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Plumber shortage in Minnesota: the licensed-supply numbers
What the Minnesota register actually shows, by tier and per capita, updated nightly.
As of 2026-08-09, Minnesota carries 17,925 licensed plumbers
on its state register, or 312.4 per 100,000 residents.
17,925
licensed plumbers
312.4
per 100k residents
#10
density rank of 42
Minnesota does not issue a separate apprentice license for this trade, so no pipeline ratio is published here. The tier counts below are what the register itself records.
By credential tier
Every plumber license on the Minnesota register, normalized to one ladder.
Tier
Licensed
Share
Journeyman
12,459
70%
Master
3,721
21%
Contractor / business
1,745
10%
Against comparable states
States nearest Minnesota on licensed plumbers per capita.
State
Licensed plumbers
Per 100k
Minnesota
17,925
312.4
North Dakota
2,811
358.6
Massachusetts
24,466
349.4
New Hampshire
4,709
335.9
West Virginia
5,514
311.5
South Dakota
2,677
291.2
Arkansas
8,846
288.4
Counts, not a capacity opinion. We publish the licensed supply and the pipeline
ratio; whether a market can absorb a given project is a judgement for the reader, not a claim we make.
Frequently asked
Is there a plumbers shortage in Minnesota?
Reporting on the shortage rarely states how many are actually licensed. Minnesota carries 17,925 licensed plumbers on its register as of 2026-08-09, or 312.4 per 100,000 residents. Readers can weigh that supply against demand directly.
How many licensed plumbers does Minnesota have?
17,925 on the state register as of 2026-08-09, including 3,721 at master level.
Where does the shortage narrative come from?
Industry analyses project national shortfalls of hundreds of thousands of skilled-trades workers against data-center and electrification demand. Those are demand-side estimates; the figure here is the licensed supply on the register today.
New licenses, ladder upgrades, classification changes and lapses, by market and credential tier. Read the quarterly free, or license the underlying data.