How Much Does an Electrician Cost in St. Louis? (2026 Rates)
Revised August 13, 2026
How much do electricians charge per hour in St. Louis?
Electricians in St. Louis bill roughly $35 to $105 an hour, with journeyman union scale locally around $48 to $58 plus benefits. The job most homeowners are pricing is a panel upgrade: $800 to $4,000 overall, and $1,300 to $3,000 for a typical 200-amp change, taking eight to ten hours. The spread inside that band is explained by whether the service entrance, grounding, AFCI and GFCI breakers and the permit are included — a quote well under the band is usually missing one of them.
Keep reading ↓Imagine you have just bought a brick two-family in south St. Louis, or a 1950s ranch out in Overland. The inspection came back fine on the big things. But there is a line in the report about the electrical panel being at capacity, and a note that some of the original wiring is still in place.
Nothing is broken. The lights work. But you would like to add a circuit for the garage, and the first electrician who looked at it said the panel has to be dealt with first.
Here is what electrical work actually costs in the St. Louis metro, what makes one quote double another, and what the age of your house adds to the bill.
The short answer
Electricians in St. Louis generally bill $35 to $105 an hour depending on experience and the shop’s overhead, with journeymen at union scale in this market earning roughly $48 to $58 an hour plus benefits — which is why a billed rate at the top of that range is not automatically padding.
The job most homeowners are actually pricing is a panel upgrade. Replacing a service panel runs $800 to $4,000, and a 200-amp upgrade typically lands at $1,300 to $3,000. Budget a full day: eight to ten hours is normal for a panel swap including the new main breaker, circuit breakers, labor and materials.
Small jobs are usually priced flat or as a minimum call. Changing an outlet or a switch is rarely billed at true hourly cost, because the trip is the expense, not the twenty minutes of work.
Why quotes vary so much on the same panel
A panel upgrade sounds like one job and is actually several, and the difference between a $1,300 quote and a $3,500 quote is usually what else has to happen.
Is the service entrance being upgraded too? Moving from 100 amps to 200 amps often means a new meter socket, new service entrance cable, and coordination with Ameren for a disconnect and reconnect. That is a materially bigger job than swapping the panel alone.
Is the grounding system current? Older homes frequently have grounding that no longer meets code — a single ground rod where two are required, or a bond to a water line that has since been partly replaced with plastic. Bringing it current is not optional on a permitted upgrade.
How many circuits are being reused versus replaced? A quote that reconnects existing circuits to a new panel is cheaper than one replacing deteriorated cable at the panel end. Ask which you are buying.
Are AFCI and GFCI breakers included? Modern code requires arc-fault and ground-fault protection on many circuits, and those breakers cost several times what a standard breaker costs. A panel quoted with all standard breakers may simply be a panel that will not pass inspection.
Where is the panel? A panel in an open basement is straightforward. One in a finished closet, or one that has to be relocated because its current position no longer meets clearance requirements, is not.
What old St. Louis wiring adds
The metro’s housing stock is old, and three wiring systems come up constantly.
Knob and tube. Common in homes built before roughly 1950 and still present in plenty of city brick homes. It has no ground conductor, its insulation embrittles with age, and it is genuinely dangerous when buried in blown-in attic insulation. Partial rewiring commonly adds $1,000 to $3,000 on top of a panel upgrade, and a whole-house rewire is a much larger number. It is also worth knowing before you call: some insurers will not write a policy on a house with active knob and tube.
Aluminum branch wiring. Used in homes built roughly 1965 to 1973. It is not inherently unsafe, but the connections at outlets and switches loosen over time and can overheat. The accepted repair is not a rewire — it is properly rated connectors at every device, which is labor-heavy but far cheaper than replacing the wiring.
Two-prong outlets with no ground. Extremely common in older St. Louis homes. Replacing them with three-prong outlets without adding a ground is both unsafe and against code. The legitimate fixes are running a proper ground, or installing GFCI protection and labeling the outlets accordingly.
None of this means an old house is a problem house. It means the quote for a job in a 1920s brick home is not comparable to the same job in a 1998 build, and a quote that ignores the difference is a quote from someone who has not looked.
Licensing, permits and why they matter here
Missouri does not issue a statewide electrical license — it is handled municipally, and the St. Louis metro is a patchwork. The City of St. Louis, St. Louis County and individual municipalities each set their own licensing and permitting rules, so the relevant question is not whether an electrician is licensed in general but whether they are licensed where your house is and can pull the permit there.
Panel upgrades and service changes require a permit and an inspection essentially everywhere in the metro. This is not bureaucratic box-ticking. Unpermitted electrical work surfaces at resale, can complicate an insurance claim after a fire, and leaves you with no independent verification that the work was done correctly.
Ask for the license number and the certificate of liability insurance, and ask directly who pulls the permit. An electrician who suggests skipping the permit to save money is offering you their risk, not their savings.
What a quote should itemize
- Panel make, model and amperage, and whether the service entrance is included
- Breaker count and type, with AFCI and GFCI called out specifically
- Grounding and bonding work required to meet current code
- Utility coordination for disconnect and reconnect, and who arranges it
- Permit and inspection, and who pulls it
- How long power will be off
- Drywall and patching — whether they repair or leave openings
- Warranty on workmanship, with the term stated
That drywall line surprises people. Many electricians close the wall and many do not, and a quote that leaves patching to you is not directly comparable to one that includes it.
The jobs homeowners actually call about
Panel upgrades get the attention, but most calls are smaller. Rough expectations for this market:
Adding a circuit. A dedicated 20-amp circuit for a garage freezer, a window unit or a home office is one of the most common requests. Cost is driven almost entirely by the run — how far from the panel, and whether the path is open basement joists or finished wall. An open path is a couple of hours. A finished wall means fishing cable, cutting access holes, and someone patching afterward.
EV charger installation. Increasingly the reason people discover their panel is full. A Level 2 charger needs a dedicated 240-volt circuit at 40 to 60 amps, which many older St. Louis services simply cannot spare. That is why an EV charger quote so often arrives bundled with a panel upgrade — it is not an upsell, it is arithmetic.
Ceiling fans and fixtures. Straightforward when a box already exists and is rated for the weight. A fan going where only a light was requires a fan-rated box, which usually means attic or ceiling access.
Whole-house surge protection. A panel-mounted device, usually installed in an hour, and worth asking about in a region that gets the storms this one does.
Diagnosing a breaker that keeps tripping. Billed as troubleshooting time rather than a fixed price, because nobody knows what it is until they find it. A tripping breaker is doing its job — the fault is real and it is worth finding rather than resetting indefinitely.
Saving money without cutting corners
The legitimate levers are mostly about batching and access. Group several small jobs into one visit so you pay one trip rather than four. Do the demolition and patching yourself if you are able, and say so up front so it is priced out. Schedule non-urgent work off-peak rather than in the week after a storm when every crew is chasing outages.
What does not save money: skipping the permit, hiring someone unlicensed for a job that requires a license, or accepting a panel quoted entirely with standard breakers when code requires arc-fault protection. Each of those defers a cost rather than removing it, and defers it to the least convenient possible moment — a failed inspection, a resale, or an insurance claim.
When the panel is the real answer
Homeowners often arrive wanting one circuit and leave having been told they need a panel. That is sometimes an upsell and sometimes simply true, and the difference is usually visible.
Signs the panel genuinely is the constraint: no empty breaker spaces left, tandem breakers already doubled up in slots that were not designed for them, a main breaker rated 100 amps or less in a house that has since gained central air and a second kitchen appliance load, or a panel brand with a documented safety history — Federal Pacific Stab-Lok and Zinsco panels both turn up in St. Louis-area homes and both are widely considered replace-on-sight by electricians and home inspectors.
Signs it may not be: the panel has open slots, the main is already 200 amps, and the request is a single low-draw circuit. In that case adding the circuit is the whole job, and a quote that insists otherwise deserves a second opinion.
If you are unsure, a load calculation settles it with arithmetic rather than opinion. Any competent electrician can perform one, and it is worth asking for before authorizing several thousand dollars of work.
Comparing electricians in the St. Louis metro?
Browse electricians across Missouri and Illinois on St Louis Near Me Directory, and ask each one where they are licensed and who pulls the permit. Run an electrical company? Listing it is how neighbors find you.
Pricing several trades at once? Our breakdowns of what a plumber costs in St. Louis and what a roof replacement costs use the same approach to reading a quote.
Pricing outdoor work at the same time? Our guide to what a concrete driveway costs in St. Louis covers why the base matters more than the slab on our clay soil.
Frequently asked questions
How much do electricians charge per hour in St. Louis?
Roughly $35 to $105 an hour depending on experience and the shop’s overhead. Journeyman union scale in this market runs about $48 to $58 an hour plus benefits, so a billed rate near the top of the range often reflects a licensed, insured crew rather than padding. Small jobs are usually priced flat or against a minimum call.
What is a fair price for an electrician?
Judge the scope, not the rate. For a 200-amp panel upgrade, $1,300 to $3,000 is the normal band in St. Louis, and the spread inside it is explained by whether the service entrance, grounding, AFCI and GFCI breakers and permit are included. A quote well under that band is usually missing one of those.
How much do electricians charge to change an outlet?
Rarely true hourly cost, because the trip is the expense rather than the twenty minutes of work. Expect a minimum service charge covering the visit and the first outlet, with additional outlets on the same visit costing far less each. Replacing a two-prong outlet with a grounded three-prong is a different, larger job if no ground exists.
How much should you pay for an electrician?
For planned work, get three quotes on identical written scope and compare what is included rather than the bottom line. Confirm the electrician is licensed in the municipality where your house sits, that the permit is theirs to pull, and that liability insurance can be verified with the agent. Those three checks eliminate most of the risk.
What do most electricians charge per hour?
Nationally and locally the working range is similar — roughly $35 to $105 an hour for residential work, varying with licensing level, whether the company carries a warranty and dispatch overhead, and time of day. After-hours and emergency calls carry a premium, as in every trade.
How much wire for a 1500 sq ft house?
A full rewire of a house that size typically consumes well over a thousand feet of cable across all circuits, but the wire is a small share of the cost — labor and drywall access dominate. That is why partial rewires targeting knob and tube or specific problem circuits are often the sensible middle path rather than doing the whole house at once.
Written by a dedicated team of St. Louis locals who live, work, and play right here in the St. Louis metro. Founder Lane Forman and team are committed to building the region’s most trusted directory by verifying listings and connecting local businesses with loyal customers across Missouri and Illinois.