How Much Does It Cost to Clear Land in Houston, TX? 2026 Price Guide per Acre, from Half an Acre Up

The average cost to clear land in Houston is about $3,000 an acre once you blend light brush, thickets and timber. An acre of land in light brush costs $1,500 to $2,000 to clear to dirt. Medium brush, which around here means yaupon, tallow thickets and small pine, is $2,500 to $3,500 per acre depending on how thick the tallow has gotten. Dense timber or a clear-cut with haul-off is $4,000 and up. The reason the cost of land clearing is higher south of FM 1960 than north of it is gumbo clay. On our jobs in Harris County we lose about one day in five to wet ground from November to March. Write the vegetation class down before you ask for a price to clear; it moves the number more than acreage does.

Half an acre of tallow and yaupon is one day and one machine: $3,000 with the small mulcher, and a half acre of light brush costs the same because the day rate is the floor. Clearing one acre of the same brush is also one day, $3,000, if the stems stay under 8 inches; a single acre of thicker tallow is a day with the big mulcher at $4,000 plus transport. 2 acres is where the big machine starts to win: one day at $4,000 plus transport against two days of the small machine at $6,000. People ask how long 5 acres takes. Mulched with the big machine, two days, about $8,000 plus transport. Cleared to dirt with haul-off, four days and $12,500 to $17,500. A full acre of dense pine clear-cut runs $4,000 and up with the logs hauled. Time and cost drop together as acres rise, because transport is paid once and the machine never idles. Count your acres off the plat and send the figure with your photos.

Two machines, two day rates, and they're a fixed cost whether the lot fights back or not. The skid steer mulcher is $3,000 a day, transport included, and eats anything under 8 inches. The dedicated high-horsepower mulcher is $4,000 a day plus transport, cuts an 11-foot swath, and eats anything. The small machine runs carbide teeth on a 72-inch drum and has to nibble a 10-inch tallow from the side; the big one has a drum that drops a 20-inch trunk and chews it flat in one pass. Minimum trip charge is $1,200 to $1,500 for one machine on a short day. Total project cost on most lots is one or two day rates plus transport, nothing else. Our crews are insured. Call (713) 587-6978 if you want to know which machine your lot gets, and I'll tell you from the photos.

We don't price by the hour, and I'd be careful with anyone who does on a lot you can walk across in two minutes. A day is 8 to 9 hours of machine time, so the cost per hour on the small machine works out to about $350, and about $470 on the big mulcher before transport. Hourly pricing rewards a slow operator; a day rate rewards a fast one, and I've run the machine myself since 2018. Per acre pricing fits big land clearing projects where the brush is even and the acres are honest. For a residential lot under two acres, the day rate is the real price and the per-acre figure is arithmetic. Hourly dozer quotes look cheap until the haul-off trucks show up at $600 to $1,200 a load. Ask any land clearing contractor for the all-in number to clear your lot, in writing, before you compare rates.

Forestry mulching cost per acre runs $1,000 to $2,500; dozer clearing runs $1,500 to $4,000 and up per acre plus haul-off; excavation cost for grubbing roots with an excavator sits at the top of that range and adds a day. The three clearing methods leave three different lots. Mulching grinds trees and brush into a 2 to 4 inch layer of mulch and leaves the roots, so the ground stays put through the first storm. Traditional clearing with a dozer pushes everything into piles, and then you pay to burn under TCEQ outdoor burning rules, which is not allowed at all inside Houston city limits, or you pay $600 to $1,200 a load to haul. An excavator with a root rake pulls stumps and roots for a slab, and turns the lot to mud if it rains that week. Pick the method by what goes on the lot next, not by the lowest line on the quote.

Light brush clearing costs $1,500 to $2,000 an acre to dirt, or about $1,000 mulched. Brush and small trees under 8 inches are small machine work at $3,000 a day. Wooded land in yaupon, tallow thickets and small pine costs $2,500 to $3,500 an acre, and heavily wooded lots in mature loblolly or water oak run $4,000 and up with the logs hauled or sold. Brush clearing cost depends on the plant, not the height. Yaupon mulches like butter. Tallow has a root crown 6 inches down and a wood so wet the chips weigh double, so a tallow thicket adds a day. Cedar is a Hill Country price problem; we see it only as salt cedar near Galveston Bay. Clearing brush on sand north of FM 1960 goes faster than on clay, because the tracks don't slip. Vegetation is the one cost factor you can check yourself: walk the lot, count the stems thicker than your thigh, and send me that number with the photos.

Lot clearing for a new build costs $3,000 for a half acre of tallow and yaupon, and about twice that for a wooded acre in pine with the house pad roughed in. The Census Building Permits Survey counted 16,940 single-family permits in Harris County in 2025 and 11,597 in Montgomery. A residential lot has three jobs inside it: clear the slab area to dirt, clear the drive to the road, and flag the trees that stay. A heavily wooded lot in Conroe last spring took two days: loblolly understory cleared, 14 pines kept, pad roughed in, $6,800. Builders ask for the pad 18 inches above the road crown so the slab stays above the base flood elevation on the FEMA map, and that dirt is part of the price. We don't pour the slab or set the septic; I know people who do. Send the plat with your photos so I can see the setbacks.