Plumber Salary in Washington 2026,
$81,030 Median | BLS Data by City

The published Washington figure is $81,030 a year, or $38.96 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with a band from $49,490 at the 10th percentile to $141,860 at the 90th. That is 27.0% above the national median of $63,800. The row — SOC 47-2152 — covers plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters together, so the upper part of the band reflects industrial process and shipyard pipefitting as much as plumbing.

Bellingham, at $102,750, ahead of Kennewick-Richland $97,130, Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue $95,230, Bremerton-Silverdale-Port Orchard $82,960 and Longview-Kelso $80,710. Seattle is third. Bellingham and the Tri-Cities both combine substantial industrial and process work with comparatively small trade labour pools, which is a stronger wage driver than metro size.

A plumber certificate from the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, which runs the plumber certification programme statewide. New entrants register as plumber trainees and work under a certified plumber while accumulating supervised hours, then sit the examination for journey-level certification; separate specialty certificates cover residential and medical gas piping. Contracting in one's own name additionally requires contractor registration with L&I, which is a separate business credential from the individual certificate.

A combination of statewide individual certification, a strong organised commercial and industrial sector, high construction demand around Puget Sound, and the sheer cost of living in the Seattle market. The SOC row helps too — it includes industrial pipefitting and steamfitting, and Washington has an unusual amount of that work between the refineries, the Bremerton shipyard and the Tri-Cities process facilities. Very few states reach the same level: the closest peers are Wisconsin $81,210, Michigan $80,190 and Montana $79,960.

Substantially, though not entirely without offset. Washington levies no individual income tax at all, so the whole of the $81,030 median is free of state income withholding. Employees do fund Paid Family and Medical Leave through payroll premiums — the total premium rises to 1.13% of wages for 2026, with employees paying the larger share — and the WA Cares Fund long-term-care premium takes a further 0.58%. Those are real but small next to a graduated income tax, and Washington's 7% capital gains tax applies only above an annual standard deduction, mainly affecting a plumber who eventually sells a business.

It creates a portable, verifiable ladder in a trade that in many states has none. Washington's L&I plumber certification programme registers trainees, requires supervised hours under a certified plumber, and issues journey-level and specialty certificates by examination — so a Washington plumber's competence is documented by the state rather than asserted by an employer. That has two effects on pay. It restricts who may lawfully do the work, which supports the rate; and it gives an individual plumber a credential that moves with them between employers and across the state, which is exactly the leverage that trades in non-certifying states lack. The $49,490 to $81,030 stretch of this band is essentially the trainee-to-journey transition.

Because the SOC row is three trades. Pipefitters and steamfitters are counted with plumbers, and their work — process piping in refineries and chemical plants, shipyard systems at Bremerton, high-pressure and specialty piping around the Tri-Cities — is performed under different conditions, frequently with union scale, shift and travel premiums and outage-driven overtime. A residential service plumber in Longview-Kelso, at an $80,710 metro median, and an industrial pipefitter on a refinery turnaround are both on this row. The $107,420 seventy-fifth percentile and the $141,860 ninetieth belong overwhelmingly to the second.

On the combination rather than the gross. A 27.0% premium over the national median is already unusual, and no income tax on top of it makes the net advantage larger still — the peer table's Wisconsin $81,210, Michigan $80,190, Montana $79,960, New Jersey $78,240 and Hawaii $78,060 are all in states with an income tax. The counterweights are Puget Sound housing costs, which absorb a great deal of the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue $95,230 metro figure, and the certification hours a plumber arriving from another state must reconcile with L&I before working at journey level. The Bellingham $102,750 and Kennewick-Richland $97,130 markets are where that arithmetic works out best.