was $716 to $5,724 per unauthorized worker.
Write down who supplies fall protection on each job and check it on the roof, more often for any crew with a poor safety record.
In some markets nearly every roofing company subs out
A general contractor who buys roofing in his market wrote that “9/10 roofing companies sub out to one of two crews an hour away.” The one company there with its own crew offered no workmanship warranty, he said. Someone hunting for a roofer says only a few of roughly 100 companies in their state had a real crew of their own, though all of them claimed one. An owner elsewhere says the opposite: most roofing companies near him run their own crews, except newer storm chasers.
If you run your own crew, show it: put the same crew in your job photos and back your own workmanship warranty in writing.
Your own crew pays once the work is steady
Per-square pay makes your labor cost rise and fall with what you sell, which suits a new company or one whose volume swings with storm season. Several people starting roofing companies on Reddit in 2026 planned to sell the roofs and sub the installs, one of them with general construction experience but little hands-on roofing.
Sub prices can change under you. One owner said in February 2026 that crews still willing to work after immigration enforcement were “charging double the amount per square.”
A Detroit owner went back to an in-house crew in July 2025, paying $40 an hour for shinglers and $25 for tear-off.
A payroll crew needs enough squares every week to keep it on roofs. In return you set the schedule and train to your own standard, which is the control that makes them employees in the first place.
A mix like the one the r/Construction owner wanted, a payroll crew sized to your steady weekly volume plus subs for the overflow, holds up only if the subs pass the control test on their own. When you are ready to hire, Hiring Roofing Installers and Foremen: Job Ads, Where to Post Them and What to Pay covers job ads and pay.
Check these before you pick a model
- Price a square both ways: the sub’s quote against your crew’s wages, payroll taxes, comp and insurance, divided by the squares it installs in a year.
- Get a comp quote for the roofing class in your state before you trust any number.
- For each sub, confirm he brings his own tools and helpers, bids by the square and decides how to do the work. Put anyone you train on payroll.
- Collect a comp certificate or exemption and a W-9 before the first job. If a sub doesn’t give a correct taxpayer number on the W-9, you must withhold 24% of what you pay him.
- File a 1099-NEC by January 31 for every sub you paid $2,000 or more in 2026.
- Write down who supplies and checks fall protection on each job.
- Read your own state’s comp rules, since Florida, Washington and Texas each handle subs differently.
Either model pays only when there are enough roofs to keep a crew busy, so it helps to know where homeowners can find you. Run the free Google Maps heatmap: pick your Google profile and a search, and in a few minutes you’ll see where you rank at 49 points around your office.