Carpenter Salary in New York 2026,
$72,330 Median | BLS Data by City

A median $72,330 a year, or $34.77 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025 — 19.4% above the national median of $60,580. The middle half falls between $57,330 and $89,820 and the full band runs $46,860 to $122,400. The width of that band reflects the gap between residential carpentry and metropolitan union commercial work more than it reflects experience.

New York-Newark-Jersey City at $74,300, ahead of Kiryas Joel-Poughkeepsie-Newburgh $63,540, Buffalo-Cheektowaga $63,500, Syracuse $62,250 and Binghamton $62,000. About twelve thousand dollars separates the table, which is narrower than most New York occupations because the metropolitan figure blends a very large residential market with its high-rate union work.

Not at state level — New York does not license the trade, and contractor and home improvement licensing is handled by individual cities and counties. What does apply in New York City is Local Law 196, which requires construction workers on most covered sites to hold site safety training cards with defined hours of instruction. That is a condition of site access rather than a carpentry credential, but without it you cannot work.

A great deal, and more than any state credential. New York's carpenters' union programmes set apprenticeship training standards and published wage rates, and in the metropolitan commercial and institutional market that coverage is the main determinant of pay. The gap between the state's $57,330 twenty-fifth percentile and its $89,820 seventy-fifth is substantially the gap between non-union residential work and union commercial work.

It is the New York City law requiring construction workers on most covered sites to complete defined hours of site safety training and hold a corresponding card. It applies across trades rather than to carpentry specifically, and site access depends on it. Anyone planning to work construction in the five boroughs needs it in addition to whatever trade training they hold, and employers generally will not put an untrained worker on a covered site.

It creates a published standard and a published price. New York licenses no carpenters, so there is no state examination establishing competence and no tier structure to progress through — but the union apprenticeship programmes provide both: defined training with documented hours, a journeyman standard employers recognise, and negotiated rates that are known in advance. In the metropolitan commercial market that is the operative structure, and it is why the upper half of this band looks the way it does. The practical consequence for a carpenter is that the decision about which market to work in — union commercial or non-union residential — is the equivalent of a licence tier decision elsewhere, and it is worth about thirty thousand dollars at the seventy-fifth percentile.

It reports wages as paid, so the premium time that drives high carpenter earnings in this state is inside the number rather than beside it. It counts employees, leaving self-employed carpenters and small contractors outside the survey — a substantial omission in the residential market. The New York-Newark-Jersey City metro spans the state line. And the occupation covers everything from residential framing to interior systems and formwork at very different rates.

Market first: union commercial and institutional work above non-union residential, which is most of the distance from the $57,330 twenty-fifth percentile to the $89,820 seventy-fifth. Union apprenticeship and journeyman standing second, since that is the structure setting published rates. Specialist trade third — millwright, dockbuilder and interior systems work carry their own rates. Foreman responsibility and premium time fourth, which is what the $122,400 ninetieth percentile describes. And in New York City, the Local Law 196 card, without which none of it is accessible.