Plumber Salary in Texas: Pay by Experience, City & Take-Home

A plumber in Texas earns a median of $59,840 a year, or about $28.77 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Most plumbers in the state land between $38,270 at the 10th percentile and $81,890 at the 90th. Texas charges no state income tax, so more of that paycheck stays with you than in most states.

How Texas plumber pay compares to the national median

A plumber in Texas earns a median of $59,840, while the national median for the trade sits at $63,800, per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). That’s a gap of $3,960, so Texas pays about 6% under the national figure on the headline number. The state mean comes in slightly higher than the median at $60,780, which tells you the upper end of the pay range pulls the average up.

The raw comparison undersells Texas, though. The national median is a blend of high-tax, high-cost states like New York and California and lower-cost states like Texas. Because Texas takes no cut of your wages for state income tax, a Texas plumber keeps a larger share of every dollar. A $59,840 salary in Texas often beats a higher gross in a state that taxes income once you compare what actually hits your bank account. We break that math out in the take-home section below.

Texas also runs deep on volume. The state employs roughly 44,090 plumbers, one of the larger plumber workforces in the country. That scale matters: more employers, more commercial and new-construction work, and more room to move between residential service, industrial, and pipefitting roles without leaving the state.

It’s worth putting the gap in context against the full Texas range. The national median of $63,800 sits between the Texas median of $59,840 and the Texas 75th percentile of $74,100. In other words, a Texas plumber who reaches the experienced tier of the local market is already earning well above what the typical American plumber makes. The national figure is a midpoint, and an experienced Texas plumber clears it comfortably. The headline 6% gap only describes the median worker, and it shrinks fast as you move up the Texas pay ladder.

Plumber salary in Texas by experience

Pay in this trade tracks closely with skill, licensing tier, and years on the job. An apprentice working under a licensed plumber starts near the bottom of the range. A licensed journeyman sits around the median, and a master plumber or one running service calls solo lands at the top. Here’s how the percentiles break out, all from BLS OEWS 2025 figures for Texas.

The jump from entry to median is the steepest part of the curve. Moving from $38,270 to $59,840 is a $21,570 raise, and most of it comes from earning your license and proving you can run jobs without supervision. In Texas the licensing ladder runs from apprentice to tradesman, then journeyman, then master, and each rung carries more independence and more billable responsibility. That structure is the single clearest pay lever in the trade.

From the median up to the 75th percentile is another $14,260, and that step usually comes from specialization or overtime. Plumbers who pick up backflow certification, medical gas piping, or commercial and industrial work tend to cluster in that experienced band. The climb from the 75th to the 90th percentile, an extra $7,790, is the smallest in raw dollars but the hardest to reach. It typically requires a master license, a supervisory role, or owning a slice of the business. Plumbers at $81,890 are usually billing their own clients or leading crews on large projects.

One thing worth flagging: the spread from the 10th to the 90th percentile in Texas runs $38,270 to $81,890, a range of more than $43,000. That’s a wide gap for a single trade in a single state, and it tells you the ceiling here is real. Where you fall depends far more on license tier and the kind of work you chase than on luck or location.

Translate those percentiles into hourly pay and the picture gets sharper. An apprentice at the 10th percentile works at roughly $18.40 an hour, while a senior or master plumber at the 90th percentile bills out at about $39.37. That’s more than double the entry rate. The median of $28.77 an hour is the rate a licensed journeyman can expect once they’re running standard service and repair work on their own. For anyone deciding whether the apprenticeship years are worth it, the math is clear: the early grind at $18 to $23 an hour is the price of admission to a trade where the experienced rate sits north of $35.

The early-career band between the 25th and 50th percentiles, $47,380 to $59,840, is where most newly licensed plumbers spend a few years. The fastest way through it is reps. Every additional type of job you can handle confidently, water heaters, repipes, drain work, fixture installs, slab leaks, shortens the time before an employer or client pays you the median rate or better. Plumbers who stay narrow tend to stall in this band, while those who broaden their skill set move up.

Plumber salary in Texas by metro

Pay shifts city to city across Texas, and the differences are large enough to factor into where you base yourself. Below are the five largest plumber job markets in the state by employment, with the median pay in each, drawn from BLS OEWS 2025.

Austin tops the list at $62,810, which is $2,970 above the statewide median of $59,840. The tech-driven building boom around Austin keeps demand for skilled trades high, and pay reflects it. Beaumont-Port Arthur is the surprise at $62,220, second highest of the five. That number is driven by the petrochemical and refining corridor along the Gulf Coast, where industrial plumbing and pipefitting work pays a premium even though the metro is small at 1,250 plumbers.

Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth are nearly tied at $61,300 and $61,250, and between them they account for almost 23,000 plumber jobs, more than half the state’s workforce. If you want the deepest market with the most employers and the most room to specialize, these two metros are it. The pay sits just above the state median, and the sheer number of openings gives you bargaining power to negotiate and to switch employers when a better rate comes along.

San Antonio brings up the rear at $58,180, which is $1,660 below the state median. It’s still a sizable market at 3,190 plumbers, but the going rate runs a touch lower than the other major metros. The takeaway across all five cities: the headline medians cluster within about $4,600 of each other, so the bigger pay difference comes from your license and specialty, not your zip code. The metro choice matters more for cost of living and the type of work available than for the wage itself.

The full spread between the top metro and the bottom is $62,810 in Austin down to $58,180 in San Antonio, a difference of $4,630. Compare that to the $43,620 spread between the 10th and 90th percentiles within the trade and you see why specialty and license tier outweigh geography. Chasing a $4,630 metro premium while staying at the same skill level earns you far less than moving up one license rung in the same city.

Where the metro choice does carry weight is the kind of work on offer. Beaumont-Port Arthur’s high median reflects industrial pipefitting in the refining corridor, work that isn’t available in most of the state. Austin’s premium reflects commercial new-construction tied to its building boom. Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth, with nearly 23,000 jobs combined, offer everything from high-volume residential service to large commercial projects, which is why they’re the best base for a plumber who wants options and the freedom to switch employers without relocating. If you’re optimizing purely for take-home against living costs, a lower-cost metro like San Antonio can still leave you ahead despite the lower headline wage.

Plumber take-home pay in Texas after taxes

Gross salary isn’t what you spend. Texas has no state income tax, so the only deductions on a plumber’s check are federal income tax and FICA (Social Security and Medicare). That’s a meaningful edge over most of the country. Here’s the after-tax breakdown at four points along the Texas pay range, using 2026 tax figures for a single filer.

A median Texas plumber takes home $50,120 a year, or $4,177 a month, after federal tax and FICA. The effective tax rate at the median is 16.2%, and it climbs to 19.4% at the senior level as more income falls into higher federal brackets. The state-tax column reads $0 at every line, because Texas simply doesn’t tax wages.

Notice how the effective rate rises as you move up the range. An entry-level plumber at $38,270 pays an effective 14.3% and keeps $32,788, while a senior plumber at $81,890 pays 19.4% and keeps $65,996. The federal bill is what grows: it jumps from $2,554 at entry to $9,630 at the senior level, while FICA scales more gently from $2,928 to $6,265 because it’s a flat percentage up to the wage cap. Even at the top of the Texas range, though, the senior plumber keeps just over 80 cents of every dollar earned, which is a better deal than a comparable earner faces in nearly any income-tax state.

Here’s the part an AI overview can’t replicate. Take that same $59,840 median salary and run it through California’s tax code instead. A California plumber on the identical gross nets $48,284 after federal, FICA, and California state income tax. The Texas plumber keeps $50,120. That’s a take-home gap of $1,836 a year in favor of Texas, on the exact same paycheck, purely because Texas doesn’t tax income. Over a 30-year career, that gap compounds into real money, and it doesn’t even count the lower cost of living in most of Texas.

One caution before you celebrate. Net pay minus local housing is the number that actually matters. A higher take-home in Austin doesn’t go as far if rent eats it. Plumbers in lower-cost metros like San Antonio or Beaumont often come out ahead in real terms even at a slightly lower wage, because their housing and daily costs are lower. Always compare net pay against what it costs to live where you’d work, not the gross figure on the offer letter.

To see your exact number with your filing status and deductions, run it through the Texas paycheck calculator. If you also pick up side service calls or run a small plumbing operation, software like TurboTax makes handling self-employment income and trade deductions a lot simpler at filing time.

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How to earn more as a plumber in Texas

The Texas pay range runs from $38,270 to $81,890, so the room to grow is large. The fastest movers up that ladder do a handful of specific things rather than just waiting for raises.

• Climb the license ladder. Moving from apprentice to journeyman, then journeyman to master, is the clearest pay jump in the trade. The leap from entry ($38,270) to median ($59,840) is $21,570, and it’s mostly licensing. A master license is what separates the median earner from the $81,890 senior tier.
• Chase industrial and commercial work. The Gulf Coast refining and petrochemical corridor around Beaumont-Port Arthur pays a median of $62,220, well above the state median, because industrial pipefitting carries a premium. Commercial new-construction in Austin ($62,810) pays similarly.
• Add specialty certifications. Backflow prevention, medical gas piping, and gas line work all command higher billing rates. Each specialty you can legally perform widens the jobs you can take and the rate you can charge.
• Pick the right metro for your situation. If you want the highest median, base in Austin. If you want the deepest market and the most employers to negotiate against, Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth together hold nearly 23,000 jobs.
• Sharpen the business side. The top of the range belongs to plumbers who run their own service calls or lead crews. Estimating, bidding, customer management, and basic accounting are what let you keep more of the money you bill. Short courses on small-business and project management through Coursera can fill those gaps without leaving the field.
• Work overtime strategically during boom cycles. Texas construction runs hot, and storm and freeze events spike emergency demand. Plumbers who make themselves available for premium-rate calls during those windows often push their annual earnings toward the 75th percentile and beyond.

Job outlook for plumbers in Texas

Texas employs about 44,090 plumbers, one of the deepest plumber labor markets in the United States, according to BLS OEWS 2025. Demand here is anchored by relentless population growth, ongoing residential and commercial construction across the major metros, and the industrial base along the Gulf Coast. Plumbing is also a trade that doesn’t offshore and doesn’t automate easily, which keeps the floor under wages steady.

The concentration of jobs in Dallas-Fort Worth (11,980) and Houston (10,980) means most of the hiring action sits in those two metros, but Austin’s 5,260 jobs are growing alongside the area’s building boom. If you’re job hunting or planning a move, listings on a board like ZipRecruiter will show you which metros and specialties are paying the strongest rates right now.

Related and higher-paying trades in Texas

Plumbing pays competitively against the other skilled building trades in Texas, and in fact it sits at the top of this particular group. Here’s how the closest comparable trades line up against a plumber’s $59,840 Texas median, using BLS OEWS 2025 medians.

An electrician in Texas earns a median of $58,570, which is $1,270 less than a plumber in Texas. An HVAC technician earns $57,760, or $2,080 less than a plumber here. The three trades pay close together, within roughly $2,100 of each other at the median, so the bigger earnings difference inside any one of them comes from licensing tier and specialty rather than from the trade you pick. If you’re early in your career and weighing options, plumbing currently holds the slight pay edge in Texas, and the licensing path gives it a high ceiling.

Plumber salary in Texas: FAQ

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS 2025 (occupation, state, and metro wage data); ThePayGuide 2026 take-home estimates using 2026 federal tax and FICA rates. Last updated 2026. See our methodology.