Updated November 2026 · Labor Only (no carpet, no pad)
Carpet Installation Labor Cost Per Sq Ft in 2026 (Labor Only)
Carpet installation labor costs $0.69 to $1.60 per square foot in the US, labor only (checked 22 October 2026). The low end is Home Depot’s published $0.69 per sq ft for basic installation; the top is our estimate for the highest-paid installers, scaled by BLS carpet installer wages (May 2025). That is $99 to $230 of labor for a 12x12 room and $690 to $1,600 for 1,000 sq ft, before carpet, pad and removal.
Labor-only carpet install, quick reference
Home Depot basic install (published)$0.69
Home Depot current offer (from)49¢
National range (our model)$0.69 to $1.60
Southeast (lowest-wage region)$0.60 to $1.39
Northeast (highest-wage region)$0.75 to $1.74
Stairs, labor per step$3 to $8
Check a labor quote
A 12x12 room is 144 sq ft; multiply length by width.
Pick a state to scale labor by its installer wage.
Labor range, $0.69 to $1.60 per sq ft$99 to $230
At Home Depot’s published $0.69 basic rate$99
At its advertised offer, from 49 cents$71
Labor only: no carpet, pad, removal, furniture moving or stairs. Home Depot rates read 13 October 2026 and on 22 October 2026; Home Depot says local prices vary. The top of the range is our estimate, not a published price.
Who installs it: labor price and terms
The labor price you can see in advance depends on who you hire. Only Home Depot publishes a rate. The terms below are each seller’s own wording: Home Depot’s re-read 22 October 2026; Lowe’s install page read 13 October 2026 (lowes.com refuses our automated reads) and its offer terms re-read 22 October 2026.
Home Depot
Labor price
$0.69 basic; offer from 49 cents
Your own carpet?
No: installs only carpet bought in its package
Labor warranty
Lifetime labor warranty, including seams, restretches and stairwork
Watch for
Furniture moving, removal and disposal priced separately (cost guide)
Lowe's
Labor price
Not published; quote after a free in-home measure
Your own carpet?
Not stated on its install page
Labor warranty
Installation “comes with a one-year warranty”
Watch for
Independent contractors; mileage fees may apply 20+ miles from a store
Independent installer
Labor price
No published rate; our range $0.69 to $1.60
Your own carpet?
Ask the installer
Labor warranty
Ask for the labor warranty in writing
Watch for
Ask whether removal, stairs and furniture are in the labor line
Do it yourself
Labor price
No labor charge
Your own carpet?
Yes
Labor warranty
None on labor
Watch for
CRI 105 makes a power stretcher mandatory; a knee kicker is not for stretching
Who
Labor price
Your own carpet?
Labor warranty
Watch for
Home Depot
$0.69 basic; offer from 49 cents
No: installs only carpet bought in its package
Lifetime labor warranty, including seams, restretches and stairwork
Furniture moving, removal and disposal priced separately (cost guide)
Lowe's
Not published; quote after a free in-home measure
Not stated on its install page
Installation “comes with a one-year warranty”
Independent contractors; mileage fees may apply 20+ miles from a store
Independent installer
No published rate; our range $0.69 to $1.60
Ask the installer
Ask for the labor warranty in writing
Ask whether removal, stairs and furniture are in the labor line
Do it yourself
No labor charge
Yes
None on labor
CRI 105 makes a power stretcher mandatory; a knee kicker is not for stretching
The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts 13,780 carpet installers (SOC 47-2041) on payrolls in May 2025, at a median of $24.20 an hour; the middle half earn $20.18 to $31.89. Each region below is the national range scaled by the region’s employment-weighted mean installer wage against the national mean of $27.40. For a single state, pick it in the quote checker above or see carpet installation cost by state.
Region
Labor only, per sq ft
Basis
northeast
$0.75 to $1.74
Installer mean wage $29.86/hr (1.09x national); states: CT, NH, VT, NJ, NY, PA
midwest
$0.71 to $1.65
Installer mean wage $28.34/hr (1.03x national); states: OH, IN, IL, MI, WI, MO, SD, KS
west
$0.72 to $1.66
Installer mean wage $28.43/hr (1.04x national); states: CA, OR, WA, NV, ID, MT, CO, UT, AK
southwest
$0.63 to $1.47
Installer mean wage $25.18/hr (0.92x national); states: AZ, NM, TX, OK
southeast
$0.60 to $1.39
Installer mean wage $23.79/hr (0.87x national); states: DE, MD, VA, WV, KY, TN, SC, GA, FL, AL, MS, AR, LA
What the labor line covers
The Carpet and Rug Institute’s installation standard for homes, CRI 105, sets out the job: tack strip fastened around the room, cushion laid and seamed, carpet cut, seamed and stretched onto the strip, then trimmed. It is firm on one step: “The use of a Power Stretcher is MANDATORY”, and a knee kicker “is not for stretching carpet”. Without a stretch of at least 1 percent in length and width (where the carpet maker gives no figure), the standard warns of wrinkling and buckling. Ask any installer whether they power stretch; it is the step a low quote is most tempted to skip.
What labor does not usually cover: Home Depot’s cost guide says “furniture moving, removal and disposal are priced separately”, and Shaw says furniture moving and old-floor removal are usually an additional cost. Home Depot’s installation service page, though, read on 5 November 2026, lists moving basic furniture and removal and haul-away of your existing carpet as part of the service, and says basic installation is free on carpet and pad purchases of $699 or more, so ask which applies to your order. Stairs are quoted per step (above). For removal on its own, see carpet removal cost.
$0.69 to $1.60 per sq ft, labor only, in the US (checked 22 October 2026). The low end is Home Depot's published rate of $0.69 per sq ft "for basic carpet installation". The top, $1.60, is our estimate: that rate scaled by the gap between the 10th and 90th percentile carpet installer wage ($17.05 and $39.49 an hour, BLS, May 2025). Carpet, pad, removal and furniture moving are extra.
How we priced this
The low end is a published price: Home Depot’s $0.69 per sq ft for basic carpet installation, read on its cost guide on 13 October 2026 and again on 22 October 2026, when its estimator also still advertised installation from 49 cents. No retailer publishes an upper rate, so the top is ours: $0.69 times the BLS 90th to 10th percentile carpet installer wage ratio ($39.49 / $17.05), which assumes labor price moves with installer pay. Regions and states scale that range by their mean installer wage. We did not find any public survey of per sq ft labor quotes, so a real quote can sit outside the range; the checker above tells you which way and what to ask.
Sources and method.The Home Depot, Carpet Installation Cost Guide (average cost per sq ft: carpet $1 to $4, padding $1.01, installation $0.69 for basic install; furniture moving, removal and disposal priced separately; checked 13 October 2026); The Home Depot, Carpet Estimator (current offer) (current offer: installation starting at 49 cents per sq ft; checked 13 October 2026); The Home Depot, Carpet Installation service page and FAQ (what the service includes (a purchase may also qualify for rip-up and haul-away and basic stairs), lifetime labor warranty including stairwork, stairs covered by product warranty only on LifeProof lines, price match, timing, no install of carpet bought elsewhere; checked 13 October 2026); Lowe's, Carpet Installation (no published per sq ft install price; quote follows a free in-home measure; checked 13 October 2026); Lowe's, special order carpet offer terms (PDF linked from its carpet installation page) (45 percent off special order carpet, on the carpet only, for purchases 5 to 11 November 2026; checked 5 November 2026); U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2025, Carpet Installers (47-2041) (national and state hourly wages, read through the BLS public data API; checked 13 October 2026); U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2025 state file (oesm25st.zip), Carpet Installers (47-2041) (mean hourly wage and employment for carpet installers in each state; no wage published for ME, RI, ND, WY, DC or NC; checked 15 October 2026); The Carpet and Rug Institute, CRI 105 Standard for Installation of Residential Carpet (2019 PDF) (when moisture testing is required, site temperature and humidity, cushion thickness, tack strip size and fastening, substrate repair; section 11.4, use of a power stretcher is mandatory and a knee kicker is not for stretching (failure to power stretch may result in wrinkling and buckling); section 11.5, tufted carpet stretched at least 1 percent in length and width absent manufacturer instructions; section 15, carpet on stairs (waterfall and cap-and-band tack strip, about 1 1/2 in of turn-under shared between the two sides, pile direction); checked 13 October 2026); Shaw Floors, Carpet Installation (plan and install guide with FAQs) (most carpet is made in 12-foot rolls and 15-foot rolls are available; larger rooms and large pattern repeats need extra material; installation takes several hours or a couple of days depending on size and complexity; furniture moving and old-floor removal are usually an additional cost; checked 13 October 2026); International Code Council, 2021 IRC section R311.7 (stair width at least 36 in, riser at most 7 3/4 in, tread at least 10 in, nosing up to 1 1/4 in; landings at least as wide as the flight and 36 in deep on a straight run (R311.7.6); winder treads at least 10 in deep at the walkline and 6 in at any point (R311.7.5.2.1); checked 13 October 2026). Labor figures are our arithmetic on the cited inputs: $0.69 as the floor, $1.60 as our estimated top, each region or state scaled by its BLS mean installer wage against the national mean. Room and area totals are the rate times the floor area.
Send it over and a person reads it. We answer what we can answer, and every answer names what it rests on, whether that is a pad manufacturer’s specification, a wage series, or a retailer’s own published price sheet.