What an Electrician Costs Per Hour in Every State

Electrician, hourly cost, US

$103/hr2

Pay $34.37Low state LA $73High state IL $142

An electrician costs about $103 an hour in the US, before parts. That runs from $73 in Louisiana to $142 in Illinois. The electrician gets $34.37 of it2. The rest pays for benefits, the office, the trucks and the business itself3.

I'm Brodie Childers. I'm a licensed electrician, I own JCAB Electric in California, and I run Amplocally.com, a directory of California electricians. Most cost guides give you one national range. Here is a number for every state, with the math shown so you can check it.

Why the Popular Price Range Doesn't Help You

This Old House says electricians charge between $40 and $120 an hour "depending on the job and location," and that most tasks run $150 to $6004. It doesn't have a state table. Search for one and you mostly find what electricians earn, which is a different number from what you pay.

A wage table alone will fool you. The average electrician in California earns $41.28 an hour1, but that wage is only one part of what a contractor has to cover. So we built the missing piece from federal data: how much a contractor has to take in for every dollar it pays its field crew.

Where One Hour Goes

US electrical contractors told the Census Bureau what they spent in 2022. Take out parts, subcontractors and fuel, which are billed separately. What's left is the labor side of the business, and for every $1 paid to field workers it brought in $3.003. Apply that split to today's wage and one $102.95 hour breaks down like this:

The wage is $34.37 of that hour. The owner's line, $28.52, is what remains after the expenses the Census counts. It isn't all profit: an owner who isn't on the payroll gets paid out of it, and so do interest and income tax.

The Highest and Lowest States

Illinois is the most expensive state at $142 an hour. Louisiana is the cheapest at $73. Pay explains a lot of the gap, but not all of it. Oregon pays electricians the most in the country at $47.961, yet its low 2.59x multiple puts it at $124, behind Illinois.

Price Your Own Job

Pick your state and put in what you were quoted. The calculator gives you the labor cost at the pay level you choose, and if you enter a quote, it backs out what you're really paying per electrician hour.

Here's a worked example: a 3-hour job with $200 in parts. At the average hourly cost, that's $592 in California, $470 in Florida, $456 in Texas and $418 in Louisiana. Same work, $208 apart between the top and bottom states.

What Isn't in the Hourly Number

• Parts. US electrical contractors spent 30.9% of everything they took in on materials, about $0.50 for every $1 of labor3. A panel job and a light fixture swap are nowhere near each other, so get parts listed on the quote.
• Minimum charges. Electricians often set a minimum for small jobs, typically a flat rate equal to one to four hours4. That's why a 20-minute outlet swap doesn't cost 20 minutes.
• Urgent calls. This Old House puts a night or weekend service call at $100 to $200 or more on top of the standard fee4. Our number has no after-hours premium in it.
• Permits. They aren't in these numbers, so ask for the permit as its own line on the quote.

How to Read a Quote

1. Ask for labor and parts on separate lines. Without that split, you can't use this table or any other.
2. Ask how many electricians and how many hours. Two people on the job doubles the labor hours, which the calculator above lets you test.
3. Ask about the minimum and the trip fee before they drive out. Both change the math most on small jobs.
4. Check the license. In California every electrical contractor holds a C-10 license, and you can look it up yourself. I walk through that in How to Hire an Electrician Without Getting Burned. If you want to know what you've got before anyone shows up, start with How to Read Your Own Electrical Panel.

If your quote comes out far above the top of your state's range, ask what's driving it before you say no. The state numbers are averages, and your job may not be average.

Every State

Electrician pay is the May 2025 mean wage, with the 10th to 90th percentile under it1. Contractor multiple is the state's 2022 value added divided by field wages, with value added per field hour in 2022 dollars under it3. Hourly cost is pay times multiple. The range under it applies the same multiple to the 10th and 90th percentile wages.

State	Electrician pay per hour	Contractor multiple	Hourly cost
Alabama	$27.65$18 to $38	3.26x$96 in 2022	$90$59 to $123
Alaska	$43.29$28 to $59	2.44x$84 in 2022	$106$69 to $145
Arizona	$30.88$22 to $43	3.10x$97 in 2022	$96$68 to $134
Arkansas	$25.71$17 to $36	3.22x$91 in 2022	$83$54 to $115
California	$41.28$22 to $67	3.16x$118 in 2022	$131$71 to $213
Colorado	$31.88$22 to $45	3.00x$95 in 2022	$96$66 to $136
Connecticut	$37.21$23 to $50	2.93x$98 in 2022	$109$67 to $147
Delaware	$34.02$18 to $51	3.17x$104 in 2022	$108$58 to $161
District of Columbia	$42.72$25 to $60	n/a31 shops	Too few shops
Florida	$27.72$18 to $37	3.24x$95 in 2022	$90$60 to $120
Georgia	$29.37$18 to $40	3.70x$113 in 2022	$109$66 to $149
Hawaii	$44.65$22 to $60	2.81x$97 in 2022	$126$62 to $169
Idaho	$32.02$19 to $46	2.91x$86 in 2022	$93$54 to $134
Illinois	$44.34$24 to $59	3.20x$116 in 2022	$142$76 to $190
Indiana	$34.05$21 to $48	2.85x$97 in 2022	$97$59 to $136
Iowa	$30.38$19 to $43	2.86x$93 in 2022	$87$55 to $123
Kansas	$33.27$21 to $47	3.00x$93 in 2022	$100$62 to $140
Kentucky	$29.52$18 to $41	2.65x$83 in 2022	$78$47 to $108
Louisiana	$29.98$19 to $39	2.42x$74 in 2022	$73$45 to $95
Maine	$37.14$26 to $56	2.89x$85 in 2022	$107$75 to $161
Maryland	$36.28$22 to $57	2.66x$92 in 2022	$97$59 to $152
Massachusetts	$39.21$23 to $62	2.83x$104 in 2022	$111$64 to $174
Michigan	$35.50$21 to $50	3.00x$100 in 2022	$106$62 to $149
Minnesota	$38.86$23 to $57	2.96x$102 in 2022	$115$68 to $169
Mississippi	$27.88$18 to $37	3.13x$90 in 2022	$87$57 to $115
Missouri	$34.77$21 to $50	3.01x$103 in 2022	$105$63 to $151
Montana	$34.58$24 to $43	2.99x$89 in 2022	$103$71 to $129
Nebraska	$30.75$19 to $45	2.57x$81 in 2022	$79$50 to $116
Nevada	$36.40$22 to $58	2.95x$103 in 2022	$107$65 to $172
New Hampshire	$31.63$21 to $44	2.74x	$87$57 to $121
New Jersey	$41.68$23 to $63	2.95x$106 in 2022	$123$69 to $186
New Mexico	$28.66$18 to $42	2.65x$82 in 2022	$76$47 to $111
New York	$40.80$22 to $63	3.05x$107 in 2022	$124$67 to $193
North Carolina	$27.33$19 to $36	3.05x$86 in 2022	$83$59 to $110
North Dakota	$33.87$22 to $49	3.39x$113 in 2022	$115$76 to $165
Ohio	$33.09$20 to $48	2.80x$91 in 2022	$93$55 to $134
Oklahoma	$30.49$18 to $45	2.99x$87 in 2022	$91$54 to $133
Oregon	$47.96$29 to $63	2.59x$102 in 2022	$124$74 to $164
Pennsylvania	$36.43$22 to $59	2.97x$106 in 2022	$108$65 to $175
Rhode Island	$35.65$21 to $49	2.86x$90 in 2022	$102$59 to $141
South Carolina	$28.38$21 to $37	3.26x$95 in 2022	$92$69 to $122
South Dakota	$29.80$21 to $38	2.93x$88 in 2022	$87$63 to $113
Tennessee	$30.55$19 to $44	2.83x$87 in 2022	$86$54 to $125
Texas	$28.50$18 to $39	3.00x$96 in 2022	$85$55 to $116
Utah	$31.39$19 to $43	3.26x$94 in 2022	$102$63 to $140
Vermont	$35.27$23 to $64	2.62x$77 in 2022	$92$60 to $166
Virginia	$32.62$20 to $51	2.52x$82 in 2022	$82$49 to $128
Washington	$45.42$25 to $64	2.79x$107 in 2022	$127$70 to $180
West Virginia	$32.61$21 to $46	2.90x$87 in 2022	$94$61 to $132
Wisconsin	$35.49$22 to $49	3.04x$106 in 2022	$108$66 to $149
Wyoming	$35.99$23 to $50	2.84x$90 in 2022	$102$66 to $142
United States	$34.37$20 to $52	3.00x$100 in 2022	$103$61 to $156

District of Columbia has only 31 electrical contractor establishments in the Census file, too few for a fair multiple, so it has no hourly cost and isn't ranked. New Hampshire's 2022 hours work out to 2,898 per field worker a year, far above every other state, so we left out its per-hour figure. Its multiple doesn't use hours, so its hourly cost stands.

How We Got These Numbers

We used two federal files. The Bureau of Labor Statistics May 2025 wage survey gives electrician pay for each state1 and the US2. The 2022 Economic Census, the newest one, gives receipts, costs, wages and hours for all 81,249 electrical contractor establishments with payroll3.

The multiple is the Census "value added" line, which in this file equals receipts minus materials, subcontract work, fuel, power and land, divided by construction worker wages. As a check, the 2022 value added per field hour for the US was $99.68, using no BLS numbers at all. The 2025 wage times the multiple gives $102.95.

Three things to keep in mind. The multiple is from 2022 and we assume it has held, because the next Economic Census isn't out yet. It covers all electrical contractors, not just the ones who come to houses: 32% of receipts were work subcontracted in from other builders and 16% were on government projects3, so a home service shop can run differently. And Census counts a shop in the state where it's based, even when the crew works across a state line. The BLS wage covers electricians in every industry, not only contractors.