New construction residential electrical runs $4 to $9 per square foot in 2026 for a complete job, rough-in through trim. Commercial runs $7 to $20 per square foot depending on occupancy type. A whole-house rewire on an existing home runs $7 to $15 per square foot, because tearing into finished walls costs more than wiring an open frame.

Those are the numbers most people are looking for. Here’s the part that matters more: square-foot pricing is a checking tool, not a bidding tool. Electricians who bid off it lose money, and the reason is specific enough to be worth explaining.

Why the per-square-foot number misleads

Electrical cost doesn’t scale with floor area. It scales with device count, circuit count, and panel capacity, and those three things vary wildly between two houses of identical size.

Take two 2,000 sq ft homes. The first is a builder-grade spec house: 90 devices, 24 circuits, a 200-amp panel, standard fixtures. The second is a custom build with a finished basement, recessed lighting throughout, three-zone smart switching, an EV charger, a hot tub circuit, and a detached garage subpanel. Same square footage. The second one has close to double the device count and lands near $9/sq ft while the first sits at $4.50.

The trap

Bidding a custom home at the spec-house rate because “it’s 2,000 square feet” is the single most expensive mistake in residential electrical estimating. On a 2,000 sq ft house, the gap between $4.50 and $9.00 per square foot is $9,000.

Use the per-square-foot figure the way a framer uses board-feet-per-hour: to catch an error after you’ve built the bid, not to build it.

Residential new construction rates

For a complete job on an open frame — rough-in, trim-out, panel, and fixtures — here’s where 2026 pricing lands:

Build tier	Per sq ft	What drives it
Builder / spec grade	$3.50 – $5.00	Minimum code devices, 150–200A panel, basic fixtures
Mid-range residential	$5.00 – $7.00	Extra circuits, some recessed lighting, 200A panel
Custom / high-end	$7.00 – $12.00	Smart controls, heavy lighting, 400A service, outbuildings
Luxury with automation	$12.00 – $20.00+	Whole-home automation, dedicated AV, generator, redundancy

Split across the two phases of the job, rough-in is roughly 55-60% of that total and trim-out is 40-45%. Rough-in on a spec house runs $2.00 to $3.00 per square foot; trim-out runs $1.50 to $2.50.

Trim-out is where estimates most often go wrong. Rough-in is fast and repetitive: pull wire, set boxes, move on. Trim is device-by-device labor, and it’s fully dependent on device count rather than square footage. A house with 140 devices takes roughly 55% longer to trim than one with 90, regardless of floor area.

A better first number

Before reaching for square footage, count devices off the plan. Residential trim runs $25 to $45 per device installed, all-in. Multiply device count by your rate, add panel and service, and you’ll have a tighter number in five minutes than square footage gives you in one.

Commercial rates by occupancy

Commercial electrical spreads much wider than residential because occupancy type drives load requirements, and load drives everything downstream — conduit sizing, panel count, feeder runs.

Occupancy	Per sq ft (complete)	Rough-in only
Warehouse / shell	$4 – $8	$2.50 – $5.00
Office (open plan)	$8 – $14	$4.50 – $8.00
Office (private, heavy IT)	$12 – $18	$6.50 – $10.00
Retail	$10 – $16	$5.50 – $9.00
Restaurant	$15 – $30	$8.00 – $16.00
Medical / dental	$18 – $35	$10.00 – $18.00
Data center	$50 – $200+	Varies with redundancy tier

Restaurants and medical spaces run high for the same reason: equipment density. A restaurant kitchen packs a dozen dedicated appliance circuits into a few hundred square feet, so the average across the whole space climbs even though the dining room is cheap. Medical adds isolated ground receptacles, emergency branch circuits, and equipment that carries its own code requirements.

Three factors push commercial numbers up harder than most estimators expect:

Conduit requirements. Most commercial work requires EMT or rigid conduit rather than Romex, and conduit installation runs 3 to 4 times the labor hours of cable pulls. If you’re moving from residential into commercial, this one line item is the biggest source of underbidding.

Union versus open shop. Union commercial labor typically runs 40-70% above open shop in the same market, before considering productivity differences. Compare bids accordingly.

Prevailing wage. Public work under Davis-Bacon or a state equivalent can add 30-60% to labor cost. This is a rate change, not a scope change, so square-foot benchmarks from private work don’t transfer.

Source: U.S. Department of Labor — Wage Determinations Online — official Davis-Bacon prevailing wage rates by county and classification

Remodel and rewire rates

Existing construction costs more per square foot than new construction, and the multiplier isn’t small.

A whole-house rewire runs $7 to $15 per square foot. On a 1,800 sq ft house that’s $12,600 to $27,000. The spread depends almost entirely on access. A house with an unfinished basement and accessible attic sits at the low end. A two-story slab-on-grade with plaster walls and no attic access sits at the top, because every run means opening and patching a wall.

Partial remodels price differently again. A kitchen remodel typically runs $3,000 to $8,000 in electrical alone regardless of the home’s total square footage, because the work is concentrated: dedicated appliance circuits, under-cabinet lighting, GFCI protection, and often a subpanel if the existing service is maxed. Quoting a kitchen at the whole-house per-square-foot rate underprices it badly.

Basement finishing runs $4 to $8 per square foot, sitting between new construction and full rewire since the framing is usually open but the panel tie-in is existing.

Knob-and-tube and aluminum

Pre-1950 homes with knob-and-tube wiring and 1960s-70s homes with aluminum branch circuits both carry surcharges. Knob-and-tube removal adds $1.50 to $3.00 per square foot on top of the rewire rate. Aluminum pigtailing runs $8 to $20 per device. Insurers increasingly require both, so scope them explicitly rather than absorbing them.

What the number excludes

Per-square-foot benchmarks almost never include these, and leaving them out of a bid is how a job that penciled at 22% margin closes at 9%:

Service and panel. A 200-amp service install runs $2,000 to $4,500. A 400-amp service runs $5,000 to $12,000. On a 2,000 sq ft house, the service alone is $1.00 to $2.25 per square foot — a quarter to a half of a typical spec-grade rate.

Permits and inspection. $200 to $1,500 residential, more commercial. Pass-through cost, but only if you put it in the quote.

Fixtures. Most per-square-foot figures cover installation labor and rough materials, not the fixtures themselves. Owner-supplied fixtures are common; make it explicit which side of the line they fall on.

Temporary power. New construction needs a temp pole and service: $500 to $1,500, and it’s easy to forget on the first bid of a build.

Excavation and trenching. Underground service, detached structures, and site lighting all need trench. Budget $8 to $25 per linear foot depending on soil and whether you’re subbing it out.

A worked example: 2,200 sq ft new build

Mid-range residential, open frame, 200-amp service, moderate recessed lighting, one EV charger circuit.

Start with device count, not square footage. Off the plan: 112 devices (receptacles, switches, lighting outlets), 32 circuits, 1 EV circuit, 1 range circuit, 1 dryer circuit.

Rough-in labor: 112 devices at 0.55 hours per device averaged across box setting and wire pull comes to 62 hours. At $68/hour loaded journeyman rate, that’s $4,216.

Rough-in materials: wire, boxes, staples, nail plates. Roughly $2,400 at 2026 copper pricing.

Trim labor: 112 devices at 0.30 hours each comes to 34 hours, or $2,312.

Trim materials: devices, plates, and standard fixtures at $1,900.

Service and panel: 200-amp panel, meter can, grounding, and labor at $3,200.

EV circuit: 60-amp run to the garage, $850.

Permit: $450.

Direct cost lands at $15,328. At 22% markup, the bid comes to $18,700.

Now run the check: $18,700 ÷ 2,200 sq ft = $8.50 per square foot. That’s at the top of the mid-range band and edging into custom territory. Worth a look — and in this case it’s explained by the EV circuit and the recessed lighting count. The number confirms the bid rather than producing it.

Had it come out at $3.80, that’s a signal to go back and find what got missed. That’s the entire job of the per-square-foot figure.

FAQ

How much does electrical cost per square foot for new construction?

Residential new construction runs $4 to $9 per square foot in 2026 for a complete job. Builder-grade spec work sits at $3.50 to $5.00, mid-range at $5.00 to $7.00, and custom homes at $7.00 to $12.00. Commercial runs $7 to $20 per square foot depending on occupancy type.

What is commercial electrical rough-in cost per square foot in 2026?

Commercial rough-in runs $2.50 to $5.00 per square foot for warehouse and shell space, $4.50 to $8.00 for open-plan office, $5.50 to $9.00 for retail, and $8.00 to $16.00 for restaurants. Medical and lab space runs $10.00 to $18.00. Conduit requirements and prevailing wage are the two biggest variables.

How much does it cost to rewire a house per square foot?

A whole-house rewire runs $7 to $15 per square foot, so $12,600 to $27,000 on an 1,800 sq ft home. Access drives the spread: accessible attic and basement put you at the low end, while plaster walls and slab-on-grade construction put you at the top because each run requires opening and patching finished surfaces.

Should I bid electrical work by square foot?

No. Bid by device count, circuit count, and service size, then use the per-square-foot figure to check your total. Two houses of identical square footage can differ by 100% in electrical cost depending on device density, so square footage alone produces unreliable bids.

What is the electrical cost for a 2,000 sq ft house?

A 2,000 sq ft new-construction home runs roughly $8,000 to $18,000 for complete electrical, with builder-grade work near the bottom and custom work with automation or EV charging near the top. A rewire of an existing 2,000 sq ft home runs $14,000 to $30,000.

The short version

Use $4 to $9 per square foot for residential new construction and $7 to $20 for commercial as reference bands, then bid off device count and circuit count instead. Add service, permits, temp power, and trenching separately, because standard benchmarks exclude all four. When your finished bid lands far outside the band for that build tier, treat it as a prompt to recheck scope before sending it rather than a reason to adjust the price to fit.

SnapScope counts devices and circuits from job site photos and plans, then prices them against your labor rate and markup, so the bid comes from the scope rather than a rule of thumb.

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For hourly rates, panel pricing, and flat-rate job prices across common electrical work, see the electrician pricing guide.