Bathroom remodel cost dataset

What each budget actually buys

National figures, 40 square foot bathroom, nothing changing position. Trade prices: a general contractor coordinating the four trades adds a margin on top of all of them.

Read the first two rows together and you have the answer to the question this page gets asked most. $5,675 is a bathroom that looks new; $11,244 is a bathroom that is new. The gap between them is not finish or taste — it is whether new fixtures go in, and a fixture cannot be added later without opening the walls again.

The four levers, in order of size

National figures on the default 40 square foot bathroom, changing one thing at a time.

1. The bathing fixture

2. How much wall gets tiled

3. The vanity

4. The floor

Moving a fixture, and what it stands on

Nothing moves$13,674

Every fixture goes back where it was. No floor is opened, no drain is re-cut, and this is the assumption behind almost every advertised bathroom price.

A fixture moves, over a wood floor$14,928

Fourteen plumber hours plus pipe. The drain runs between the joists, so the floor is opened, a new fall is cut and the run is re-vented. Real money, and not dramatic.

A fixture moves, over a concrete slab$16,719

The same plumbing plus sawing the slab, digging the trench to fall, laying the pipe, backfilling and re-pouring — and then waiting for it to cure. Same fixture, same distance, different building.

The step from the second row to the third is $1,790 and it depends on nothing you choose. It is worth establishing which of the three a quote assumed before comparing it with any other quote.

Cost by room size

Default specification, national rates. The per-square-foot column is the point of this table.

A bathroom three times the size does not cost three times as much, and the per-square-foot figure falls steeply as the room grows. That is because most of the cost is fixtures, connections and trade visits rather than area — a toilet costs the same to plumb in a 20 square foot room as in a 120 square foot one. It also means the smallest bathrooms are the worst value per square foot in the house, which is exactly the opposite of what people assume when they set a budget by room size.

Line items

The three bathing fixtures appear as allowances rather than as built-up costs, because each has its own calculator on this site where it is priced properly. The allowance here excludes the demolition, wall repair and painting, which are separate lines on this page.

The reasoning behind each figure

Written out so a bathroom fitter can point at the exact assumption that is wrong.

Strip the room back

• Six labourer hours plus a fifth of an hour per square foot of floor: fixtures out, tile off, board off where it has to come off, and everything carried out.
• ⚠️ Cutting old tile is respirable crystalline silica work under OSHA 1926.1153, which means wet saws and a contained room. In a house built before 1978 it is also lead work above the federal threshold.
• This is the point of no return in the project and the point where surprises appear. A bathroom is the wettest room in the house and the one most likely to have been leaking quietly.

Skip and disposalestimated, ±48%

• A stripped bathroom fills a small skip: cast iron or steel, tile, backer board and a tub. It goes out as construction waste and it is heavy rather than bulky, which is what the price follows.

Permit and inspectionestimated, ±63%

• Most jurisdictions require a permit once plumbing or electrical work is altered, and the fee varies by locality more than almost anything else here — which is why this band is wide and is our estimate rather than a published figure.
• It is also the line people skip and later regret: unpermitted bathroom work is one of the things that surfaces during a sale, and by then the walls are shut.

Plumber: connect the fixtures where they are

• Eight plumber hours to set and connect a toilet, a basin and a bathing fixture in the positions they already occupy, including new stops and supplies.
• Every fixture gets new shut-off valves whether or not the old ones work. They are a few dollars, they are behind the vanity for the next twenty years, and a seized stop turns a dripping faucet into a whole-house shut-off.

Plumber: move fixtures to new positions

• Fourteen more plumber hours. This is the single decision that decides whether a bathroom remodel is a five-thousand-dollar job or a twenty-thousand-dollar one, and it is worth understanding physically rather than as a price.
• A toilet drain is a three-inch pipe that has to fall about a quarter of an inch per foot and that runs between the joists. Moving it eighteen inches is not an adjustment: it means opening the floor, and often the ceiling of the room below, and finding a new route that still falls the right way and still vents.
• A basin or a shower is easier because the pipes are smaller. The toilet is the one that costs, and keeping the toilet where it is while moving everything else is a real and underused middle option.
• Over a wood floor this is the whole cost of moving a fixture. Over a concrete slab it is only the start: the slab lines below add the sawing, the trench and the re-pour, and together they are several times this figure.

Pipe, fittings and vent for the new positionsestimated, ±49%

• Drain, vent, hot and cold in the new run, plus the blocking and the patching materials for what had to be opened to get there.

Cut and break out the slab for the new drain run

• Sixteen labourer hours, and only where the bathroom sits on a concrete slab and a fixture is moving. Over a wood floor the pipe runs between the joists and none of this exists.
• Saw the slab, break out the trench, dig it to the fall the pipe needs, lay and test the pipe, backfill and re-pour. Then the floor has to cure before anything goes on top of it, which is why this also costs a week of programme rather than only money.
• ⚠️ Sawing and breaking concrete is respirable crystalline silica work under OSHA 1926.1153: wet cutting, a written exposure control plan and a contained room. It is the dustiest and most regulated hour in a bathroom.

Saw hire, fill, concrete and disposal for the slab workestimated, ±51%

• Concrete saw hire with its water feed, the spoil out, gravel and sand for the bed, and the concrete to close the trench again.
• This is why moving a toilet in a slab-on-grade house is a different conversation from moving one upstairs. Nothing about the fixture changed; what changed is what it is standing on.

Electrician: GFCI, lighting and fan circuits

• Eight electrician hours: bringing the receptacles to GFCI protection, wiring the lighting and the fan, and making good at the panel.
• A bathroom built before the mid-eighties will not have a GFCI receptacle and may share a circuit with a bedroom. Once the walls are open this is cheap to put right and it is the only part of the whole project that is about not being electrocuted.

Cable, devices and boxesestimated, ±48%

• GFCI receptacles, switches, boxes, cable and the breaker. Small money against the hours, and the part of the electrical work that is actually visible afterwards.

New bathtub and surround (materials)estimated, ±44%

• Tub, surround, valve and trim, supplied. The tub is the small part: the surround is most of this band, which is why a tiled one and a moulded kit are so far apart.
• ⚠️ Lower than our standalone bathtub calculator on purpose, and it is not a discount: the demolition, the wall repair and the painting are separate lines on this page and are inside the figure there. Use the dedicated calculator when the tub is the only thing changing, and this page when the whole room is.

New bathtub and surround (hours)

• Fourteen hours: setting the tub dead level, bedding it, connecting the waste and overflow underneath where nothing can be reached afterwards, and fitting the surround.
• Priced as plumber hours because the connection under the tub is the part that leaks if it is done by somebody handy, and it is the part nobody can inspect once the tub is in.

Tub with a shower over it (materials)estimated, ±43%

• Tub, a surround tiled or panelled to shower height, a pressure-balancing valve, a head, and a screen or curtain rail. The American default and the only option here that keeps a bath in the house.
• The surround goes higher than a bath-only one, so it carries more tile and more waterproofing. That is most of the step up from the tub allowance.

Tub with a shower over it (hours)

• Nineteen hours: the tub as above plus the extra height of waterproofing and tiling, and the valve set into the wall before any of it closes up.

Walk-in shower (materials)estimated, ±48%

• Base, waterproofing, tiled or panelled walls, valve and glass, supplied. The band is wide because the glass alone spans an open entry and a set of frameless hinged panels, and those are thousands apart.
• ⚠️ A curbless entry is not in here. That cost sits in the floor structure rather than in the shower, and our dedicated walk-in shower calculator prices it as its own line.

Walk-in shower (hours)

• Twenty-seven hours, the most of any bathing option, and almost all of it waterproofing and tile. A shower is the one thing in a bathroom that has to keep water out of the building rather than merely carry it away.
• ⚠️ Priced at the tile setter's wage, which BLS publishes for only 141 of the 530 areas in our index. Outside those it falls back to the broader construction group for the same area.

Toiletestimated, ±55%

• A two-piece or one-piece toilet with the seat and the supply. The band covers a builder-grade unit through a skirted comfort-height one, and above that band you are paying for shape rather than function.
• EPA WaterSense reports that design improvements let toilets use 1.28 gallons per flush or less, which is 20 percent below the current federal standard of 1.6 gallons. An older toilet can use as much as 6. Retrieved 2026-08-23.

Plumber: set the toilet

• Two and a half hours including a new wax or foam seal, new bolts and a new stop. It goes in last, after the floor, which is why it is its own line rather than part of the plumbing rough.

Stock vanity unitestimated, ±48%

• A ready-made unit in a standard width, usually with the top and basin included. Available the same day and the assumption behind almost every quote that does not say otherwise.

Semi-custom vanity unitestimated, ±49%

• Chosen width, finish and hardware from a manufacturer's range, with the top usually priced separately. Four to eight weeks of lead time, which has to be ordered before the demolition rather than after.

Custom-built vanityestimated, ±49%

• Built by a cabinetmaker to the room. The right answer for an awkward wall, a floating unit or a non-standard width, and an expensive way to fill a gap that a stock unit already fits.

Vanity top, basin and faucetestimated, ±68%

• A top with the basin, plus the faucet and the waste. Priced separately from the unit because it is chosen separately: a stock vanity often includes a top, and a semi-custom or custom one almost never does.
• EPA WaterSense states that labeled bathroom sink faucets using a maximum of 1.5 gallons per minute can reduce a sink's water flow by 30 percent or more from the standard 2.2 gallons per minute. Retrieved 2026-08-23.

Fit the vanity, top and faucet

• Five hours: scribing the unit to a wall that is not straight, fixing it, cutting the top if it needs it, and setting the basin. The scribing is most of it and it is what separates a fitted vanity from one that has a gap behind it.

Luxury vinyl plank flooringestimated, ±38%

• Waterproof rigid-core plank with its underlay. Warm underfoot, quiet, and it survives a flood in a way that a tiled floor over a wood subfloor does not.

Ceramic floor tile and backerestimated, ±43%

• Tile, backer board or uncoupling membrane, adhesive and grout. The membrane is not optional over a wood floor: a bathroom floor moves and tile does not, and that is what cracks grout lines within a year.

Porcelain floor tile and backerestimated, ±48%

• Denser than ceramic, so it absorbs less water and needs a diamond blade to cut. Large formats also need a flatter subfloor than most bathrooms have, and levelling it is inside this band.

Set the floor tile

• About twenty minutes a square foot including the membrane, the setting and the grouting, over three visits because each layer cures before the next.
• ⚠️ The wage is official BLS data adjusted to your area, but tile and stone setters are published for only 141 of the 530 areas in our index. Outside those, this hour comes from the broader construction group for the same area — the largest single approximation in a tiled bathroom.

Lay the vinyl plank

• About seven minutes a square foot, in one visit. There is nothing to cure, which is why a vinyl floor can go down on the same day the room is otherwise finished and a tiled one cannot.

Wall tile and setting materialsestimated, ±61%

• Tile, adhesive, grout and trim for the walls outside the bathing fixture — the fixture's own walls are inside its allowance and are not counted twice.
• The band is four to one because a plain ceramic subway tile and a natural stone are both wall tile, and both are ordinary choices.

Set the wall tile

• About ten minutes a square foot. Wall tile is faster than floor tile per foot and there is usually far more of it, so full-height tiling is the second largest labour item in a bathroom after the bathing fixture.

Board, compound and paintestimated, ±52%

• Moisture-resistant board where it was opened, tape, three coats of compound, primer and two coats of paint. A bathroom is painted with something that copes with condensation, which is a different tin from a bedroom.

Board, tape and paint the room

• Twelve hours plus a fifth of an hour per square foot of floor, spread over several visits because each coat of compound dries before the next and the paint goes on after all of them.
• It is the last trade in and the one whose schedule everything else pushes. A bathroom that is a week late is usually a bathroom whose tiling ran long.

Extractor fan, duct and grilleestimated, ±53%

• Fan, insulated duct and a grille through the wall or roof, discharging to outside air and never into a loft.
• It is the cheapest line here and the one that decides whether the room still looks new in five years. Ventilation is the control that matters for moisture, and moisture is what destroys a bathroom.

Light fittings, mirror and accessoriesestimated, ±61%

• A ceiling fitting, a light at the mirror, the mirror or cabinet itself, and the towel rails and paper holder. Small items that together are more than people budget.
• Light at the mirror rather than only above it is the one that changes how the room feels, and it costs the same.

Door, casing and skirtingestimated, ±55%

• A new door with its casing, the skirting round the room and the hardware. The threshold between the bathroom floor and the one outside it is here too, and it is the detail that most often gets left until it is awkward.

Hang the door and fit the trim

• Five carpenter hours. A pre-hung door is quick; an old opening that is out of square is not, and bathroom openings usually are.

Silicone, snagging and final cleanestimated, ±50%

• Silicone into every internal corner and around every fixture, then the room cleaned and the grout haze taken off. Corners move and grout does not bend, which is why they are siliconed and not grouted.

Snagging and cleaning hours

• Four hours at the end. It is the part of the job that gets compressed when everything else has run late, and it is the part the client sees first.

Not included in this dataset

A general contractor's margin

Every figure here is a trade price: what the plumber, the tile setter, the electrician and the carpenter charge, each already including their own overhead and profit. A general contractor who coordinates the four, holds the schedule and carries the risk adds a further margin on top of all of them, typically in the low tens of percent. That is real work and it is not in this number. Managing four trades yourself is how you avoid it, and it is a job.

What is found once the walls are open

A bathroom is the wettest room in the house and the likeliest to have been leaking quietly. Rotten subfloor under a toilet, soaked studs behind a tub, and old galvanised supply pipe that crumbles when it is disturbed are all normal findings, and none can be priced beforehand. Agree an hourly rate for repairs in writing before the strip-out.

Moving walls or changing the room size

Taking space from a landing or a bedroom is framing and possibly structural, and it changes the electrical and the heating too. It is a different project with a different price.

Heating, and heated floors

Whatever heats the room today is assumed to stay. An electric underfloor mat is a genuine and popular addition, and it needs its own circuit and its own thermostat, so it is priced separately rather than folded in.

Asbestos and lead in older houses

Sheet flooring, mastic and some wall boards from before the eighties can contain asbestos, and disturbing painted surfaces in pre-1978 housing brings the federal lead renovation rule into play well above its threshold — a bathroom strip-out is far past it. Testing comes first and neither is priced here.