200-Amp Panel Upgrade Cost in Boise (2026)

No one publishes a price survey just for Boise, Meridian, or Nampa. So the honest answer starts with national cost guides, then adds the local costs you can pin down exactly. Everything in the table below is an estimate, not a quote.

Four things move your number the most:

• Whether the buried utility service line has to be replaced. Inch Calculator's guide says digging up and replacing that line can more than double the job and push it toward $5,000.
• Overhead versus underground service. Idaho Power's own connection charges swing by more than a thousand dollars between the two, which is covered below.
• How far the trench runs, because Idaho Power bills that by the foot.
• Whether you go past 200 amps, which moves the Boise permit fee from $55 to $65.

You cannot legally skip it. The City of Boise Homeowner's Guide lists a permit as required to install, change, or repair any hardwired electrical system, including when you "change out your fuse box to circuit breakers." A panel swap is exactly that kind of work.

The good news is the fee is small compared to the job. The City of Boise electrical fee schedule lists these residential service equipment fees, with no extra base permit fee on top:

• Up to 200 amps: $55
• Over 200 amps: $65
• Temporary service: $40
• Re-inspection, if the work fails the first time: $55

One caveat worth two minutes of your time: the fee PDF posted by the city carries an April 2019 revision stamp, so confirm the current amount before you budget. Planning and Development Services can tell you over the phone at (208) 608-7070, and the office is at 150 N Capitol Blvd in Boise. Permits are applied for through the city's online permit portal.

The city also sets who may do the work. Anyone you hire must be a State of Idaho registered and licensed contractor in that trade. A homeowner's electrical permit is narrower than most people assume: the city limits it to a deed-holding homeowner doing basic electrical work personally, without assistance from others.

If your upgrade touches the service itself, the utility becomes part of the schedule. Idaho Power states that the customer must obtain all required permits and inspections before calling to have service connected, and that every condition has to be met before the power is turned on. In practice that means the city inspection comes first, then the reconnect.

Idaho Power publishes non-refundable residential installation charges, effective 03/15/2026 and subject to change. For single-phase underground permanent service, 400 amps maximum, the base charge is:

• $30.00 when fed from an underground source
• $1,012.00 from an overhead 2-inch pole riser
• $1,284.00 from an overhead 3-inch pole riser

Distance is billed separately: $4.39 to $7.55 per foot if you or your contractor do the trenching, versus $14.87 to $19.86 per foot if Idaho Power trenches. A wasted trip is charged too, at $131.00 for underground permanent service and $79.00 for overhead permanent service. Temporary service runs $79.00 underground or $335.00 overhead.

Not every panel swap triggers these charges. Ask your electrician directly whether your job involves an Idaho Power service installation, and whether those charges are in the bid or billed to you separately.

Panel bids look wildly different because contractors include different things. Get three bids, then force them onto the same footing with these questions:

• Is the city permit fee included? It should be a line item, and at $55 for up to 200 amps it is small enough that leaving it out is a warning sign about the rest of the bid.
• Are Idaho Power charges included, excluded, or unknown? An overhead riser connection and an underground feed are not the same money.
• Who trenches? Customer-trenched footage is billed at a much lower per-foot rate than Idaho Power-trenched footage, so this single answer can move the total.
• Does the bid assume the existing service line stays? Replacing it is the one item that can more than double the job.
• Is the contractor registered and licensed in Idaho for this trade? The city requires it for hired work, so verify before you sign, not after.

A bid far under the $1,300 to $3,000 band is usually excluding something on this list rather than beating the market.

Boise charges a special investigation fee equal to 100 percent of the permit fee when work is performed before a permit is obtained. In plain terms, pulling the permit late doubles what you pay the city, on a fee that was cheap to begin with. If the work then fails inspection, a re-inspection is $55.

The bigger risk is the power itself. Idaho Power will not connect service until the required permits and inspections are complete, so unpermitted work does not just risk a fine, it can leave you waiting on an inspector before your house is energized again.

There is also a paper trail issue. A permitted, inspected panel is documented; an undocumented one becomes a conversation with a buyer's inspector later. Given that the permit is a small fraction of a job estimated in the low thousands, there is no version of this math where skipping it comes out ahead.