How Much Does Dirt Hauling Cost?

Updated on August 21, 2026 | Written by Alec Pow
This article was researched using 14 sources. See our methodology and corrections policy.

Professional dirt hauling and removal commonly costs $140 to $230 per cubic yard, or about $1,400 to $2,300 for a 10-cubic-yard truckload, according to a 2026 excavation and removal benchmark.

The quote can change sharply depending on what the contractor is actually pricing. A pile already sitting beside a driveway is cheaper to load than soil that still has to be excavated from a backyard. Clean soil with a legal reuse destination can also cost far less to dispose of than mixed construction debris or contaminated soil.

Dirt hauling is priced in cubic yards, tons, truck trips, machine hours, and disposal fees. Moisture, rocks, access, haul distance, receiver rules, and whether loading is included can change the real total even when two piles look the same size.

Article Highlights

• Stand-alone dirt removal and hauling added to an existing excavation contract are not the same service.
• Truck and trailer weight limits can be reached long before the box is full by volume.
• Clean fill may have reuse value, while mixed debris can be charged under a more expensive disposal category.
• Rain and soil composition can add truck trips because the job becomes heavier without becoming larger in measured cubic yards.
• Loading equipment, disposal, mileage, testing, and minimum charges are the main items to check outside a low hauling quote.
• Contaminated soil belongs in a separate disposal process rather than a normal clean-fill quote.

How Much Does Dirt Hauling Cost?

Dirt removal has no single national tariff. The most useful quote separates the material, loading method, truck, destination, and disposal rule.

Cost item or market signal	Current price	What the number covers
Excavation labor	$120 to $150 (at $30 per hour, earning that amount would take about 4 to 5 hours of work, before taxes) per hour	A 2026 excavation cost guide lists this labor range and shows equipment with an operator at $100 to $250 per hour.
Clean-fill disposal, Roswell, NM	$19.91 per ton	The city’s 2026-2027 landfill fee schedule applies this rate to qualifying clean fill.
Dirt and rock disposal, Fairfax County, VA	$103 per ton	The county’s FY2026 residential disposal schedule lists this C&D rate and limits resident dirt, brick, concrete, rock, and shingles to small amounts of up to 2 cubic yards per day.
Clean fill, Oconee County, SC	$0 gate fee	The county’s 2026-2027 fee schedule lists accepted clean fill dirt at no charge.
10-yard roll-off container	Quote by location	Waste Management identifies its 10-yard roll-off as a container suited to dirt and other heavy material, subject to local availability and pricing.

A delivered load of new fill dirt is a different purchase. Current bulk fill can cost only $5 to $25 per cubic yard, with truckloads priced far below full-service removal in many markets, according to current fill-dirt delivery pricing. That is the cost to bring usable material to a site, not to excavate unwanted soil, load it, haul it away, and pay a receiver.

What You’re Actually Buying

A dirt-hauling job is a chain of work rather than a commodity purchase. Soil may first need to be dug, moved to a loading point, placed into a dump truck or roll-off container, transported to a permitted destination, weighed or measured, unloaded, and documented. A contractor may perform every step or only the trucking portion.

The material itself also changes the job. Clean fill is soil that meets the receiving facility’s acceptance rules. Rocky soil puts more weight into each cubic yard. Wet soil adds water weight and can reduce the amount a truck can legally carry. Mixed soil may contain concrete, roots, asphalt, trash, or demolition debris and can be routed to a different facility. Suspected contaminated soil belongs in a separate category because testing, treatment, manifests, or restricted disposal may apply.

“Haul dirt” can mean a truck and driver only, or a complete excavation-to-disposal service.

ThePricer Dirt Weight Test

Volume is where dirt hauling gets deceptive. Homeowners see a pile in cubic yards, but road loads are limited by weight.

A Big Tex dump-trailer capacity guide lists loose dry dirt at about 1,880 pounds per cubic yard and soil blends at about 2,200 to 2,700 pounds per cubic yard. The same guide shows several dump-trailer models with about 7.2 cubic yards of standard box volume and around 10,000 pounds of cargo capacity.

The weight limit changes the usable space:

• At 1,880 pounds per yard, 10,000 pounds equals about 5.32 cubic yards.
• At 2,200 pounds per yard, the limit arrives at about 4.55 cubic yards.
• At 2,700 pounds per yard, it arrives at about 3.70 cubic yards.

A 7.2-yard box can be only about 51% to 74% full by volume when the dirt has already consumed a 10,000-pound cargo allowance. Ten yards of loose dry dirt works out to about 9.4 tons. Ten yards of the listed soil blends works out to about 11 to 13.5 tons.

A pile can fit geometrically and still be too heavy to move in the number of loads first imagined.

Loading, Trucking, and Dump Fees

The number quoted for “hauling” may not include the machine that gets dirt into the truck.

Angi’s current excavation data puts professional labor around $120 to $150 (about 4 to 5 hours of work at $30 per hour) per hour and equipment with an operator around $100 to $250 per hour. It also lists dirt hauling inside a broader excavation project at only $8 to $25 per cubic yard.

That low hauling line should not be compared with a stand-alone $140 to $230 per cubic yard full-service removal benchmark. One can be an incremental trucking charge inside a larger excavation contract while the other represents a complete removal service.

Access can turn that distinction into a large bill. A pile beside the street may be loaded directly. Dirt behind a narrow gate may need a compact loader to shuttle material to the truck. Soil still in the ground may need excavation before hauling begins.

A useful quote states whether excavation, loading, truck time, mileage, disposal, cleanup, and tax are included.

Clean Dirt, Mixed Dirt

Clean soil can have unusual disposal economics because another site may want it as fill. The public rates in the table show the spread. Oconee County lists accepted clean fill at $0, while Roswell lists qualifying clean fill at $19.91 (about 40 minutes at $30 per hour) per ton. Fairfax County charges $103 per ton for the listed C&D category that includes dirt and rock, with a residential quantity limit.

Take a two-cubic-yard pile of ordinary fill weighing about 2 to 2.6 tons. At Roswell’s posted clean-fill rate, the gate charge would be about $39.82 to $51.77. At Fairfax County’s posted $103-per-ton rate, the same weight would correspond to about $206 to $267.80, subject to the county’s acceptance and residency rules. In Oconee County, qualifying clean fill has a listed gate fee of $0. Only the receiving rule changes in this comparison.

Suspected hazardous contamination is not simply “expensive dirt.” EPA’s land-disposal restriction guidance explains that soil containing listed hazardous waste or exhibiting hazardous characteristics can be subject to treatment and hazardous-waste management requirements. A normal clean-fill quote should not be used for petroleum, chemical, lead, or other suspect soil without checking the applicable testing and disposal rules.

Three Dirt Hauling Scenarios

Small driveway-side pile. A two-yard pile that is already excavated, dry, clean, and reachable by the truck is the simplest case. The contractor does not need to dig or shuttle soil across the property. The main price pressure comes from the hauler’s minimum charge, truck time, and the receiving facility.

Ten-yard backyard excavation. Ten yards of the soil ranges used in the trailer calculation can weigh about 9.4 to 13.5 tons. If the soil must be dug and carried from the backyard to the street with compact equipment, the job has two separate production stages before the truck reaches the disposal site. A low per-yard haul rate can hide the machine hours.

Thirty-yard pool or foundation cut. Thirty yards at the same cited dirt densities works out to about 28.2 to 40.5 tons before heavier rock or added water is counted. A contractor planning trips by cubic-yard box volume alone can underestimate legal road loads. On a project this size, receiver distance and turnaround time can matter as much as the gate rate.

Worked 10-yard invoice

Use a 10-yard residential excavation as a planning example. The current full-service benchmark puts a 10-yard dirt-removal load around $1,400 to $2,300. If the quoted haul-off price does not include excavation and loading, add four machine hours as a simple scenario. At $100 to $250 per hour for equipment with an operator, four hours adds $400 to $1,000.

That produces a combined planning total of about $1,800 to $3,300 before any soil testing, permit, unusual access charge, or contaminated-material handling. The arithmetic shows why a $1,400 truck quote and a $1,400 complete removal quote are not the same offer.

When It’s Worth Paying for Dirt Hauling

DIY makes the most sense when the pile is small, the soil is accepted at a nearby facility, and the vehicle or trailer has enough legal payload for the material.

A 7-yard dump trailer is not automatically a 7-yard dirt trailer. The weight calculation above shows why. Trying to save a truck charge by filling the box to its rim can exceed the trailer, axle, tire, hitch, or tow-vehicle rating long before the space is used.

A heavy-material roll-off can remove the towing problem, but it does not remove loading labor or weight rules. A 10-yard container may be offered for dirt, concrete, and similar dense material, while the provider can still impose a weight allowance and local acceptance limits.

Before excavation begins, the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration says to contact 811 before digging so affected utilities can mark underground facilities. State timing and excavation rules still apply.

Makes sense if:

• The pile exceeds the legal payload of the available pickup or trailer.
• The dirt still needs machine loading or is far from street access.
• The receiving facility charges by weight and repeated DIY trips erase the apparent savings.
• The job has a deadline tied to concrete, foundation, pool, drainage, or grading work.
• The soil contains mixed debris or needs a receiver with specific acceptance rules.

Does not make sense if:

• A small amount of verified clean fill has a nearby legal receiver and can be moved within the vehicle’s rated payload.
• The soil can be reused on the same property for an approved grading or fill purpose.
• A nearby project legitimately wants the same clean material and local rules allow that transfer.
• The quote charges full-service removal for a tiny pile already loaded into an approved container.

What We Verified

• Checked current 2026 fill-dirt purchase pricing, which lists clean fill around $10 to $18 per cubic yard. Buying incoming material is a different transaction from removing excavated soil.
• Confirmed that the EPA’s updated remediation-waste guidance still treats hazardous contaminated media as a separate regulatory issue rather than ordinary clean soil.
• Cross-referenced current national utility-damage guidance from the 811 notification network, which directs excavators to request utility marking before digging.

Related Site-Work Costs

Dirt hauling often sits beside other heavy-material costs. A dump truck load of gravel reverses the same logistics because the truck is bringing dense material in rather than taking soil out.

Projects replacing excavated soil may also require bulk sand, while jobs that produce mixed debris can shift toward a dumpster rental. Larger site preparation can combine hauling with land clearing, grading, stump work, and excavation.

Answers to Common Questions

How much does it cost to haul away dirt?

A recent dirt-removal pricing review places simple fill removal at $140 to $230 per cubic yard and a 10-yard load around $1,400 to $2,300. Local access, soil weight, distance, and disposal rules can move the quote.

How much does one cubic yard of dirt weigh?

A cubic yard of dirt can weigh well over a ton. Dry loose dirt is lighter than dense soil blends, rocky soil, or wet material.

How many cubic yards fit in a dump truck?

Truck bodies vary, and volume is only half of the answer. Dirt is dense enough that the truck can reach its legal weight limit before the box is full.

Can clean fill dirt be dumped for free?

Yes, in some places. A receiver may accept qualifying clean fill at no gate charge because the material has reuse value. Acceptance rules are local, and mixed or contaminated soil can be rejected or charged differently.

Is DIY dirt hauling cheaper?

It can be for a small clean pile with a nearby receiver. For larger volumes, repeated trips, loading equipment, fuel, disposal weight, and vehicle payload limits can erase the savings.

Price note: Dirt hauling is highly local. Confirm whether a quote includes excavation, loading, truck time, mileage, disposal, cleanup, testing, permits, and tax. Ask the receiving facility what soil it accepts before loading the truck.