Land Clearing Cost in Ohio (2026): Honeysuckle, Woodlot, Dead Ash and Lot Prices per Acre from Real Invoices

Four inputs set the number: acres, vegetation type, density and method. Acres is the area you want cleared, not the parcel. Vegetation is honeysuckle and brush, mixed woodlot, callery pear and multiflora rose on an old field, dead ash, or mature hardwood. Density is light, medium or heavy; the honest test is whether you can walk through it. Method is mulching, dozer grubbing to dirt, or excavator and trucking.

Worked example: 2 acres, mixed woodlot, heavy honeysuckle under maple with eight dead ash, mulched. The calculator reads $1,800 to 2,600 per acre depending on vegetation, so $3,600 to 5,200, and lands near $4,400 for two days with the skid steer. Add $360 for nine stumps ground where the driveway goes. Vegetation density moves the number more than acreage does. Run yours, then send the photos so I can check the class. The cost of land clearing is a thickness problem first.

The average cost to clear land here is $1,800 to 2,600 for the typical job, a woodlot with honeysuckle and some dead ash, mulched. A lot with light brush sits at $1,200. Heavily wooded ground cleared to dirt sits at $5,000. That spread is the whole story of land clearing cost in Ohio: thickness and dead ash, not the county line.

How much does it cost in the national tables? $1,500 to 5,000, averaging Georgia pine and Arizona scrub into one number. Costs vary here by three things you can see from the road: how thick the honeysuckle is, how many ash are dead, and whether the pad needs the stumps out. The cost of clearing land on a half acre is one day, $2,500, nine jobs out of ten.

A quarter-acre infill lot is $1,700 flat. To clear half an acre is one skid steer day, $2,500, transport included within 60 miles of Delaware or Lebanon. To clear an acre of land of honeysuckle is $1,200 to 2,000; the cost to clear an acre of mixed woodlot is $1,800 to 2,600. Clearing a single acre with dead ash in it runs toward the top.

Past 3 acres the 300-hp machine costs less than the skid steer. Wooded land can take 1 to 3 days for 3 acres depending on the dead ash count. Tell me the acres you want clear and I pick the machine.

The skid steer forestry mulcher is $2,500 a day, transport included within 60 miles of either yard, and takes stems to about 8 inches. The dedicated 300-hp mulcher is $3,900 a day plus transport and takes 12 inches. The skid steer clears half an acre to a full one a day in honeysuckle; the big machine clears 3 acres on open fencerow and 1 to 2 in a woodlot. Past 3 acres or past 8-inch stems, the big machine costs less. I pick the machine from your photos and name it in the email.

The dozer or excavator with operator is $160 an hour. Mulching is by the day. Honeysuckle is by the acre. Hourly means grubbing and dirt, daily means the mulcher is the whole job, by that unit means the thickness is known. Labor costs are inside all three. A pad grubbed on a township lot is 8 to 12 hours, $1,300 to 1,900 on top of the mulching. Ask for the unit and the count, not just the total.

Forestry mulching is the cheapest clearing method for anything that will stay brush or lawn: $1,200 to 2,600, nothing trucked, roots left for erosion control, and the mulch feeds the clay. Environmentally friendly is the brochure word; cheap is mine. Traditional clearing with a bulldozer pushes and piles, then you pay for debris removal at $600 to 1,100 per 10-yard load, because burning is out inside corporation limits. Clear compared this way, mulching is about half, and the ground is clear the same day. Excavator and haul-off is the pad method: $2,800 to 5,000 with root removal, which is what a slab needs. A chainsaw crew for selective clearing of specific trees sits between. Clearing heavily wooded land generates substantial debris, 10 to 15 loads from one acre. Tell me what goes on the ground afterward and the method picks itself.

Honeysuckle and brush clearing, $1,200 to 2,000. Mixed woodlot understory, honeysuckle under maple and oak with dead ash and grape vine, $1,800 to 2,600. Callery pear and multiflora rose on an old field, $1,200 to 2,000 with cut-stump treatment on every pear, or they sucker. Dead ash stands run the top of the woodlot range. Mature trees over 12 inches are felled by the day; trees and shrubs under that go through the drum. Tree removal of a single oak by a climber is not on this page.

Honeysuckle is 80 percent of what we clear and it is a shrub that resprouts from the crown, so the drum grinds the crown flush, which is slower than cutting. Heavily forested land with a closed overstory of oak has less honeysuckle under it and clears faster than an open woodlot. Forested land costs significantly more only when the trees come out. Name the three plants you see most and I name the range.

A dead ash costs more to drop than a live oak twice its size. The emerald ash borer killed the ash statewide between 2006 and 2015; what stands now is brittle, drops its top before the trunk is touched, and comes down in pieces. The crew fells from the machine and takes it in sections. Hazard-tree handling, and it is in the price.

Six acres of EAB-killed ash and honeysuckle in Medina County, February, frozen ground: two days with the 300-hp machine, $7,800. The same six acres of live woodlot would have been $6,000. Count the dead ash from the road. Ten or fewer on a typical lot is the normal range; past that the woodlot number climbs toward $2,600 and I tell you why before the trailer leaves.

The land clearing cost per acre is the same in all four regions; the transport line changes. Central runs from the Delaware yard and Southwest from Lebanon, transport included within 60 miles. Northeast, Lorain to Stark, bills transport from Delaware at 95 to 115 miles; Northwest, Lucas and Wood, 105 to 130. On a two-day job that line is a few hundred dollars; on a township lot it can be a third of the bill. Cincinnati honeysuckle is the thickest in the state and runs the top of the range. Zones near either yard are the cheapest ground to clear.

$1,700 flat for a quarter-acre infill lot and $2,500 for a half acre, one day. Grading is not included; rough grade with the dozer is $160 an hour on top, usually 4 to 8 hours on a township lot. Stumps inside the pad are grubbed or ground at $4 an inch, $150 minimum per stump. A 1-acre lot in Lebanon, callery pear thicket, ran one day plus nine stumps: $2,500 and $360.

What a homeowner should expect to pay on a wooded township lot, all in: $2,500 to clear, $500 to 1,200 for stumps, $640 to 1,280 for rough grade, so $3,600 to 5,000 before the footer crew. Common land clearing on a subdivision lot inside a city adds trucking, $600 to 1,100 a load.

Six invoices from the last two years, exact numbers, so you can put your own lot next to one.

• 3 acres, honeysuckle woodlot, Sunbury, Delaware County. 1.5 days, skid steer. $3,800.
• 0.5-acre lot, Plain City, on the Madison and Union line. 1 day. $2,500.
• 15 acres, fencerow and pasture reclaim, Knox County. Multiflora rose and autumn olive. 3 days, 300-hp mulcher. $11,700 plus transport.
• 1-acre lot, Lebanon, Warren County. Callery pear thicket. 1 day plus 9 stumps. $2,500 plus $360.
• 6 acres, EAB-killed ash and honeysuckle, Medina County. February, frozen ground. 2 days, 300-hp mulcher. $7,800.
• 2-acre creek-bank lot, Loveland, Clermont County. State EPA isolated wetland Level 1 permit. 1.5 days. $4,100.

Every one was quoted from photos first and confirmed on a walk. The Loveland clearing project carried a permit that cost a week, not money. Call (740) 729-8625 with the one that looks like yours and I tell you where yours lands.

December to February carries no mud surcharge and the best access of the year. Frozen clay holds the 300-hp machine without a rut, the Indiana bat window is open for trees over 3 inches, and the honeysuckle still has leaves so the crew can see it. March and April add a day or we wait; the clay holds water into May. Summer is dust and hard clay at the normal rate. On our jobs in Medina County last February we did 3 acres a day; the same ground in April would have been 1.5. Season affects land clearing more than any line on the invoice. Clear in winter, anything over an acre.

Clearing brush on acreage needs no permit here. Four things can add one. An isolated wetland pocket under half an acre takes an Ohio EPA Level 1 filing, which I do with you; the fee is small, the delay is two to six weeks. One acre or more of disturbance brings the NPDES construction general permit and a SWPPP the county SWCD reviews, a few hundred dollars in silt fence and a plan. A pad needs the county building department permit plus a township zoning certificate, usually under $500 together. Clearing trees over 3 inches on a wooded tract over 1 acre outside October 1 to March 31 means a USFWS habitat survey, $2,000 and up, or waiting. Permits before you can clear are rare; permits before you can build are not. The permit line goes in the email before the price, and you are clear to start the day it comes back.

Several factors influence land clearing costs past the acreage. Access first: a 36-inch gate and a wet lane add a day. Trucking second: inside corporation limits nothing burns, so what will not chip leaves at $600 to 1,100 a load, and clearing the land to dirt generates substantial debris. Stumps third: $4 an inch, or grubbing by the hour, only where a slab or septic goes. Dead ash fourth, covered above. Transport fifth: beyond 60 miles of Delaware or Lebanon, billed by the mile. Slope matters less than people think; the machines climb. Level land is cheaper only because the truck gets closer. Those are the cost factors that make one lot expensive to clear and the neighbor's cheap to clear. Costs range by what the gate says.

On a farm, clearing to return a field to hay or crop is a farm expense and the field keeps its CAUV classification; ask your accountant how it files. NRCS EQIP brush management is a cost-share program a landowner can apply for before the work; it pays part of the invoice on qualifying ground. On a homesite, clearing is a cost of the build, not a deduction, and it raises property value the week it happens: a lot you can walk sells. The overall cost to clear one township lot is $2,500; the appraisal difference is usually more. Land management decisions like this are cheaper on frozen ground.

Request a free on-site estimate within 60 miles of Delaware or Lebanon; the free estimate is a walk, not a drive-by. Send the form with photos or call (740) 729-8625. I email you a budget range and two dates before the end of the day, and the number I write on the walk is the number on the invoice. Determining the cost is my job; yours is two photos, one into the brush, one from the road. Land clearing prices on this page hold through 2026. A land clearing contractor who will not give you a range has not cleared enough acres. Land clearing services for your land clearing needs from one hand; your land clearing project should cost as much as the ground says and not a load more.