What tax credits and grants can HVAC and plumbing contractors get for training apprentices?

Straight answer: we will not hand you a state list.

Our research did not confirm which states offer an apprenticeship tax credit or in what amounts, and a number we cannot verify is worse than no number — it is a number you might file a return on.

Rather than repeat figures secondhand, this page tells you where the real answer lives and what to ask when you get there.

The answer sits with more than one office.

Start with your state apprenticeship agency — or, in one of the 20 states on the federal side of DOL's recognition list when we read it on 2026-09-29, the DOL Office of Apprenticeship state office — then your state's workforce department and its revenue or taxation department.

Ask three questions: does the state offer a tax credit tied to hiring or training apprentices, what is it worth this year, and what does an employer have to do to qualify.

If you are still deciding on the training itself, that is its own project: our guide to setting up a registered apprenticeship program for employers covers who registers you — DOL's Office of Apprenticeship or a State Apprenticeship Agency — and what the program standards must cover.

This page stays on the money.

Verify before you plan around it: the WOTC lapse in the third section below shows how fast hiring-credit rules can move.

Confirm whether your state currently offers a credit — and its current amount and eligibility rules — with the agency that would administer it, before you count the money.

WIOA lets an employer get paid back for part of a new trainee's wage while the trainee trains on the job.

The rule is federal: under DOL's regulations (20 CFR 680.730), WIOA on-the-job training contracts reimburse employers up to 50% of the trainee's wage.

A governor or local workforce board may raise that to up to 75%.

The mechanics follow from the word "contract."

It works through a contract, and the money reaches you as a reimbursement of wages you are already paying — not a check up front.

What the federal rule gives us is the reimbursement range; how you apply is not something our research covered.

Which local workforce board covers your address and what paperwork it wants, you find out by asking; whether the rate in your area has been raised above 50% is a decision the federal rule names for your governor or local workforce board.

What we cannot tell you from the federal rule is just as practical: how long a contract runs, which occupations your board will write one for, or how the trainee's wage level is set for reimbursement purposes.

Our research captured the reimbursement range, not the contract mechanics.

Call the local workforce board that covers your county before you onboard a trainee you expect to be reimbursed for — not after the payroll is already spent.

The Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) is a federal credit for eligible hires.

It is generally worth up to $2,400 per eligible hire, and up to $24,000 in wages can be counted for certain qualified veterans (for hires through 2025).

Our facts carry the credit's value and dates, and they name one eligibility category — certain qualified veterans — but not the full list of groups the IRS uses, so we will not paraphrase a list we do not have.

Before you assume a hire qualifies, read the eligibility categories on the IRS's WOTC page, and file Form 8850 inside the window (next section).

Now the caveat that changes the math.

WOTC applies only to eligible hires who began work on or before December 31, 2025 — as of the IRS page updated July 20, 2026, the credit had not been extended, and DOL states WOTC is authorized until December 31, 2025.

Treat it as lapsed after 2025 unless Congress extends it.

Check both pages before you build a hiring plan around the credit, because Congress has revived past lapses retroactively.

If you are recruiting veterans into the trades, the veteran wage rule above is the piece of WOTC that touches that hiring — the recruiting playbook around it is a separate project from the tax code, and so is second-chance hiring.

Both topics deserve their own guides; this page stays on the money.

For WOTC, the paperwork moves before the person starts work.

IRS Form 8850 must be completed by the offer date and filed with the state workforce agency within 28 calendar days of the new hire's start date.

The deadline is the IRS's, and the form goes to the state workforce agency — not onto your federal return.

For WIOA on-the-job training, the contract is the claim.

Reimbursement runs through an on-the-job training contract, so the move is to call the local workforce board that covers your area and ask what it takes to write one — and whether your governor or local workforce board has raised the rate above the 50% baseline.

And where a state does offer one, what it requires and what it pays live in that state's own rules — not in any national summary, including this page.

Ask the agency that would administer it what the credit requires and what it is worth this year.

Neither federal channel hands you money up front: WIOA is a reimbursement of wages and WOTC is a tax credit.

Budget as if you carry the cost and part of it comes back.

The rest of the job — finding the apprentice, screening, pay, keeping them — is the work in our guide to hiring HVAC and plumbing techs.

Rules and deadlines change.

Confirm the current requirements with the IRS, the U.S. Department of Labor, and the state agency that administers each program before you act on anything here.

This page is employer business and tax information, not legal or tax advice. Confirm amounts, eligibility and deadlines with the IRS, DOL, and your state workforce or apprenticeship agency before you file.