Mechanic labor rates: what an hour of shop time costs in each state
Pick your state: the tool gives the typical posted hourly rate, the band of the middle half of shops and the technician wage behind it.
Typical posted shop rate, national
$134/h
Middle half of shops: $114 to $159 per hour
| Technician mean wage | $27.13/h |
| National mean wage | $27.13/h |
| Wage index | 1 |
Compiled by Radif Partners · How costs are estimated · automaker labor times, BLS technician wages, parts read October 20, 2026 · not a quote
Independent repair shops in the United States posted a median labor rate of about $134 an hour in a survey of September 2025, with the middle half of shops between $114 and $159. Half of all shops sat between $100 and $139, 7 % below $100 and 12 % at $180 or more. The rate follows what technicians earn. Their mean wage is $27.13 an hour nationally according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics for May 2025, and scaling the survey by each state's wage puts the typical rate at about $105 in West Virginia, the lowest, and $162 in District of Columbia, the highest. On a long job the rate matters most: a head gasket on an SUV costs about $1,404 at the West Virginia rate and $2,051 at the District of Columbia rate.
What the posted rate is
Most shops display one hourly labor rate, sometimes two: a general rate and a higher one for diagnosis, electrical work or a certain brand. The rate is not what the mechanic is paid. It covers the technician's wage and benefits, but also the bays, the lifts, the scan tools, insurance, the service writer and the time no customer pays for. That is why a shop whose technicians earn $27.13 an hour posts a rate several times higher.
The bill then multiplies the rate by a number of hours. Most shops charge the time listed for the job in a labor guide, not the time the car actually spent on the lift: a fast technician does not make the job cheaper, and a slow one does not make it dearer. This site uses the times automakers pay their own dealers, read in the bulletins filed with NHTSA, so the hours are the same in every state and only the rate moves.
The national spread
The figures come from a survey of about 700 independent shops carried out in September 2025 and published in August 2026. It gives the share of shops in each band of posted rate:
| Posted rate | Share of shops |
|---|---|
| under $100 | 7 % |
| $100 to $139 | 50 % |
| $140 to $159 | 19 % |
| $160 to $179 | 12 % |
| $180 to $200 | 9 % |
| over $200 | 3 % |
Reading the shares as spread evenly inside each band, the shop at the middle of the country posts about $134, a quarter of shops post less than $114 and a quarter more than $159. The most common band is $100 to $119. The survey covers independent shops only. Dealers set their own rates, and specialists in European cars, diesels or transmissions often price their hour differently again; none of them is in these figures.
The typical rate in your state
Typical posted shop rate, Texas
$126/h
| Technician mean wage | $25.47/h |
| National mean wage | $27.13/h |
| Wage index | 0.94 |
| Technicians employed | 69,750 |
Why the rate changes from state to state
The survey does not publish rates by state. What is published, by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is the mean hourly wage of automotive service technicians and mechanics in every state. Because wages are the largest cost a shop's rate has to cover, the site scales the national band by each state's wage relative to the national mean. A state whose technicians earn 10 % more than the national average gets a band 10 % higher. This is a model, stated as such on the method page; a city shop can post more than its state band and a rural one less.
The five states with the lowest typical rate on that basis are West Virginia ($105), Mississippi ($109), Kentucky ($114), Arkansas ($115), Louisiana ($121). The five with the highest are District of Columbia ($162), Alaska ($156), California ($156), Colorado ($152), Oregon ($151). The full list is on the state comparison page.
How much the rate moves a bill
On a short job the rate barely shows. On a long one it decides the bill. A water pump on a pickup takes 1.8 h by the automaker's time; it comes to about $250 in West Virginia and $353 in District of Columbia. A head gasket on an SUV, with 11.4 h of labor, comes to $1,404 against $2,051. When a quote seems high, check the rate first, then the hours: the quote checker places both against your state's band.
Asking a shop about its rate
A shop should be able to tell you its posted rate before any work starts, and several states require a written estimate before work starts; the state pages say what the law asks where we read it. Ask whether diagnosis is billed at the same rate, whether the hours come from a labor guide, and whether a minimum charge applies to short jobs. Those three answers explain most of the gap between two quotes for the same repair, and they cost nothing to ask.
A last point concerns the parts. A low hourly rate does not always mean a low bill, because a shop can make up the difference on the parts it supplies. Comparing two quotes therefore means comparing the three lines together: the hours, the rate and the parts. A quote that hides them in a single total cannot be checked, and asking for the split is a fair request at any shop.