Original research
What a panel upgrade is made of, and how far each part moves
A decomposition of one fixed job across twelve permitting authorities and twelve metropolitan wage areas. The parts are sourced. The total is not, and this page explains why we will not assemble one.
Written by HyreElectrical Research Desk Primary-source research and fact checking
The finding
Read this first: what is measured, and the average we are not going to give you
The job is fixed, so the places can vary. Every permit figure on this page prices the same modelled work: one residential service change to 200 A, 120/240 V single-phase, one panel, permit pulled by a licensed contractor, no plan review, standard inspections, existing branch circuits reconnected. Where a schedule prices by job valuation rather than by scope, the electrical work is valued at $3,000. That valuation is a HyreElectrical modelling assumption, not a market observation, and it is the only assumed number in the fee table.
What the permit figure includes. The sum the fee schedule produces for that job, including base, issuance, administrative, technology and minimum-fee provisions written into the same document. It excludes state surcharges levied outside the schedule, plan-review fees the model job does not trigger, and every utility charge — those are a separate ledger and get their own section.
What the wage figure is not. OEWS reports what electricians are paid as employees. It is not a billed hourly rate. A contractor’s rate carries overhead, insurance, vehicles, warranty and profit on top of it, and no line in this study converts one into the other, because we have no sourced multiplier and will not invent one.
And there is no national average price on this page. Not withheld for effect — we do not have one to publish. An average of completed panel upgrades would require a sample of completed, inspected jobs with their invoices. We hold input prices instead. The decomposition below is the argument for the refusal rather than an apology for it: when one component moves 6.3-fold across jurisdictions and a second ledger belongs to a different company entirely, a single blended number conceals more than it reports. Our cost guide for panel upgrades takes the same position and answers the same question for buyers.
The four components, and which of them anyone can actually source
Consumer guides quote one number because the four inputs are quoted to them as one number. They are not one number, they are not all knowable, and two of them arrive on different invoices from different companies.
- Labour
- Sourceable as a wage, not as a price. OEWS gives a May 2025 national median of $30.38/hour for electricians and a 10th-to-90th range of $20.50–$52.17. What a homeowner pays is a billed rate built on top of that, and no public dataset publishes billed rates by metro.
- Hardware
- Sourceable and surprisingly stable. Retail-advertised 200 A load centres in this sample run $268.21 to $425.19 — a range narrower than the permit range, on the one component homeowners assume dominates the bill.
- The permit
- Fully sourceable, published by every authority, and the widest-moving component in this study: $91.42 to $580.00 for identical work. It is also the component most consumer guides give a single national range.
- The utility charge
- A different invoice from a different company, governed by a tariff rather than a fee schedule. It is $0 at several named utilities where the service size does not increase, and four figures at others for the same amperage. It is not part of the electrician’s price.
Labour: what the federal data actually says
Source fact. The BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics programme estimates 757,220 wage-and-salary electricians (SOC 47-2111) as of May 2025, with a relative standard error on that employment estimate of 0.8%. The national median hourly wage is $30.38 ($63,190 a year); the 10th percentile is $20.50 and the 90th $52.17. The Occupational Outlook Handbook, which counts self-employed workers OEWS excludes, gives 821,000 jobs in 2025.
A retrieval note, because this number is harder to get than it should be. The OEWS occupation pages redirect automated requests to an index and the bulk archives refuse them. Every figure here was pulled from the BLS public timeseries API on 6 September 2026, series OEUN0000000000000472111 plus datatype for national estimates and OEUM<area>000000472111 plus datatype for metropolitan ones. The exact series are named in the method so the pull can be repeated. The 757,220 figure was checked against the API rather than carried from a secondary source.
HyreElectrical analysis. The median electrician in Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro earns 2.1 times the median in Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford. That is real, and modest next to the permit spread in the next section. Wage dispersion does not explain why quotes differ as much as they do between cities.
| Metropolitan area | Electricians | 10th pct | Median | 90th pct |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 36,550 | $22.20 | $37.99 | $63.54 |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 20,610 | $22.19 | $35.49 | $63.31 |
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX | 19,730 | $18.66 | $28.45 | $40.61 |
| Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL | 12,990 | $18.44 | $28.19 | $38.86 |
| Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI | 11,210 | $22.43 | $39.42 | $51.60 |
| Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA | 9,750 | $26.77 | $48.93 | $72.74 |
| San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | 9,060 | $26.62 | $44.63 | $87.66 |
| San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA | 8,060 | $23.03 | $36.62 | $60.70 |
| Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA | 7,340 | $29.02 | $50.53 | $64.61 |
| Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX | 7,340 | $18.87 | $29.03 | $37.90 |
| Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL | 6,970 | $18.18 | $24.43 | $35.84 |
| Oklahoma City, OK | 3,100 | $17.85 | $29.33 | $43.79 |
Source fact: BLS OEWS, SOC 47-2111, May 2025 estimates, retrieved via the BLS public timeseries API 6 September 2026. Hourly wages for wage-and-salary workers. These are employee wages, not billed rates.
Two cautions the table cannot carry. OEWS excludes self-employed electricians, and the Handbook puts self-employment at a meaningful share of the trade — so in markets where owner-operators do most residential service work, the published wage describes a shrinking part of who might do your job. And an area estimate is an estimate: OEWS publishes a relative standard error on every cell, and small metros carry larger ones than the national figure’s 0.8%.
The permit: twelve fee schedules, one identical job
Permit fees are the section this study exists for. Permit fees are the one component every authority publishes and almost no consumer guide reads. Each row below is a fee schedule opened, read in full, and applied to the same modelled job — not a quoted range and not a survey.
HyreElectrical calculation. The arithmetic is ours; every input is the jurisdiction’s own published figure. The result runs from $91.42 in Orlando, FL to $580.00 in San Francisco, CA, a 6.3-fold spread with a median of $141.25 across the twelve. The same work, the same amperage, the same panel.
HyreElectrical analysis: the structural difference matters more than the amount. These schedules do not disagree about price so much as about what a fee is for. A flat schedule prices the scope — San Francisco bundles a 200 A upgrade, up to 40 outlets and three inspections into one line, which is expensive for a bare panel swap and cheap for a job that also rewires half a house. An amperage-banded schedule prices the service size. An itemised schedule prices each device, so New York City’s total is four separate small lines. A valuation-based schedule prices the contractor’s own declared job value, so two identical jobs at different prices pay different fees for the same inspection. A homeowner comparing "the permit costs about $150" against their own city is comparing across four incompatible pricing logics.
| Jurisdiction | Fee structure | Work lines | Total payable | What the schedule says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Francisco, CA | Bundled flat | $580.00 | $580.00 | Category 1 residential, up to 40 outlets, includes a 200 A service upgrade and up to three inspections |
| Seattle, WA | Amperage band + admin | $292.00 | $347.48 | New or altered service 150–200 A $292.00, plus $55.48 administrative fee |
| Miami-Dade County, FL | Per-amp + per-device, minimum governs | $46.73 | $227.90 | Service upgrade $7.26 per 100 A ($14.52) plus panel board $32.21 — overridden by the $227.90 minimum |
| Portland, OR | Amperage band | $212.00 | $212.00 | Service or feeder, installation, alteration or relocation, 200 A |
| San Diego, CA | Flat, per panel | $176.57 | $176.57 | Panel replace/upgrade up to 200 A, each |
| New York City, NY | Itemised per device | $152.50 | $152.50 | Filing $40.00 + service switch 101–200 A $30.00 + service-entrance cable $45.00 + one-phase panel $37.50 |
| Detroit, MI | Amperage band + base fee | $80.00 | $130.00 | Service 600 V or less, over 100 to 200 A $80.00, plus the $50.00 Part A base fee |
| Houston, TX | Flat + admin | $94.00 | $127.56 | Meter loop and service up to 50 kW $94.00, plus $33.56 administrative fee |
| Washington State (L&I jurisdiction) | Amperage band | $109.90 | $109.90 | Altered service or feeder 0–200 A, circuits included |
| Oklahoma City, OK | Flat, named scope | $100.00 | $100.00 | Residential service change up to 200 A |
| Los Angeles County (unincorporated), CA | Itemised + issuing fee | $58.35 | $99.70 | Service/panelboard 600 V or less not over 399 A $58.35, plus $41.35 issuing fee |
| Orlando, FL | Valuation-based + surcharges | $84.87 | $91.42 | $63.67 first $1,000 of construction cost + $10.60 per additional $1,000, on a modelled $3,000 job, plus 1.5% + 1% + 3% surcharges at their $2.00 minimums |
HyreElectrical calculation from twelve published fee schedules, each named with its effective date in the sources below. Retrieved 6 September 2026 and 5 September 2026. The modelled job is identical in every row; the valuation-priced row assumes $3,000 of electrical work and is labelled as an assumption.
Download the full dataset as CSV: panel-upgrade-cost-components.csv — every jurisdiction with its structure, work-line subtotal, total payable, source document, effective date and retrieval date, joined to the metro OEWS wage percentiles. Generated from the same arrays that build this table, so the file and the page cannot disagree.
The part of the fee that is not for your work
Source fact, and the single most useful thing in this study for a homeowner reading a quote. In six of the twelve jurisdictions the electrical work lines are not the bill. A base fee, an issuing fee, an administrative or technology surcharge, or a minimum-fee floor sits on top. Miami-Dade County, FL is the extreme: the work lines for our model job come to $46.73 — $14.52 for the service at $7.26 per 100 A plus $32.21 for the panel board — and the schedule’s printed minimum for any electrical permit is $227.90. The minimum is 4.9 times what the work priced out at.
HyreElectrical analysis. This is why per-item fee schedules mislead when you read them as a homeowner. A Miami-Dade schedule looks, line by line, like the cheapest in the study; it is the second most expensive to actually pay. Orlando stacks three percentage surcharges, each with its own $2.00 minimum, so on a small job they act as floors rather than percentages. Seattle adds a flat administrative fee, Detroit a flat base fee, Los Angeles County a separate issuing fee. None of these appear in the line a contractor points at when they say what the permit costs.
What it means in practice. If your quote itemises a permit, the number to compare is the total payable, not the work line — and it is published, so you can check it yourself before you sign.
Does the permit fee track the local cost of labour? Mostly not
HyreElectrical calculation. Eleven of the twelve jurisdictions sit inside one of the metropolitan areas in the wage table, so the fee and the wage describe the same place. Washington State’s L&I schedule is statewide and is excluded from the pairing rather than assigned to Seattle. Across those eleven, the correlation between the metro median electrician wage and the modelled permit fee is r = 0.57 — positive, but explaining only about 33% of the variance. Dropping San Francisco, the highest fee in the set, gives r = 0.64 on the remaining ten, so the relationship is not an artefact of one outlier.
HyreElectrical analysis. Expensive-labour cities do tend to charge more, which is unsurprising: fee schedules recover the cost of inspectors who are themselves paid local wages. But the fit is loose enough that the exceptions are the story. Detroit pairs the fifth-highest metro median wage in this set ($39.42) with a $130.00 permit, because its fee schedule has been in force since 2009. Miami-Dade pairs a below-median wage ($28.19) with the second-highest fee, because of a minimum-fee floor. The fee is a policy decision, not a price signal.
What we are not claiming. Eleven jurisdictions chosen for having a readable published schedule is a convenience sample, not a random one, and a correlation on eleven points is descriptive. We have not tested it for significance and are not offering it as an inference about US permitting generally. The dispersion is the finding; the coefficient is a description of these eleven places on these dates.
Hardware: the component people assume dominates, and it does not
Source fact. Retailer-advertised prices for 200 A residential service equipment, retrieved 5 September 2026. These are advertised retail prices, not contractor net, not installed cost, and local store pricing varies.
HyreElectrical analysis. The panel itself is the cheapest of the four components in most of these jurisdictions, and the widest choice in the table — indoor load centre against outdoor meter-main — is a $55.91 difference in hardware. That distinction is driven by the adopted code edition rather than by preference: where NEC 230.85’s outdoor emergency-disconnect requirement is in force, the outdoor combination is frequently what the job needs. A homeowner arguing about the panel brand is negotiating over the smallest moving part of the job. Our NEC edition lookup gives the adopted edition by state.
| Item | What it is | Advertised price |
|---|---|---|
| Square D Homeline HOM4080M200PC | 200 A, 40-space indoor main-breaker load centre | $268.21 |
| Eaton BRP40B200V25 | 200 A, 40-space indoor main-breaker contractor kit | $294.26 |
| Square D Homeline SC2040M200C | 200 A outdoor meter-main combination (CSED) | $324.12 |
| Square D QO42M200PCVP | 200 A, 42-space QO value pack | $425.19 |
| Southwire 4/0-4/0-4/0-2/0 AL SER | service-entrance cable, per foot | $7.83 |
Retailer-advertised prices retrieved by this desk 5 September 2026 for the panel upgrade cost guide and carried here with that date. Service-entrance cable is priced per foot; the run length is job-specific and is not modelled.
The second invoice: what the utility charges, from named utilities
Source fact. The utility’s charge for a service upgrade is governed by its own tariff or service-charge document, not by the municipal fee schedule, and it is billed separately. Five named utilities publish the charges below. They are not comparable to each other and nothing here is a national utility figure — five utilities out of roughly three thousand US distribution utilities is an illustration of range, not a sample.
HyreElectrical analysis. Two things in this table explain most of the surprise in a real quote. First, $0 is a common and legitimate answer: several utilities charge nothing on their side when the service size does not increase, or when the customer accepts the company’s standard plan. A $0 utility charge does not make the upgrade cheap — it makes the utility ledger empty while the electrician’s is not. Second, where the utility does charge, the amount can exceed every other component combined: Seattle City Light’s standard underground single-phase installation charge is $5,273, against a permit of $347.48 in the same city and a panel at $268.21. Overhead against underground is the single largest fork in the road on this page, and it is decided by what is already in the street, not by the homeowner.
Recommendation. Before comparing bids, ask each contractor one question: does this price include anything the utility will bill me, and has the utility confirmed its side? If it has not been contacted, the quote covers one of the two invoices. Our panel upgrade page covers when the utility is a party at all.
| Utility | State | What the document says | Document |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austin Energy | TX | Electric Service Application Fee $200.00 per review; line extension "at estimated cost"; residential distributed-generation inspection $150.00 | FY 2026-2027 Fee Schedule |
| Seattle City Light | WA | Standard installation 0–200 A single-phase: $1,436 overhead, $5,273 underground. Amp fee $6.36/A with a 200 A credit on 120/240 V, so $0 where the service size does not increase | DPP 500, Service Installations, effective 25 June 2025 |
| Pacific Gas & Electric | CA | Published single-family new-service allowance of $3,255 against an average cost the utility gives as $9,605.06; the difference is billed to the applicant | Electric rule filings |
| Con Edison | NY | "Electric service is provided at no cost when the customer accepts Con Edison’s plan (Company Plan)" — $0 on the utility side, customer-side work unchanged | Electric Vehicle Interconnection Guide, 2026 edition |
| Dominion Energy Virginia | VA | $0 to replace inadequate overhead facilities the utility owns | Terms and Conditions, Section XXII |
Austin Energy retrieved 6 September 2026; the remaining four retrieved by this desk 5 September 2026. Charges are quoted as each utility publishes them and are not adjusted, averaged or combined.
A finding worth naming on its own. Austin Energy’s adopted FY 2026-2027 fee schedule prices the application at $200.00 per review and then prices the line extension itself "at estimated cost" — that is, the utility does not publish a price for the work at all until it has looked at the address. For that utility, no published figure for a service upgrade exists to quote, and any guide printing one is not reading the tariff.
Method and evidence ladder
Published so the study can be checked and, where the source allows it, re-run.
- 1 Fix the job before touching a fee schedule
One residential service change to 200 A, 120/240 V single-phase, one panel, licensed contractor pulling the permit, no plan review, standard inspections. Fixing the scope first is what makes twelve schedules comparable; pricing "a panel upgrade" without fixing it produces the range every consumer guide prints.
- 2 Read the schedule, not a summary of it
Each fee document was opened and read in full — the municipal code article, the fee sheet, the rule, or the adopted fee subtitle. No aggregator, permit-service blog or contractor marketing page contributed a figure. Where a document had an effective date, that date is published beside the fee.
- 3 Price the work lines and the total separately
Two numbers per jurisdiction: what the electrical work items produce, and what the same document says is payable once base, issuing, administrative, technology and minimum-fee provisions apply. Reporting only the second hides the structure; reporting only the first understates six of twelve bills.
- 4 Handle valuation-based schedules explicitly
One schedule in the set prices by declared construction cost. It is modelled at $3,000 of electrical work, that assumption is stated in the table, in the CSV and here, and it is the only assumed input in the fee column. A different assumption moves that one row and no other.
- 5 Pull the wages from the API, not the web pages
BLS OEWS SOC 47-2111, May 2025. National series OEUN0000000000000472111 with datatypes 01 (employment), 02 (employment RSE), 06–10 (hourly percentiles) and 13 (annual median); metropolitan series OEUM<7-digit area>000000472111 with the same datatypes. Pulled 6 September 2026 from api.bls.gov. The OEWS occupation pages and bulk archives do not serve automated requests; the API does, and it returns the same published estimates.
- 6 Join fee to wage only where they describe the same place
Eleven of the twelve jurisdictions sit inside a metropolitan area in the wage table. Washington State’s statewide L&I schedule does not, and it is excluded from the correlation rather than attributed to Seattle. Pearson’s r is computed on those eleven pairs and re-computed without the highest-fee point as a sensitivity check.
- 7 Keep the utility on its own ledger
Utility charges are quoted from each utility’s own published tariff or charge document, attributed to that utility by name, and never added to a permit fee, a wage or a hardware price. No national utility figure is synthesised from five utilities.
What this study will not support, and what we refused to publish
Twelve jurisdictions are a convenience sample and cannot be read as a national picture. They were chosen because each publishes a fee schedule specific enough to price one job against, which selects for larger and better-resourced authorities. The United States has on the order of twenty thousand permitting authorities. Every number here is titled to the twelve places named, and the 6.3-fold spread is a spread among them, not a national range. The true national range is wider, and we cannot say by how much.
We have no completed-job data, so there is no total anywhere on this page. The plan for this study named a downloadable cost dataset, and what is downloadable is a dataset of inputs: fee schedules, wages, advertised hardware, published utility charges. We hold no invoices, no bids and no inspection records, so we did not build a national average, a national range, or a "typical" figure by summing components. Summing a wage that is not a billed rate, a retail price that is not contractor net and a permit from one of twelve places would produce a number with the appearance of measurement and none of the substance. This is a deliberate refusal, and it is the same one recorded on the cost guide.
The valuation assumption is real and it is ours. One jurisdiction prices by declared job value; $3,000 of electrical work is a modelling choice, not an observation. A reader who believes the right figure is double should double that row and leave the other eleven alone. It does not move the minimum, the maximum, or the spread.
Fee schedules move, and one of these has not moved in a long time. Most documents here carry 2026 effective dates; Detroit’s is effective 1 July 2009 and Orlando’s schedule is dated 22 May 2023. Both are the currently published documents, and both are cited as such. Every figure is a dated snapshot and must be re-checked against the authority’s own current schedule before it is relied on.
The wage figures are estimates with error attached, and exclude the self-employed. OEWS publishes a relative standard error on every cell; the national employment estimate carries 0.8% and metro cells carry more. OEWS also excludes self-employed workers, which in a trade with substantial owner-operator residential work means the published wage describes part of the labour pool, not all of it.
And nothing on this page is a quote or a recommendation to buy. HyreElectrical does not perform, supervise or warrant electrical work, does not price jobs, and takes no payment for placement, ranking or a favourable mention. Service, meter and panel work is licensed work in almost every US jurisdiction; this page will not tell you how to do any of it, and the correct stopping point for a homeowner is the outside of the dead-front cover.
How to use this against a real quote
- Find your own authority’s fee schedule before you compare bids
It is published, it is free, and it is the only component of an electrical quote a homeowner can verify without trade knowledge. Search your city or county name with "electrical permit fee schedule" and read the document rather than a summary of it.
- Read past the work line to the minimum and the surcharges
In half the jurisdictions here the work lines are not the bill. Look for a base fee, an issuing fee, an administrative or technology percentage, and a printed minimum — in Miami-Dade County, FL the minimum is 4.9 times the work lines.
- Ask which of the two invoices the quote covers
The electrician bills for the load centre, customer-side conductors, labour and the permit. The utility bills separately for what it owns. A quote that has not involved the utility on a service size increase is a quote for one invoice.
- Ask whether the service is going overhead or underground
It is the largest single fork in the utility bill in this study — $1,436 against $5,273 at one named utility for the same amperage — and it is decided by what is already in the street, not by preference.
- BAD SIGN — a quoted "average" for your area with no document behind it
The permit component alone moves 6.3-fold across the twelve authorities in this study. A national average is not a local estimate, and a figure with no fee schedule, tariff or dataset behind it is not a figure.
- BAD SIGN — the permit is folded into a single lump with no number
The fee is public. A contractor who will not name it, or who will not pull the permit at all, is telling you something the price cannot.
- Check the licence before the price, every time
A cheap quote from an unlicensed contractor is not a cheap quote. Our licence-checking guide and the licence lookup route to each state’s own board.
If your panel is a hazard-era brand, the cost question changes shape. A Federal Pacific, Zinsco or similar panel is a replacement decision driven by evidence about the equipment rather than by capacity, and our study of what the evidence actually shows is the honest starting point.
Questions
What does an electrical panel upgrade cost?
How much is the permit for a 200 amp panel?
Why do permit fees vary so much between cities?
Does the permit fee track how expensive electricians are locally?
Is the utility charge part of the panel upgrade price?
How many electricians are there in the United States?
Why will you not just add the components up into one number?
Is the panel itself a big part of the cost?
Can I pull the permit myself to save money?
Written and audited by
HyreElectrical Research Desk
Primary-source research and fact checking
We read the model code, the federal safety notice, the municipal fee sheet or the utility tariff ourselves, and we publish the figure with the document it came from and the date we retrieved it. Where a number cannot be traced to a primary source, we publish the shorter page and say what we could not verify. HyreElectrical does not perform, supervise or warrant electrical work. Authorship is organisational: this desk, not a named persona.
- 10
- long-form launch pages in this layout
- 5
- states with verified licence records
- 16,369
- electrical companies in those records
- 74%
- of the store is Florida — disclosed first, not footnoted
How this desk works
- Primary sources only. Code statements come from NFPA 70 as the model code. Safety statements come from CPSC. Permit fees come from the city or county fee sheet. Utility charges come from the filed tariff. We do not cite a blog that cites a source; we open the source.
- Our contractor store is five states, and 74% of it is Florida. Any figure built on that store is titled to those states and names the concentration in the first screen. It is not a national sample of electricians.
- Load calculations on this site are a published simplification in the shape of NEC 220.82 — first 10 kVA at 100%, remainder at 40%, HVAC at 100%, EVSE at 125%. They are labelled as not a stamped calculation. A licensed electrician using the adopted edition does that work.
- No national price for a panel upgrade is shipped. Labour rates, the adopted code edition, whether the utility is involved, and the state of the existing wiring move the invoice too far for a roundup to help. Cost intent lives on the cost page; this page explains the decision.
- We do not perform electrical work, and we take no payment for placement, ranking or a favourable mention. Nobody buys a position on this site.
Data as of Wages: BLS OEWS May 2025, pulled from the BLS public timeseries API 6 September 2026. Fee schedules: retrieved 6 September 2026 and 5 September 2026, each with its own effective date in the table.. Authorship on this site is organisational: the analysis belongs to the desk rather than to a named individual, and we do not publish credentials we do not hold. Our editorial policy sets out how we source, date and correct what we publish.
The data behind this page
Every figure on this page is computed from one file, and that file is published here so the analysis can be checked, disagreed with, or reused.
Sources & retrieval dates
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics — SOC 47-2111 Electricians, May 2025 (public timeseries API) , National employment 757,220 (RSE 0.8%); mean hourly $34.37; hourly percentiles $20.50 / $23.76 / $30.38 / $40.36 / $52.17; annual median $63,190. Twelve metropolitan areas pulled from OEUM<7-digit area>000000472111 with datatypes 01, 06, 08, 10 and 13. Route recorded because the OEWS occupation pages and bulk archives do not serve automated requests. Retrieved 6 September 2026.
- BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook — Electricians , May 2025 median pay $63,190 a year / $30.38 an hour; 821,000 jobs in 2025, including self-employed workers that OEWS excludes; projected 9% growth 2025–2035. Page last modified 27 August 2026. Retrieved 6 September 2026.
- Miami-Dade County Department of Regulatory and Economic Resources — Electrical Fee Sheet (123_01-5, rev. 7/26) , Repair or upgrade of an existing electrical service $7.26 per 100 A (G067); panel board, switchboard or control panel $32.21 each (G045); permanent service to building $7.26 per 100 A (G034). "Minimum fee for electrical permits is $227.90." Retrieved 6 September 2026.
- City of San Diego — Information Bulletin 103, Fee Schedule for Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing/Gas Permits (May 2026) , Residential line "Panel Replace/Upgrade up to 200 amp — Each — $176.57". Retrieved 6 September 2026.
- Washington State Department of Labor & Industries — Residential electrical fee worksheet F500-133-000 (07-2026) , Altered service or feeder 0–200 A, circuits included, $109.90; new service or largest feeder 0–200 A $129.40; meter/mast repair or replacement $59.40. Fees effective 1 July 2026, in the jurisdictions where L&I inspects. Retrieved 6 September 2026.
- City of Orlando — Fee Schedule, Residential Development (dated 22 May 2023) , Electrical permit fee $63.67 for the first $1,000 of construction cost or fraction thereof, plus $10.60 for each additional $1,000 up to and including $25,000; change of service $60; administrative inspection fund 1.5% of permit fee ($2 minimum); DCA operational trust fund surcharge 1% ($2 minimum); technology surcharge 3% of the permit fee. Retrieved 6 September 2026.
- City of Detroit Buildings and Safety Engineering Department — Fee Schedule, effective 1 July 2009 , Electrical A5, service 600 V or less: 100 A or less $40.00; over 100 to 200 A $80.00; over 200 to 400 A $120.00. A7 distribution panel boards over 100 to 200 A $50.00. "A BASE FEE of $50.00 applied to each permit containing one or more fee items from Part A of this schedule. The minimum fee shall be $75.00." Retrieved 6 September 2026.
- Austin Energy — FY 2026-2027 Fee Schedule (City of Austin adopted budget documents) , Service Extensions / Switchovers: Electric Service Application Fee $200.00 per review; Line Extension Fee (facilities to establish service) "at estimated cost"; Distributed Generation Inspection Fee — Residential $150.00. Retrieved 6 September 2026.
- NYC Department of Buildings — 1 RCNY §101-03, electrical permit fees , Initial application $40.00; service switch 101–200 A $30.00; service-entrance cable (mid band) $45.00; one-phase panel over 20/10 poles $37.50. Retrieved by this desk for the panel upgrade cost guide. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Seattle Department of Construction & Inspections — 2026 Fee Subtitle, SMC 22.900D.150 Table D-15 , New or altered service 150–200 A $292.00; administrative fee $55.48; over-the-counter minimum $105.12. Retrieved by this desk for the panel upgrade cost guide. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- City of Portland — Electrical Permit Fee Schedule, effective 10 July 2026 , Services or feeders, installation, alteration or relocation, 200 A: $212.00. Retrieved by this desk for the panel upgrade cost guide. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Houston Permitting Center — Electrical Meter & Loop Service Permit (HPWCODE1055), 2026 fees , Meter loop and service up to 50 kW $94.00; administrative fee $33.56; minimum Building Code Enforcement permit $91.06. Retrieved by this desk for the panel upgrade cost guide. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Oklahoma City Code of Ordinances — Title 18 Electrical Code, permit fees effective 1 July 2026 , Residential service change up to 200 A $100.00; base fee for a 240 V single-phase service up to 200 A $175.00 with rough and final inspections $50.00 each. Retrieved by this desk for the panel upgrade cost guide. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- City and County of San Francisco — Table 1A-E, Electrical Permit Issuance and Inspection (2026) , Category 1, residential buildings up to 10,000 sq ft, up to 40 outlets and/or devices, includes up to a 200 A service upgrade and up to three inspections: $580.00. Applies to permits issued on and after 12 July 2026. Retrieved by this desk for the panel upgrade cost guide. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Los Angeles County Public Works — 2026–27 County Electrical Code Fee Schedule , Unincorporated territory, effective 1 July 2026: issuing fee $41.35; services, switchboards, motor-control centres and panelboards 600 V or less and not over 399 A $58.35. Retrieved by this desk for the panel upgrade cost guide. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Seattle City Light — DPP 500, Service Installations , Standard installation charges effective 25 June 2025: 0–200 A overhead single-phase $1,436; underground $5,273. Amp fee $6.36 per amp with a 200 A credit on 120/240 V single-phase, giving $0 where the service size does not increase. Retrieved by this desk for the panel upgrade cost guide. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Con Edison — Electric Vehicle Interconnection Guide (2026 edition) , "Electric service is provided at no cost when the customer accepts Con Edison’s plan (Company Plan)." The utility-side charge is $0 under that plan; customer-side work is unaffected. Retrieved by this desk for the panel upgrade cost guide. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- The Home Depot — advertised prices for 200 A residential service equipment , Square D Homeline HOM4080M200PC $268.21; Eaton BRP40B200V25 $294.26; Homeline outdoor meter-main SC2040M200C $324.12; Square D QO42M200PCVP $425.19; Southwire 4/0 AL SER $7.83 per foot. Advertised retail, not contractor net; local store prices vary. Retrieved by this desk for the panel upgrade cost guide. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- HyreElectrical Research Desk — modelled permit fee dataset , Twelve jurisdictions priced against one identical modelled 200 A residential service change, with the fee structure classified, work lines and total payable separated, and every document and effective date recorded. All arithmetic, classification and correlation on this page are HyreElectrical calculations; every input is the named authority’s or utility’s own published figure. Published in full as CSV. Retrieved 6 September 2026.
Check the fee schedule before you compare the bids
Your authority publishes the permit fee, and it is the one line in an electrical quote you can verify yourself in five minutes. The load side is worth checking too, before anyone prices an upgrade you may not need.
HyreElectrical does not perform, supervise or warrant electrical work, does not quote jobs, and takes no payment for placement, ranking or favourable mention. Every fee, wage and charge here is a dated snapshot from a named document and must be re-verified against the current schedule or tariff before it is relied on. Nothing here is a bid or an estimate for any particular property.