Panel upgrade vs panel replacement: what permit values show
Reviewed by Matt Kovalik, licensed Minnesota journeyworker electrician. License AJ703617 (verify). Updated October 2026.
A panel upgrade raises the service to more amps, so the meter, service wires and main breaker change size along with the panel. A same-size replacement swaps the panel and keeps the service size. This page shows the median permit value for each, by region.
We check every comparison against earlier versions of our classifier. Where the upgrade median sat above the replacement median by at least a tenth in every version, the page says so. Where it did not, the page says the gap did not hold.
Bars show the middle half of declared permit values on one shared scale; the tick is the median.
Northeast
$2,500 to $4,360, median $3,400
413 permits in Buffalo and Pittsburgh
$1,700 to $4,040, median $2,610
430 permits in Buffalo and Pittsburgh
Midwest
$2,010 to $6,470, median $3,470
77 permits in Cleveland
$2,400 to $6,030, median $3,210
100 permits in Cleveland
South
$1,590 to $4,220, median $2,410
169 permits in Baltimore
$1,500 to $3,800, median $2,420
106 permits in Baltimore
West
$5,210 to $9,800, median $7,080
407 permits in Seattle
$3,240 to $7,910, median $5,330
915 permits in Seattle
Where the gap held
- Northeast: the upgrade median sat above the same-size replacement median in every classifier version we checked; the current gap is +30.3%.
- Midwest: the gap did not hold across classifier versions (current gap +8.1%), so we do not call either one higher.
- South: the gap did not hold across classifier versions (current gap -0.4%), so we do not call either one higher.
- West: the upgrade median sat above the same-size replacement median in every classifier version we checked; the current gap is +32.8%.