Plumbing labor cost: what plumbers earn in 20 metros, how to work out a labor quote, and what plumbing jobs are filed at

Plumber wages by metro, and what plumbing jobs are filed at

Wages: BLS OEWS May 2025, SOC 47-2152 Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters, as published on O*NET OnLine's local wage pages (read 23 October 2026); employees only, before benefits. Filed values: permits October 2023 to September 2026, the median of plumbing permits that carry a value. "Not recorded" means the city records no value on plumbing permits.

How to calculate plumbing labor cost

A labour line on a plumbing quote is hours × rate. You can test both halves.

Step 1: the wage floor. Find your metro's median wage in the table. That is what the plumber doing the work is paid an hour, before benefits.

Step 2: the employer's cost. Divide by 0.694. BLS's March 2026 employer cost survey puts construction-industry wages at $35.54 of $51.23 total compensation per hour worked (69.4%); the rest is paid leave, insurance, retirement and payroll taxes. At the national median, $30.67 ÷ 0.694 = $44.19 an hour. In the Chicago metro, $49.70 ÷ 0.694 = $71.61. The ratio is industry-wide, not plumbers alone, so it is an estimate.

Step 3: overhead and profit. The van, tools, liability insurance, the license, unbilled driving time, the office and a margin come on top. Shops do not publish these, so this is the part you cannot calculate; it is the gap between Step 2 and the rate on the quote.

Step 4: the hours. Ask how many hours the quote assumes and for whom (a licensed plumber, an apprentice, or both). Hours are the part of a quote you can question line by line.

Step 5: add the rest. Parts (and whether they are marked up), the permit fee, disposal of the old fixture, and any trip or minimum charge.

Then compare the total against what plumbing jobs are filed at in your city. A water heater, a repipe and a sewer line are very different jobs; our water heater repair vs replace guide and tankless vs tank guide cover the most common one.

What a whole plumbing job is filed at

The middle half of Cincinnati plumbing firms have a usual job between $2,500 and $7,000; in Sacramento County $6,500 to $11,900; in New York City $17,500 to $38,550. New York's figure is far above the rest, so compare a New York quote only with the New York range. Plumbing permits also close at very different speeds: the usual one went from issue to final in 8 days in Sacramento County, 10 in Cary and 234 in Cleveland.

Wages and filed values do not track each other. Saint Paul's plumbers are among the best paid in the table, yet its usual filed job ($2,500) is below Miami's ($4,900); each city's mix of jobs drives the filed figure.

Check a plumbing quote in five minutes

1. Ask for the labour hours, the hourly rate and the parts as separate lines, plus the permit fee.
2. Run Steps 1 and 2 above for your metro and see how far the quoted rate sits above it.
3. Find the plumber on your city's plumbing list here (for example Cincinnati or Sacramento County) and read its permits and finished share.
4. Check the license; our hiring a plumber guide has who licenses plumbers in 19 states, and do I need a permit for plumbing repairs says which jobs need one.

See every Cincinnati plumber by permit record →

What these numbers cannot tell you

BLS wages are for employees, not shop owners, and do not include benefits. The 0.694 ratio is the construction industry's, not plumbing's. Filed values are the plumber's own estimate, labour and parts together, and some cities' plumbing types include gas or sewer work. No figure here tells you how many hours a job takes. Austin, Raleigh, Columbus, Minneapolis, Bellevue and several other cities record no value on plumbing permits, and only 14.7% of Chicago's carry one.