Electrician hourly rate: how much to charge per hour

Your hourly rate is your yearly costs plus your pay, divided by billable hours, plus a margin. In our example that comes to about $77 an hour.

Copying the shop across town is the quickest way to get it wrong. Their overhead, their crew and their pay target aren't yours.

1. 1Add up a year of business costs.
2. 2Add the pay you want before tax.
3. 3Divide by the hours you can bill to get your break-even rate.
4. 4Add a margin, then set your service call fee, minimum charge and flat rates from it.

Then compare the result with what homeowners pay locally. Angi notes that urban electricians typically charge $100 or more an hour, against roughly $50 in rural areas, so a national average only gets you in the right range.

Our example electrician spends $24,500 a year before paying themselves. Go through the last 12 months of statements and list:

• Truck or van: payment, commercial auto insurance, registration, maintenance and fuel.
• Tools and test equipment: meters, testers, benders, fish tapes and replacements.
• Insurance: general liability and, once you hire, workers' comp.
• Licensing: your state or local electrical license, renewals, continuing education on code changes, and any bond.
• Permit fees you can't pass straight through on every job.
• Phone, estimating and invoicing software, and your bookkeeper or CPA.
• Marketing: website, Google Business Profile, lead sites and truck lettering.

Licensing is set state by state, and often city by city, so check your own board for renewal fees and continuing education hours.

Permits matter on bigger jobs. Angi puts a building permit at $75 to $150 depending on location, with rewiring typically needing a permit and a safety inspection. Decide whether you show it as a separate line or build it into the price.

Our example electrician bills 1,344 of 1,920 working hours, or 70%. Quoting, picking up material, driving and paperwork fill the rest.

This is the number most people guess too high. Count it from two normal weeks:

1. 1Write down every hour you worked.
2. 2Mark the hours a customer paid for.
3. 3Divide the second by the first and use that share in your sum.

It's also why your rate should be well above a wage. The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median wage of employed electricians at $30.38 an hour, or $63,190 a year, in May 2025. That's pay to an employee, who doesn't fund the truck, the tools or the unbilled hours.

Self-employment tax is 15.3% of your net earnings, so build your pay figure before tax. The IRS rules for 2026:

• Self-employment tax: 15.3%, split into 12.4% for Social Security and 2.9% for Medicare, owed once net earnings reach $400.
• Social Security applies to the first $184,500 of combined wages and net earnings for 2026.
• Estimated tax: payments during the year are generally required if you expect to owe $1,000 or more.
• Federal income tax on top, plus state income tax in most states.

Whether you charge sales tax on labor, materials or both depends on your state, so check with your state's revenue department or your CPA.

These are example figures to show the method. They aren't averages for electricians and they aren't Ringzel customer data.

1. 1Working time: 48 weeks x 40 hours = 1,920 hours.
2. 2Billable time: 70%, so 1,344 hours.
3. 3Break-even rate: $89,500 / 1,344 = $66.59 an hour.
4. 4Add a 15% margin: about $77 an hour, or around $610 for an 8-hour day.

On $65,000 of profit, self-employment tax at 15.3% would be roughly $9,900 before the Schedule SE adjustments, with income tax on top. If that leaves too little, change the pay line and rerun it.

If your billable share is 60% rather than 70%, the same costs need about $78 an hour just to break even. Billable hours move your rate more than any single cost.

Angi puts the national average electrician job at $351 in 2026, from 101,757 projects. Here are its rates and job prices next to HomeAdvisor's:

Sources: Angi's electrician cost guide (updated 21 October 2026) and HomeAdvisor's electrician hourly rate guide (updated 19 June 2026).

The example rate of about $77 sits inside Angi's journeyperson band and HomeAdvisor's range. Angi also says self-employed electricians and larger companies tend to charge similar rates, so being independent isn't a reason to price low.

Yes. HomeAdvisor says a licensed electrician charges a service call fee of $100 to $200 for the first hour, and many have a minimum. The usual options:

• A service call fee covering the trip and the first hour.
• A minimum of one to four hours, which Angi says electricians charge even when a job takes 30 minutes or less.
• Flat prices for common jobs, with travel built in.

Tell callers to list every outlet, switch and fixture before you arrive. Bundled jobs fill your minimum and save you a second trip.

For nights and weekends, Angi says emergency service adds $100 to $200 on top of standard rates, and total labor can reach double the normal rate. Decide your after-hours price before the phone rings at 10 pm. Our guide to after-hours answering services covers the calls you won't take.

Flat prices pay you for being quick. Build each one from your hourly rate and the real time the job takes, add material and markup, and write down what's excluded.

Get the price agreed in writing before you start, even in a text. It saves arguments when the job is done.

There's no standard markup, but it has to cover trips to the supply house, stock on the truck, returns and the warranty you give. A light fixture the customer bought online still costs you time to install and stand behind.

Show materials as their own line on the invoice. Customers argue less about a markup they can see than one hidden in the labor.

1. 1Rerun your costs every year: insurance, fuel and licensing all move.
2. 2Change prices for new customers first and give regular clients notice.
3. 3Raise your service call fee and flat prices, not just the hourly rate.
4. 4Track estimates won and lost. Winning almost every one means you're cheap.

Most customers care more about you showing up and answering the phone than about $10 an hour.

Once the price is right, fill the calendar. Our guide on how to get more electrical work covers Google, contractors and repeat customers.

At Angi's $351 average job, a missed call that would have booked half the time costs about $175.

Bigger jobs make it worse. A missed call about a panel upgrade, which Angi prices from $1,200, that books one time in three costs about $400.

Put your own job values into our missed call calculator, and read what missed calls cost contractors for the full sum.

Ringzel is an AI receptionist for electricians and other small businesses. It answers every call 24/7, so the ones that come in while you're up a ladder still get picked up, and it takes down what the caller needs.

On the Professional and Premium plans it can book jobs into your calendar and transfer calls to you. The Android app is on Google Play, with the iPhone app coming soon.

Plans are $99, $179 or $299 a month on our pricing page, each with a 14-day free trial and no card. Basic is $1,188 a year, about two days' work at the example rate.