No Texas agency publishes what electricians charge homeowners, so this page prints no job prices. The “average cost” figures that turn up in search come from companies that sell leads or services, not from any public body. None of the ones we read shows where its numbers come from.
What does exist is a short list of public numbers that sit inside every quote: what electricians are paid, what the state requires a contracting company to carry, what your city charges for the permit, and how sales tax works. Each figure below names its source and the date we read it.
The median electrician in Texas was paid $28.16 an hour in May 2025. That is the worker’s wage, not the price you pay.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey counted 76,770 electricians employed in Texas in May 2025. Their median pay was $28.16 an hour, or $58,570 a year. The mean was $28.50 an hour, or $59,280 a year.
The spread is wide. The lowest-paid tenth earned under $18.23 an hour. The highest-paid tenth earned over $38.61 an hour.
Nationally, the median for the same occupation was $30.38 an hour, or $63,190 a year. Texas sits below it.
(BLS OEWS, May 2025, occupation 47-2111 Electricians, read September 29, 2026.)
These are what an employer pays the person holding the tools. The company that sends that person to your house also pays for a master electrician, insurance and permits, among other costs. None of that is in the wage figure.
Nobody with authority to publish it publishes an electrician’s billing rate in Texas.
Texas Occupations Code Chapter 1305 decides who may do electrical work. It says nothing about what they charge. TDLR licenses companies and sets their insurance minimums. It does not collect or publish prices. The Comptroller tells you what is taxable, not what is reasonable.
So when you search “texas electrician hourly rate”, the numbers you see come from those companies. The wage above is the only rate a public body publishes, and it describes pay, not billing.
Texas requires every electrical contracting company to employ a master electrician and carry set minimum insurance. A quote from a real Electrical Contractor has to cover both.
Outside the exemptions the law lists, a person or business may not perform or offer to perform electrical work without “an appropriate license issued or recognized under this chapter” (Tex. Occ. Code §1305.151). One exemption covers an owner who lives in the home, only for work “not specifically regulated by a municipal ordinance” (§1305.003(a)(6)). For a company working on your house, that license is TDLR’s Electrical Contractor license.
TDLR’s application page sets three conditions that cost money:
The license lasts one year. TDLR says licenses “must be renewed annually.”
A company that quotes far below everyone else may be one that carries none of this. You can check. Ask for the Electrical Contractor license number and look it up on TDLR’s license search. Our Texas electrical license lookup guide walks through it.
(TDLR, Apply for a New Electrical Contractor License, read September 29, 2026.)
Each city sets its own electrical permit fee. In Houston (Harris County), city fees on a small job start at $124.62.
Houston publishes its fees item by item in its 2026 Building Code Enforcement Permit Fee Schedule. The lines a homeowner meets most:
The schedule says: “All permit fees are subject to the minimum and administrative fees.” So a small job in Houston starts at $91.06 plus $33.56, or $124.62 by our arithmetic, before any item fees push it past the minimum. Our Houston electrical permit guide lists every line. Skipping the permit is worse. The same schedule sets an investigation fee for unpermitted work of “$333.42 minimum or double fee whichever is greater.”
(City of Houston, 2026 Permit Fee Schedule, read September 29, 2026.)
Austin (Travis County) works differently. The city lists stand-alone “Electrical Repairs” and “Electrical Upgrade” permits, but its FY 2026-27 residential fee schedule, in effect since October 1, 2026 (Ordinance No. 20260812-006), has no line by either name. We print no Austin figure here. Our Austin electrical permit guide sets out what the city does publish.
For the other large cities, see the guides for San Antonio (Bexar County), Dallas (Dallas County) and Fort Worth (Tarrant County), or all of our permit guides.
One state law speaks to city fees. Texas Occupations Code §1305.201(f) reads: “A municipality or region may not collect a permit fee, registration fee, administrative fee, or any other fee from an electrician who holds a license issued under this chapter for work performed in the municipality or region. This subsection does not prohibit a municipality or region from collecting a building permit fee.” This page does not decide how any city’s permit fees fit that text.
The Comptroller says labor to repair or remodel a home is not taxable, so a sales tax line on the labor for a residential electrical job is worth questioning.
The Comptroller says it in Publication 94-116: “Labor to repair, remodel, or restore residential real property is not taxable.” The Comptroller does not name electrical work in that sentence. Its contractor audit manual lists “electrical wiring” and “breaker boxes” among the materials that become part of real property.
How materials are taxed depends on the contract:
So a residential invoice should show no tax line, or tax on materials and those listed services only. Ask about tax on the labor total, or on the whole job, before you pay.
A permit fee passed through to you and listed separately is not taxable either. The Comptroller’s audit manual says: “Fees charged by a city to a contractor are not taxable when passed on to the customer, as long as they are separately stated.”
This is the residential rule. Repair work on nonresidential property, such as a shop or an office, is taxable on the total charge.
(Texas Comptroller, Publication 94-116, and Audit Procedures for Contractors and Repairmen, April 2017, read September 29, 2026. Texas Tax Code §§151.0047 and 151.056.)
No public source prices a whole-house rewire in Texas, so we give no total. The permit fee, at least, scales with what you replace.
A rewire is priced by what is in the walls, how you reach it, and how many devices go back in. None of that has a public benchmark.
The permit side is public. In Houston (Harris County), the fee is built from the item counts listed above, with the minimum and administrative fees on top. A rewire that adds a panel or changes the service adds those lines.
Two other things apply to every rewire:
Ask each bidder whether the permit, the inspections and any service change are inside the number.
Two quotes for the same job often cover different things, and the cheaper one is often the one that left something out.
Put them on the same footing before comparing totals:
If you are adding a charger, our page on EV charger installation in Texas covers the permit, panel and utility side.
License data from the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, wage data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, tax guidance from the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, and fee data from the City of Houston and City of Austin, read September 29, 2026 (Austin’s fee schedule re-read October 1, 2026). Neither this site nor the information as presented here is endorsed by the State of Texas or any state agency.
More: Texas electrical cost guides. How to check a Texas electrical license.
Every figure on this page comes from one of the documents below, each published by the body that sets, measures or administers the thing it describes. We record the document’s own date and the date we read it, because published pages change without notice.
| Source | Document date | We read it |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025, Texas (state), 47-2111 Electricians; read through the BLS Public Data API, series OEUS4800000000000472111 with data types 01, 03, 04, 06, 08, 10, 11, 13, 15 | May 2025 estimates (series year 2025, period A01) | 2026-09-29 |
| U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS, May 2025, national, 47-2111 Electricians; read through the BLS Public Data API, series OEUN000000000000047211108 and OEUN000000000000047211113 | May 2025 estimates (series year 2025, period A01) | 2026-09-29 |
| TDLR – Apply for a New Electrical Contractor License (master electrician of record, insurance requirements, license term) | undated agency web page | 2026-09-29 |
| TDLR – License Search | undated state web page | 2026-09-29 |
| Texas Occupations Code ch. 1305 (§§1305.003(a)(6), 1305.151, 1305.159, 1305.201), official text, Texas Legislature (raw file tcss.legis.texas.gov/resources/OC/htm/OC.1305.htm) | current text; §1305.201 last amended by Acts 2017, 85th Leg., R.S., Ch. 285 (H.B. 3329), eff. September 1, 2017 | 2026-09-29 |
| Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts – Publication 94-116, Real Property Repair and Remodeling | revised 03/2007 (printed on the page as 94-116 (03/2007)) | 2026-09-29 |
| Texas Tax Code §151.0047 (definition of real property repair and remodeling) and §151.056 (contracts to improve real property), official text, Texas Legislature | current text as published by the Legislature | 2026-09-29 |
| Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Audit Division – Audit Procedures for Contractors and Repairmen (PDF) | April 2017 (printed in the page footer) | 2026-09-29 |
| City of Houston Building Code Enforcement – 2026 Permit Fee Schedule | titled 2026 Permit Fee Schedule; PDF created December 16, 2025; fees effective January 1, 2026 per the city’s 2026 Fee Increase Notice (as recorded on NE-J01) | 2026-09-29 |
| City of Austin – Residential Building Plan Review & Inspection Permit Fees, FY 2026-27 (PDF, 6 pages, linked from the Development Services Fees page) | FY 2026-27 schedule in effect; document footer: ‘Updated: 10/01/2026 – Effective 10/01/2026’; PDF created October 1, 2026 | 2026-10-01 (NE-J04 fact gate: all six pages read; no line containing ‘repair’ or ‘upgrade’) |
| City of Austin – Ordinance No. 20260812-006, fees, fines and other charges for Fiscal Year 2026-2027, with Exhibit A fee schedule (executed ordinance, scanned PDF, 247 pages) | passed and approved August 12, 2026; Part 9: ‘this Ordinance takes effect on October 1, 2026’; scanned copy created September 23, 2026 | 2026-10-01 (NE-J04 fact gate: Part 9 re-read on p.5; Development Services residential pages 98-101 read on the page images; no ‘Electrical Repairs’ or ‘Electrical Upgrade’ line) |
| Austin Development Services – Types of Permits (stand-alone ‘Electrical Repairs’ and ‘Electrical Upgrade’ permits) | undated city web page | 2026-10-01 (both permit names re-read) |
| Austin Development Services – Fees (‘The Fee Schedule for FY 2026-27 went into effect on Oct. 1, 2026.’) | undated city web page; on 2026-10-01 its section heading still read ‘FY25-26 Fee Schedules’ above that sentence, and its Residential link resolved to the FY 2026-27 schedule (context only; the body does not say what the Fees page posts) | 2026-10-01 |
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