What a Mechanic Is Paid in Every State
Short answer: an automotive service technician's median runs from $37,660 in West Virginia to $68,660 in the District of Columbia. Nationally the distribution is 10th $34,660, median $50,620, 90th $81,790.
This is the big occupation: 704,640 people across the fifty states and DC, against 149,310 body repairers. If someone says "technician" without qualifying it, this is usually who they mean.
Three things the median hides:
- No state's ceiling reaches six figures. The highest 90th percentile in the country is Washington's $95,620. Collision work, by contrast, clears $100,000 in four states and tops out at $133,140.
- The largest workforces are again the worst paid. Texas employs 69,750 mechanics and ranks 37th. Florida employs 49,930 and ranks 39th.
- Where you work matters more than which state. A dealership pays a mechanic $10,290 more at the median than an independent mechanical shop does.
Every jurisdiction
Automotive service technicians and mechanics, SOC 49-3023. The bottom column is the 10th percentile: nine in ten earn more than that. The top column is the 90th: one in ten earn more than that.
| Jurisdiction | Mechanics employed | Bottom 10% earn under | Median | Top 10% earn over |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 9,040 | $31,030 | $45,640 | $79,230 |
| Alaska | 1,420 | $44,060 | $60,840 | $94,600 |
| Arizona | 16,400 | $34,660 | $49,570 | $79,330 |
| Arkansas | 7,310 | $30,320 | $44,160 | $75,600 |
| California | 65,420 | $38,180 | $64,980 | $95,280 |
| Colorado | 12,300 | $39,550 | $61,280 | $93,830 |
| Connecticut | 6,960 | $38,430 | $60,220 | $79,930 |
| Delaware | 1,910 | $36,700 | $58,410 | $82,280 |
| District of Columbia | 310 | $46,230 | $68,660 | $89,960 |
| Florida | 49,930 | $31,970 | $48,260 | $79,180 |
| Georgia | 22,070 | $33,580 | $49,060 | $84,360 |
| Hawaii | 2,710 | $36,360 | $52,160 | $79,090 |
| Idaho | 5,030 | $34,570 | $48,420 | $77,710 |
| Illinois | 29,510 | $34,190 | $49,170 | $91,200 |
| Indiana | 16,480 | $35,800 | $49,360 | $78,580 |
| Iowa | 7,610 | $36,100 | $50,510 | $77,400 |
| Kansas | 6,240 | $31,970 | $47,790 | $77,340 |
| Kentucky | 11,140 | $30,210 | $44,890 | $73,910 |
| Louisiana | 8,620 | $30,230 | $46,400 | $77,790 |
| Maine | 3,390 | $38,420 | $52,040 | $74,650 |
| Maryland | 14,230 | $35,940 | $57,520 | $84,420 |
| Massachusetts | 12,710 | $38,370 | $60,760 | $95,090 |
| Michigan | 22,280 | $36,110 | $54,120 | $79,060 |
| Minnesota | 11,980 | $38,310 | $58,390 | $83,180 |
| Mississippi | 7,410 | $28,650 | $37,820 | $74,000 |
| Missouri | 17,210 | $34,950 | $49,160 | $76,870 |
| Montana | 2,900 | $38,170 | $58,740 | $78,460 |
| Nebraska | 4,560 | $36,770 | $50,560 | $79,990 |
| Nevada | 7,420 | $33,500 | $48,290 | $81,180 |
| New Hampshire | 4,840 | $38,310 | $59,020 | $82,250 |
| New Jersey | 17,640 | $33,500 | $56,610 | $91,210 |
| New Mexico | 5,080 | $30,390 | $47,300 | $77,850 |
| New York | 32,020 | $35,470 | $54,120 | $91,490 |
| North Carolina | 26,510 | $31,500 | $48,200 | $79,610 |
| North Dakota | 2,140 | $37,610 | $57,360 | $83,860 |
| Ohio | 22,640 | $34,110 | $48,710 | $79,690 |
| Oklahoma | 8,870 | $29,410 | $46,560 | $81,480 |
| Oregon | 6,990 | $39,590 | $58,520 | $92,090 |
| Pennsylvania | 29,400 | $35,600 | $49,800 | $77,630 |
| Rhode Island | 2,530 | $31,860 | $51,770 | $80,780 |
| South Carolina | 13,420 | $31,200 | $48,100 | $78,030 |
| South Dakota | 2,010 | $38,670 | $51,160 | $80,500 |
| Tennessee | 16,210 | $34,820 | $50,290 | $79,930 |
| Texas | 69,750 | $29,360 | $48,310 | $81,720 |
| Utah | 9,350 | $30,460 | $46,570 | $77,320 |
| Vermont | 1,610 | $40,500 | $51,630 | $78,690 |
| Virginia | 17,880 | $36,540 | $59,330 | $92,570 |
| Washington | 12,930 | $39,470 | $57,270 | $95,620 |
| West Virginia | 4,490 | $28,270 | $37,660 | $65,520 |
| Wisconsin | 12,270 | $36,590 | $54,350 | $78,140 |
| Wyoming | 1,560 | $34,200 | $51,330 | $79,470 |
Generated from the register that backs this page rather than typed. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 state file, retrieved 18 August 2026.
How we checked these are right. The published table above is compared cell by cell against the original federal spreadsheet by a checker that uses a different library and never touches our intermediate files: 204 cells, all matching. Then every one of the 51 rows was read independently on O*NET, blind, by someone not shown our table.
Fifty of the 51 matched exactly. One did not, and it is worth knowing why. O*NET's California page gives $38,220 / $63,370 / $93,860 against our $38,180 / $64,980 / $95,280. It is serving that one page from the May 2024 release: the page is labelled 2024, and its own national row reads $49,670 where all fifty other pages read $50,620. Our figures are the current release. If you have seen a lower California number for this occupation recently, that is probably where it came from.
The five biggest workforces, and where they rank
| State | Mechanics employed | Median | Pay rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | 69,750 | $48,310 | 37th |
| California | 65,420 | $64,980 | 2nd |
| Florida | 49,930 | $48,260 | 39th |
| New York | 32,020 | $54,120 | 19th |
| Illinois | 29,510 | $49,170 | 32nd |
Texas and California are the two largest and sit $16,670 apart, with Texas 35 places lower on the table. The same shape appears in the collision data, which suggests something structural rather than a quirk of one occupation.
Mechanical pay is flatter than collision pay, in both directions
Put the two trades beside each other and the difference is not which pays more. It is how spread out they are.
| Lowest state | Highest state | Best ceiling in the country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mechanics | $37,660 | $68,660 | $95,620 |
| Body repairers | $46,080 | $72,490 | $133,140 |
Mechanics beat body repairers on median in 17 jurisdictions. They beat them on ceiling in 23. So there are six states where the typical body repairer earns more but the top mechanic earns more, which is a different job market from either headline.
The reason is concentration. Collision's very high ceilings sit in four states, Washington, Nevada, Virginia and Maryland. Mechanical ceilings are packed into a narrower band from $65,520 to $95,620. Mechanical work pays more uniformly across the country; collision work is more extreme at both ends.
Widest internal spread among mechanics is Texas at 2.78x ($29,360 to $81,720), then Oklahoma 2.77x and New Jersey 2.72x. Narrowest is the District of Columbia at 1.95x, then Maine and Vermont at 1.94x.
The employer matters more than the state line
A mechanic's median at an automobile dealer is $59,920. At an independent mechanical repair shop it is $49,630. That $10,290 gap is larger than the distance between the 20th and 40th ranked states.
264,130 mechanics work at dealerships and 208,550 at independent mechanical shops, so this is not a niche comparison, it is most of the occupation. A mechanic working inside a body shop earns $56,490, between the two.
The full breakdown, including why the folk wisdom is true for mechanics and false for collision technicians, is in dealer or independent.
Four things this number is not
1. It is not collision. This is SOC 49-3023. Automotive body and related repairers are 49-3021, glass installers 49-3022. Blending them produces a figure describing nobody. All three sit side by side in what auto repair pays in every state.
2. It is not diesel or heavy truck. Bus and truck mechanics and diesel engine specialists are a separate occupation again, 49-3031, and are not in this table.
3. It is not the self-employed. The survey asks establishments about employees. Owner-operators are absent.
4. The median is not a starting wage, but the 10th percentile is closer to one. A median is the middle of everyone currently doing the job, including thirty-year veterans. Read the bottom column if you are asking what someone entering the trade is offered, while remembering a low earner might be new, part-time or in a low-volume shop and the survey cannot tell you which.
What we could not verify
- Flat rate. Much of this trade is paid by the flagged hour rather than the clock hour. The survey reports earnings, not the structure that produced them, and two mechanics on the same annual figure can be working very different weeks.
- Tool costs. A technician buying their own tools is materially worse off than the same number at an employer who supplies them. Not visible here at any point.
- Certification effects. Whether ASE certification moves pay, and by how much, is not answerable from this data. We looked for a credible independent source and did not find one worth citing.
- Metropolitan detail. State medians hide large differences inside a state. BLS publishes metro estimates and we have not used them.
- Why the largest workforces pay least. We can show it in two occupations. We have not established a cause and are not going to guess at one.
Sources
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 state estimates, from the survey's own downloadable state file, retrieved 18 August 2026. SOC 49-3023. US federal public domain. Parsed by
tools/pull_oews_state.py, which re-derives an earlier pull and asserts it matches value for value before writing. - BLS OEWS national industry-specific file, May 2025, for the dealer and independent-shop figures, downloaded through a browser after an automated request was refused under BLS policy.
- O*NET OnLine, occupation 49-3023, read 18 August 2026, for the national distribution and the independent spot-check.
- What auto repair pays in every state
- What a collision technician is paid in every state
- Dealer or independent: what the pay data shows
- Every job in a body shop, and what it pays
General consumer information: not legal, insurance, or financial advice. Requirements, coverage, and practices vary by state, policy, and manufacturer.
Where this fits
Each link says what it is for. We add one only when a reader on this page has a real reason to need that page next.
- Dealer or Independent: The Federal Data Answers It, and the Answer Flips by Trade (the employer question, where the answer flips depending on which trade you are in)
- What a Collision Technician Is Paid in Every State (the collision side, which has a higher ceiling and a flatter middle)