How much does a bathroom remodel cost?
Nationally, a full gut renovation of a primary bathroom runs roughly $18,900 to $70,000, a partial remodel about $14,600 to $45,000, and a cosmetic refresh about $7,500 to $28,000, based on the 2025 Houzz Bathroom Trends Study of 1,737 homeowners and This Old House cost guides. Small bathrooms and powder rooms can come in far lower, from about $3,000. Where you live moves these numbers substantially.
What an average can't tell you
A market-average range compresses very different projects into one number, and most of what sets your price is invisible to it. It cannot tell you which scope tier your project belongs to — a cosmetic refresh, a partial remodel, and a full gut renovation are priced from different baselines whose midpoints sit far apart — and it does not know your bathroom’s square footage, which moves every one of those baselines.
It also cannot see whether any plumbing is being relocated, the finish level you would actually choose, or the age of your house — homes from different construction eras tend to conceal different problems, and those surface once the walls are open. Even within one metro, labor pricing shifts from ZIP code to ZIP code in ways a single average flattens out.
Those are answerable questions, and they are exactly the estimator’s inputs. It starts from sourced national cost data and recomputes the range for your scope, size, plumbing, and finishes — the factually correct next step after any market average.
The ranges by scope
Scope is the single biggest driver, and the three tiers are not close. A cosmetic refresh — new paint, vanity, lighting, and hardware, keeping the layout and tile — runs about $7,500 to $28,000. A partial remodel that replaces the tub or shower, tile, and fixtures without moving anything sits around $14,600 to $45,000. A full gut of a primary bathroom, down to the studs with new everything, spans roughly $18,900 to $70,000. These ranges combine the 2025 Houzz Bathroom Trends Study, which reports actual median and 90th-percentile spend from 1,737 surveyed U.S. homeowners, with This Old House's editorial cost guides — deliberately wide because real projects genuinely land all over them.
The wide spread is not padding. Two full guts of the same-size bathroom can differ by $30,000 based on tile selection, whether plumbing moves, and what the walls hide once they're open. Treat any single 'average bathroom remodel cost' number you see online with suspicion; the distribution matters more than the midpoint.
What moves a project up or down the range
Moving plumbing is the classic budget-breaker: relocating a supply or waste run adds roughly $935 to $1,140 per piping run in national labor pricing (Homewyse), before any wall repair, and it usually triggers a plumbing permit. Tile is the other big swing — tile-setting labor alone runs about $2.20 to $2.90 per square foot nationally before materials, and wet-area waterproofing multiplies it.
Age of the home matters as much as finishes. Opening walls in older housing routinely uncovers galvanized supply lines, undersized drains, or wiring that has to be brought to code before anything pretty happens — none of which shows up in a showroom quote. This is exactly where local context beats national averages: the dominant housing era in your metro predicts what your walls are hiding.
Why national numbers are only a starting point
Labor is the largest share of most bathroom budgets, and trade rates vary widely between metros — a plumber-hour in Providence does not cost what it costs in Raleigh. Permit fees are calculated completely differently city to city: some charge a percentage of declared project value, some flat per-trade fees. That is why this site publishes researched, sourced cost pages per metro instead of one national number with the city name swapped in.
Related questions
- How much does a small bathroom remodel cost?
- About $3,000 to $21,000 nationally for a small or powder-room remodel, per This Old House and the Houzz survey data. The low end is a light cosmetic refresh; the top end is a full renovation of a compact but complete bathroom.
- What is a realistic budget for a bathroom remodel?
- Set your budget from scope, not from a single average: roughly $7,500-$28,000 if you are keeping the layout and refreshing surfaces, $14,600-$45,000 to replace the wet area and fixtures in place, and $18,900-$70,000 for a full gut. Then add a contingency of 10-20% — older homes especially tend to reveal surprises once walls open.
- How much does a bathroom remodel cost per square foot?
- Per-square-foot figures mislead in bathrooms because fixtures and wet-area work dominate, not floor area — a 40 sq ft bathroom is not half the price of an 80 sq ft one. The honest per-square-foot number that exists in our sources is tile-setting labor, at roughly $2.20-$2.90 per square foot nationally before materials.
- Why do quotes vary so much between contractors?
- Quotes embed different assumptions about scope, finish allowances, and risk. A quote that looks cheap often excludes waterproofing, permit costs, or discovery work behind walls. Compare quotes line by line on scope, not on the bottom number.
Get a local answer
National ranges only go so far — labor rates, permit rules, and housing stock move the numbers in every metro. See the local guides, each with a cost estimator:
- Bathroom Remodel Cost in Akron, OH
- Bathroom Remodel Cost in Albuquerque, NM
- Bathroom Remodel Cost in Allentown, PA
- Bathroom Remodel Cost in Hartford, CT
- Bathroom Remodel Cost in Knoxville, TN
- Bathroom Remodel Cost in Milwaukee, WI
- Bathroom Remodel Cost in Providence, RI
- Bathroom Remodel Cost in Raleigh, NC
- Bathroom Remodel Cost in Richmond, VA
- Bathroom Remodel Cost in Winston-Salem, NC