HVAC Technician Salary in Texas 2026,
$57,760 Median | BLS Data by City

Texas HVAC technicians earn a median $57,760 a year, $27.77 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $46,800 and $69,860 and a full range of $38,100 to $81,860. That is 5.3% below the $61,010 national median, partly offset by Texas taking no income tax and by heavy summer overtime.

Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos at $60,820, then Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington at $59,560, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands at $58,940, San Antonio-New Braunfels at $58,590 and Odessa at $58,580. The whole state spans about two thousand dollars, which is unusually flat — in this trade the licence tier and the commercial-versus-residential split explain far more of the variation than geography does.

Texas regulates the trade through the Department of Licensing and Regulation's Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Contractors Program. Technicians register with TDLR and work under a licensed contractor; the contractor licence itself requires documented experience under a licensed contractor, an examination and insurance, and comes in classes covering environmental air and commercial refrigeration at different tonnage limits. EPA Section 608 refrigerant certification is a separate federal requirement.

No. Texas has no personal income tax and no local income tax, so a technician at the median of $57,760 keeps the whole amount apart from federal tax. That treatment applies equally to the summer overtime and on-call pay that in a Texas cooling season can add a substantial amount to annual earnings.

It is the main route to the top of the band. The TDLR air conditioning and refrigeration contractor licence requires documented experience working under a licensed contractor plus an examination, and it is what permits you to pull permits and run your own work. The Texas 90th percentile of $81,860 is largely contractor-licensed territory, and it also opens commercial refrigeration and chiller work that registered technicians cannot take on independently.

Because the Texas market is overwhelmingly residential and intensely competitive. The state's enormous housing stock generates huge volumes of replacement and service work, and it is bid by a very large number of contractors, which holds hourly rates down. The national median is lifted by markets with stronger commercial and union presence and by regions where seasonal HVAC work commands scarcity pricing. Texas has the volume; what it does not have is the pricing power, which is why the median sits at $57,760 with a location quotient of 0.94.

The annualised median substantially understates what a busy Texas technician earns in a hot year, because it does not separate out summer overtime, on-call pay and commission on equipment sales — all of which are standard in the Texas residential market and all of which Texas leaves untaxed. On the other side, the $38,100 tenth percentile is genuine helper and apprentice pay, and the winter months in this trade are considerably quieter than the summer ones, so annual income is less steady than the figure implies.

Skill set, seasonality and pay. Residential service is high-volume, seasonal and commission-influenced, and it fills the middle of the Texas band around the $57,760 median. Commercial refrigeration, chillers and building automation controls are year-round, technically demanding and considerably better paid — the work behind the $69,860 seventy-fifth percentile and the $81,860 ninetieth. Data-centre and grocery refrigeration work in the Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin corridors is the fastest-growing part of that commercial segment, and TDLR licence class determines what you can legally take on.