Data checked · source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics
What plumbers charge per hour in the US
The wage numbers below are US government data. The billed rates are our estimate built on top of them, using a formula we publish in full.
The median plumber in the United States earned $30.67 an hour in May 2025. A homeowner or building owner typically sees a billed rate of roughly $68–$98 an hour, because the shop also has to cover payroll taxes, insurance, vehicles, and profit. In San Jose it is $114–$165. In Tampa it is $54–$78.
That is the answer to the question as asked. It is probably not the answer to the question you meant. Across the five plumbing jobs we have priced line by line, the labour part of the bill came to between 9% and 22% of the total. The hourly rate is real. It is not what decides your invoice.
How much does a plumber charge per hour, and what that rate actually covers
Every plumbing job on this site is broken into lines: what the equipment costs, what the parts cost, how many hours the work takes, what the permit costs, what disposal costs. Because the labour line is separated out, we can show how much of a real plumbing bill the hourly rate is actually responsible for.
| Job | Hours | Labour | Full job | Labour share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Water heater replacement | 2–5 | $136–$489 | $653–$3,359 | 15–21% |
| Sump pump install | 1–8 | $68–$783 | $676–$8,329 | 9–10% |
| Water softener install | 2–8 | $136–$783 | $1,200–$5,000 | 11–16% |
| Tankless water heater install | 2–16 | $136–$1,565 | $1,490–$10,290 | 9–15% |
| Sewer lateral replacement | 8–56 | $542–$5,479 | $2,500–$25,000 | 22% |
The pattern holds across all five. Labour is the smaller part of the bill, usually much smaller. A sewer lateral is the most labour-heavy job we price and labour is still about a fifth of it. On a sump pump install it is nine or ten per cent.
This is why two quotes for the same job can differ by thousands while both plumbers charge a similar rate per hour. The difference is the equipment specified, the parts list, and how many hours the job is scoped at.
If you are holding a quote and trying to work out whether it is reasonable, the hourly rate is the least useful number on it. Ask which equipment is specified and how many hours are scoped. Those two move the total.
Why the billed rate is not the wage
People often compare a technician's wage to their invoice and assume the shop is gouging them. The gap is real, and most of it is not profit.
A shop pays the wage, then payroll taxes, workers' compensation, liability insurance, health coverage, a truck, fuel, tools, parts inventory, a dispatcher, software, and the hours the technician spends driving rather than working. Those costs land on the billed hour.
We model it like this, and you can check our arithmetic:
Billed rate = wage × 1.3 (labor burden) × 1.7–2.45 (overhead and profit)
That works out to 2.21× to 3.19× the wage. For the US median plumber wage of $30.67, that is $68 to $98 an hour. Small owner-operators land near the bottom. Large shops with dispatchers, financing and warranties land near the top.
The multiplier is our published assumption, not a government figure. We explain where it comes from and what would change it on the methodology page.
US wage spread for plumbers, May 2025
| Percentile | Hourly wage | Typical billed rate |
|---|---|---|
| 25th | $24.13 | $53–$77 |
| 50th — median | $30.67 | $68–$98 |
| 75th | $40.92 | $90–$131 |
Wages: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, SOC 47-2152 — Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters, May 2025. Billed rates are FieldPricing estimates.
Plumber rates by metro area
Wages for the same trade vary by more than 2.1× across US metro areas. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara pays the most in our sample at $51.71 an hour; Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater pays the least at $25.00. The index column compares each metro to the national median, so 120% means wages there run 20% above the US figure.
| Metro area | Median wage | vs US | Typical billed rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA | $51.71 | 169% | $114–$165 |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | $49.70 | 162% | $110–$159 |
| Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI | $48.86 | 159% | $108–$156 |
| Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA | $48.56 | 158% | $107–$155 |
| Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH | $46.52 | 152% | $103–$148 |
| Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA | $45.78 | 149% | $101–$146 |
| Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI | $41.53 | 135% | $92–$132 |
| Milwaukee-Waukesha, WI | $40.72 | 133% | $90–$130 |
| Providence-Warwick, RI-MA | $38.37 | 125% | $85–$122 |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | $37.79 | 123% | $84–$121 |
| San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | $37.44 | 122% | $83–$119 |
| Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT | $37.11 | 121% | $82–$118 |
| St. Louis, MO-IL | $37.02 | 121% | $82–$118 |
| Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood, IN | $37.01 | 121% | $82–$118 |
| Kansas City, MO-KS | $36.61 | 119% | $81–$117 |
| Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD | $35.99 | 117% | $80–$115 |
| Louisville/Jefferson County, KY-IN | $35.91 | 117% | $79–$115 |
| San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA | $34.86 | 114% | $77–$111 |
| Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV | $34.55 | 113% | $76–$110 |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | $34.19 | 111% | $76–$109 |
| Pittsburgh, PA | $33.70 | 110% | $74–$108 |
| Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom, CA | $31.35 | 102% | $69–$100 |
| Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN | $31.33 | 102% | $69–$100 |
| Salt Lake City-Murray, UT | $31.15 | 102% | $69–$99 |
| Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA | $30.73 | 100% | $68–$98 |
| Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO | $30.72 | 100% | $68–$98 |
| Albuquerque, NM | $30.72 | 100% | $68–$98 |
| Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ | $30.65 | 100% | $68–$98 |
| Columbus, OH | $30.41 | 99% | $67–$97 |
| Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD | $30.38 | 99% | $67–$97 |
| Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX | $30.20 | 98% | $67–$96 |
| New Orleans-Metairie, LA | $30.03 | 98% | $66–$96 |
| Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk, VA-NC | $29.75 | 97% | $66–$95 |
| Richmond, VA | $29.56 | 96% | $65–$94 |
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX | $29.47 | 96% | $65–$94 |
| Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | $29.45 | 96% | $65–$94 |
| Raleigh-Cary, NC | $29.10 | 95% | $64–$93 |
| Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, TN | $28.90 | 94% | $64–$92 |
| Las Vegas-Henderson-North Las Vegas, NV | $28.70 | 94% | $63–$92 |
| Oklahoma City, OK | $28.44 | 93% | $63–$91 |
| Jacksonville, FL | $28.33 | 92% | $63–$90 |
| Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC | $28.22 | 92% | $62–$90 |
| Memphis, TN-MS-AR | $28.22 | 92% | $62–$90 |
| Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA | $28.07 | 92% | $62–$90 |
| San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX | $27.97 | 91% | $62–$89 |
| Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL | $27.77 | 91% | $61–$89 |
| Charleston-North Charleston, SC | $27.58 | 90% | $61–$88 |
| Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL | $26.62 | 87% | $59–$85 |
| Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL | $25.00 | 82% | $55–$80 |
49 metro areas. Source: BLS OEWS, May 2025, SOC 47-2152. Metros where BLS suppressed the figure are omitted rather than estimated.
Why San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara pays 107% more than Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater
Three things move a trade wage more than anything else: local cost of living, whether the metro's construction market is unionised, and how much competing work is bidding for the same people. A plumber in a high-cost coastal metro is not more skilled than one in the Midwest. The wage follows what it costs to live there and what else that person could be doing instead.
For customers this matters in a specific way. The labour half of a quote scales with local wages; the material half mostly does not. A job that is 60% materials will look far more similar across the country than a job that is mostly labour. Drain clearing, water heater swaps, repipes, and fixture installs sit at different points on that scale, which is why some quotes travel and some do not.
What we have not priced
Four things move a plumbing bill. We have not measured any of them, and we will not guess.
A call-out or minimum charge. Most shops bill a fixed amount to send a van, whether or not any work happens. We have not found a source for what that figure looks like across the market, so we have not put a number on it.
Emergency, evening and weekend rates. These are real and they are usually a multiplier on the figures above. We do not know what the multiplier is.
Flat-rate pricing. A lot of residential plumbing is quoted per job from a price book rather than per hour, which means the hourly rate never appears on your invoice at all. How common that is, we cannot say from published data.
Commercial versus residential. Commercial plumbing generally bills higher than residential. The government wage data does not separate the two — plumbers in both work under the same industry classification — and we have not found a source that splits them credibly, so we have not put a number on it.
If you have a price sheet from a plumbing business and are willing to share it, we will price these properly and say where the number came from. Tell us.
How to use these numbers
Two honest warnings before you take a quote apart with this page.
An hourly rate is not a job price. Most residential work for drain clearing, water heater swaps, repipes, and fixture installs is quoted flat-rate, not hourly. The shop prices the task, not the clock. This page tells you whether the labor component of a quote is plausible for your area — it does not tell you what a specific job should cost.
A minimum charge is normal. Most shops bill a one to two hour minimum plus a trip or diagnostic fee, often $61–$131 before any work starts. A short visit will not cost one hour of the rate above.
What this page is good for: sanity-checking a rate someone quoted you, comparing what you are paying against your own metro, and understanding why the same job costs noticeably more in San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara than in Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater.
Where these numbers come from
- Wages — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 release, retrieved through the BLS public API on August 13, 2026. This is US federal government data and is in the public domain.
- Occupation definition — Standard Occupational Classification 47-2152.
- Billed-rate multiplier — FieldPricing model. Published in full on our methodology page so you can disagree with it.
- Labour share table — arithmetic on our own job pages. Each figure is the labour line and the total from that job's cost breakdown; the sources for both are given on those pages.
We update wages once a year when BLS publishes, and we say on every page when we last checked. If you think a number here is wrong, tell us — we log every correction with the date.