Methodology: EV charger cost-factor ranking
Short answer: We rank 40 cities by the average of two ranks: the published permit fee and the BLS May 2025 electrician median hourly wage. Both figures already appear, with sources, on each city page; nothing is estimated.
Last updated:
Inputs
- Permit fee: the fixed fee shown in our permit fee index: an official city or county fee schedule where we found one (accessed 2026-10-25), otherwise a labelled secondary source. Some are EV-charger-specific lines; others are general electrical permit fees used as a stand-in. The fee type is shown in every row.
- Electrician wage: the metro median hourly wage for electricians from U.S. BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (electricians, SOC 47-2111), per-metro series (accessed 2026-10-25). This is what electricians are paid, not what customers are billed.
Calculation
- Keep cities with a fixed permit fee and a BLS median wage (40 of 50).
- Rank fees from lowest (1) to highest; rank wages the same way. Ties share the lower rank.
- Score = (fee rank + wage rank) ÷ 2. Sort by score; ties broken by lower wage, then name.
Excluded
10 cities: fee is a valuation formula or pending, or only a BLS mean (not a median) is published, or the wage is pending. They are listed on the ranking page.
Limits
- This is not a total install price. Our total cost figure is a national range ($749–$2,500, Qmerit), the same for every city.
- Equal weights for fee and wage are a choice, not a measured share of cost.
- Rebates are left out because many cities have no verified rebate or one that is a percentage or income-tiered.
See also the site-wide methodology.