Carpenter Salary in California 2026,
$75,920 Median | BLS Data by City

California carpenters earn a median $75,920 a year, $36.50 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $59,740 and $95,830 and a full range of $47,490 to $119,950. That is 25.3% above the $60,580 national median — one of the widest state premiums in the construction trades.

San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont at $89,200, then Napa at $80,590, Santa Rosa-Petaluma at $80,520, San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara at $80,190 and Santa Cruz-Watsonville at $77,690. All five are Northern California markets and all sit above the statewide median of $75,920 — Bay Area commercial construction operates under collective agreements that set scale well above the state's residential market.

Not as an employee. California licenses contractors rather than tradespeople through the Contractors State License Board, so a carpenter working for a licensed contractor needs no state credential. Taking work in your own name is different: that requires a CSLB licence, and the C-5 Framing and Rough Carpentry or B General Building classification requires documented journey-level experience plus law and trade examinations. Public works additionally involve Department of Industrial Relations registration and prevailing wage compliance.

California's income tax runs progressively to 13.3% and all wages carry a 1.3% State Disability Insurance contribution with no cap in 2026. At a $75,920 median a carpenter is in the middle brackets, and overtime and prevailing wage premiums — the most variable part of this trade's income — are taxed at the marginal rate. Union health and pension contributions under a collective agreement are pre-tax and are not part of the wage figures shown here.

Prevailing wage is the rate that must be paid on state-funded public works, determined by the Department of Industrial Relations for each trade and locality and typically set at or near the union scale. It matters enormously in California because the state runs large school, transit and infrastructure construction programmes: a carpenter on a public works project earns the determined rate regardless of whether their employer is union, which is one of the clearest routes from the $75,920 median toward the $95,830 seventy-fifth percentile.

Union density and prevailing wage, mainly. The Northern California carpenters' agreements set commercial construction scale well above what an open-shop residential market would produce, and California's large volume of publicly funded construction carries prevailing wage determinations that follow those scales onto non-union jobs. Add a location quotient of 1.28 — the state employs more carpenters per worker than the national average — and you get a median of $75,920 with a ninetieth percentile approaching a hundred and twenty thousand.

The annualised figure assumes steady work, and construction carpentry in California is project-based and weather- and cycle-sensitive. A carpenter between projects does not earn at an annualised rate, and the residential remodel market in particular has pronounced seasonal and interest-rate-driven swings. The $47,490 tenth percentile also reflects apprentices and helpers rather than journey-level work; read the $59,740 twenty-fifth percentile as the residential journeyman floor.

Sector and agreement coverage. The lower figure is residential framing and finish work for open-shop contractors. The higher is commercial construction under a collective agreement, or public works at prevailing wage, often with specialty skills — concrete formwork, interior systems, acoustical and drywall systems — that command their own rates. The transition is made by joining a union local and entering its apprenticeship or journey-level dispatch, or by moving to a contractor doing public works, and it is the single most consequential career decision in this trade in California.