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Renovation Guide HQ
Kitchen Remodel Cost Calculator
By Renovation Guide HQ
Kitchen Remodel Cost Calculator
Enter your kitchen size, remodel scope and state, and get an estimated cost range — plus an item-wise breakdown, permit and timeline guidance, and a printable estimate summary. Based on published 2026 national cost tiers, adjusted for your state’s price level.
Typical kitchens run about 70–200 sq ft. A standard 10×12 kitchen is 120 sq ft.
State adjusts the national range using the BEA all-items price parity for that state (US = 100). See “How this estimate works” below.
Optional. If your ZIP is covered by the local index (26,265 ZIPs), the state estimate is adjusted by a local cost index built from free public data (county construction wages + HUD rents + Zillow home values). This is an index/proxy, NOT contractor pricing. Unknown ZIPs fall back to the state estimate — no factor is invented.
Please enter a kitchen size between 20 and 2,000 sq ft.
Your estimated range
Per square foot (adjusted)
National range, before state adjustment
State price index used
With contingency added
Item-wise breakdown
Model allocation from the guide’s published worked example (see Sources). Rounded to $100; categories may not sum exactly to the total.
Item
Estimated range
Permits
Timeline
Local cost index (ZIP)
Resale value
Estimates only — not a contractor quote. Get at least three itemized quotes from local contractors before signing anything, and compare them line by line against this range.
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How this estimate works
Start with a published national range. Your kitchen size puts you in a size band (small: under 70 sq ft; medium: 70–150 sq ft; large: over 150 sq ft). The national range for your band and scope comes from Renovation Guide HQ’s 2026 kitchen cost guide, which uses Angi’s 2026 project-scope tiers from 13,100 verified projects.
Material quality positions you inside the range. Stock points to the lower third, semi-custom to the middle third, custom to the upper third. For major remodels the top of the range is open-ended (shown with a “+”), because layout changes make the ceiling depend on the house.
State adjustment: national range × (state price parity ÷ 100). The parity is the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) all-items Regional Price Parity for the state, reference year 2024 (US = 100).
Item-wise breakdown. The breakdown splits the adjusted range using the shares of the kitchen guide’s own published mid-range worked example (subtotal $32,500: cabinets $6,500; countertops $4,200; appliances $6,000; flooring $2,200; carpentry + general labor $5,000; plumbing + electrical $3,500; backsplash, sink, demo and paint $4,300; permits $800). It is a model allocation for comparison, not a contractor’s line items.
Contingency is shown separately. The guide recommends holding 10–20% on top of any quote for surprises behind walls.
What the state adjustment does not do. The BEA parity covers all consumer spending statewide — it is not a remodeling-labor index and it averages very different cities together. It deliberately understates big-city contractor rates. A San Francisco or Manhattan quote can legitimately sit well above the state-adjusted range; a rural quote can sit below it. Always calibrate with local quotes.
District of Columbia: the 50-state BEA table used here publishes no DC parity in the same vintage, so DC shows the national range, labeled as such — no multiplier was invented for it.
Local cost index: method & limits
What this is. The ZIP index is a proxy for local cost level built only from free public data. It is NOT contractor pricing, NOT a quote, and NOT RSMeans data. It adjusts the state-level estimate; it never replaces local quotes.
Formula. Each component is turned into a factor from its national percentile: component factor = 0.5 + percentile (so the median ZIP scores 1.00). Index = 0.4 × BLS factor + 0.3 × FMR factor + 0.3 × ZHVI factor. Where a ZIP’s county has no reported BLS construction wage, the index is 0.5 × FMR factor + 0.5 × ZHVI factor. The state index uses the same formula on state-median values. Factor vs state = index ÷ state index. With “United States” selected, the factor is the ZIP’s index itself (national index = 1.00 by construction). The applied factor is clamped to 0.75–1.50 and the raw value is always shown, so a skewed ZIP cannot silently multiply an estimate several-fold.
Why percentiles, not raw ratios. Raw home-value ratios explode (Beverly Hills ZHVI is ~18× the national median) and would turn a $40,000 kitchen into a $190,000 one. Percentiles rank a ZIP against the whole country, which keeps the index bounded and honest about what it is: a relative cost-level ranking, not a price measurement.
Weights are a modeling choice. The formula is 40% BLS county construction wages (NAICS 23) / 30% HUD / 30% Zillow. No weight here is a measured elasticity.
Data actually downloaded (real values, no placeholders). HUD FY2025 Small Area Fair Market Rents, 2-bedroom SAFMR by ZIP (38,642 ZIPs) via huduser.gov; Zillow ZHVI for All Homes Including Single Family, Condo/Co-op, smoothed and seasonally adjusted, ZIP level, latest month September 2026 (26,265 ZIPs) via files.zillowstatic.com — Source: Zillow Research. State medians were computed from the same files (FMR medians over ZIPs matched to a state via the Zillow file; ZHVI medians over Zillow ZIPs in that state). Six ZIPs are also embedded in the page as an offline fallback, all real downloaded values: 90210 Beverly Hills CA; 90012 Los Angeles CA; 10001 New York NY; 77002 Houston TX; 33139 Miami Beach FL; 60614 Chicago IL. Note: downtown Miami 33101 has a HUD value but no Zillow value in the file, so Miami Beach 33139 is the embedded Florida example instead — no value was invented for 33101.
BLS component — coverage limits. BLS county construction wages are missing for some ZIPs’ counties (1,386 of 26,265 ZIPs): counties where BLS reports no private construction employment or suppresses the figure, and Connecticut counties, which BLS reports under planning regions rather than historic counties in this file. Those ZIPs use the 2-component index (50% HUD / 50% Zillow) and the page says so. No wage was estimated or proxied for a missing county.
Rules the calculator follows. (1) A ZIP in a different state than the one selected does not apply — the page says so and keeps the state estimate. (2) An unknown ZIP never gets an invented factor — the page says it has no local index data for it and keeps the state estimate. (3) The national ZIP table covers 26,265 ZIPs (every ZIP with both a HUD value and a Zillow value); the page also embeds 6 examples as an offline fallback if the table cannot load.
Sources
National tiers and size-by-scope matrix: Renovation Guide HQ, “Kitchen Remodel Cost in 2026: Full Price Guide” (updated October 8, 2026), using Angi’s 2026 kitchen remodel cost data from 13,100 verified projects — budget refresh $10,000–$20,000; mid-range $20,000–$65,000; high-end $65,000–$130,000+; overall $14,588–$41,555, average $26,942.
Permit fees: same guide — “typically $500–$2,000 for a kitchen remodel, varying by city and scope” (planning estimate).
Timelines: Renovation Guide HQ, “Kitchen Remodel Timeline” — cosmetic refresh 2–4 weeks construction / 1–2 months total (often no permits); standard remodel 6–10 weeks / 3–5 months (permits usually required); major transformation 10–16 weeks / 5–7 months (multiple permits); permit review 1–6+ weeks nationally; big coastal cities (LA, NYC, Chicago) 4–12+ weeks.
State price parities: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Price Parities by State, table SARPP, reference year 2024 (US = 100), as tabulated for all 50 states.
Companion tool on this site: Renovation Cost Calculator (generic, six project types).
Resale value: National Association of Realtors, 2025 Remodeling Impact Report (with NARI) — complete kitchen renovation 60% cost recovery; minor kitchen upgrade 60%; bathroom renovation 50%. Figures are REALTOR estimates of value added versus NARI-member cost estimates for a hypothetical 2,300-sq-ft post-1978 home with no concealed problems — national survey estimates, NOT guarantees for any individual home. Local markets vary widely; a local realtor’s advice matters. NAR press release. No Zonda Cost vs. Value table figures are used anywhere on this page.
Local cost index data: HUD FY2025 Small Area Fair Market Rents, 2-bedroom SAFMR by ZIP, via huduser.gov; Zillow ZHVI for All Homes Including Single Family, Condo/Co-op (smoothed, seasonally adjusted), ZIP level, latest month September 2026, via files.zillowstatic.com (Source: Zillow Research). BLS QCEW county construction wages (NAICS 23), 2024 annual, are in the table — see the Methodology card. State price parities for the state-level estimate: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Price Parities by State, table SARPP, reference year 2024 (US = 100).
No email or sign-up is required to calculate. This calculator stores nothing in your browser; the email form sends your estimate to the address you enter (copy to Renovation Guide HQ) only when you click send.
