Land Clearing and Grading Cost in New York (2026 Guide)

You own the lot, the house plans are drawn, and the builder says the trees have to come off before the excavator can start. Clearing a New York building site runs $1,500 to $4,500 an acre with Cut Brush, before any soil is moved. Our crews clear across Orange, Dutchess, Ulster and Sullivan counties in the Hudson Valley and hand the ground to your excavation contractor, who prices the grading as a second bill.

At a glance:

• Our clearing price: $1,500 to $4,500 an acre, the same band whether we clear the whole parcel or just the house envelope, drive corridor and service runs. Wooded edges you keep can be mulched at $1,500 to $4,000.
• Grading is priced by your excavation contractor, usually by the hour. Cornell Cooperative Extension of Franklin County’s 2022 rate guide puts dozer time at $80 to $150 an hour.
• Stormwater coverage under DEC’s GP-0-25-001 starts at one acre of disturbance, 5,000 square feet in the New York City watershed east of the Hudson. The state fee is $110 per disturbed acre plus $675 per future impervious acre.
• 811: whoever digs must place a locate request at least two and no more than ten working days before work starts.
• Contracts: a residential home improvement job over $500 needs a written contract, and the law counts driveways and landscaping as home improvement.

Our crews work from Newburgh, Middletown and Monroe in Orange County to Hyde Park and LaGrange in Dutchess, and over to Kingston and Monticello. Pick your nearest area at the foot of this page.

How Clearing and Grading Work on a New York Lot

A homesite is two jobs in a row with paperwork between them. First the clearing: trees, brush and stumps taken off the footprint, the drive line and the trench runs for power and water. Then the grading: soil cut and filled to shape the pad, drive base and drainage. We do the first job and stop where your excavator takes over. We do not grade, build pads, install septic or file permits.

How Much Does Land Clearing and Grading Cost in New York?

Phase	Who does it	Our price per acre
Clearing the house envelope, drive corridor and service runs	Cut Brush	$1,500 – $4,500 per acre equivalent
Clearing the whole parcel to a named finish	Cut Brush	$1,500 – $4,500
Mulching wooded edges you are keeping	Cut Brush	$1,500 – $4,000
Stormwater plan and permit coverage, one acre and up	Owner or site operator, with an engineer	DEC fee set by state law
Locate request before any digging	The excavation contractor	Through 811
Rough grading, pad, drive base and septic area	The excavation contractor	Their quote, usually hourly

Where these numbers come from. Our three rows are copied from the Hudson Valley pricing page, which lists Lot & Homesite Prep at $1,500 to $4,500 per acre equivalent and says plainly that grading and compaction are separate work, priced separately. Where in the band a lot lands depends on what is standing and how the ground carries a machine. The farm rate guide’s $80 to $150 an hour for a dozer, set when diesel was $5.80 a gallon, is why a graded pad costs more than a cleared one: get the real figure from your excavation contractor, and price gravel and fill from the yard nearest the site. If you only need the ground opened, the New York land clearing cost per acre guide prices clearing alone.

What Changes the Grading Bill in New York

Lake clay on a slope. Along the Hudson and Mohawk valleys and the Erie and Ontario lake plains, the Hudson soil formed in clayey and silty lake sediment. The USDA notes its “more sloping and dissected areas show evidence of slumping or mass slipping,” and rates its runoff medium to very high. Cutting a pad into a Hudson bank is a question for an engineer before it is a question for a dozer.

A pan that holds water near the surface. On the uplands of the Southern Tier and the Catskill side, the Volusia soil has a dense pan 10 to 22 inches down and drains slowly, so the ground above it stays wet. How a foundation and septic area drain there is a design question, and the answer costs excavator time and stone, not clearing time.

Flagstone bedrock. The Lordstown soil, first described near Ithaca, reaches bedrock at 20 to 40 inches, with flagstones making up as much as 60 percent of its lower layers. A full basement on Lordstown ground can hit rock well short of depth. Ask your excavation contractor how rock is priced before the dig, not after it.

How many acres you open. The state fee is $110 for every disturbed acre, and the law counts any acre “subject to clearing, grading, or excavating.” The one-acre line decides whether coverage applies at all. We clear to your builder’s stakes and mulch the wooded edges you keep, which holds both numbers down. Whether a mulched edge counts as disturbed is DEC’s call.

Where the lot sits. East of the Hudson in the New York City watershed, coverage starts at 5,000 square feet, and several Dutchess towns set the same lower line, as our Hudson Valley permit guide explains. Inside the Adirondack Park, clearing a building site cannot begin until any Park Agency permit is issued; the Agency decides minor projects such as a single family house within 45 days of a complete application.

Pro tip: Before we arrive, have the house corners, drive centerline and septic area staked, and the proposed dig marked in white paint, the color 811 locators expect. Our crew clears to the stakes, the locate matches the paint, and nobody clears an acre you then pay a stormwater fee on and never use.

Land Clearing and Grading Costs Across New York

The Hudson Valley. Our ground. River-side lots sit on Hudson clay; inland, it is stony till with a pan, and the permit desk is usually the town hall. Start with the Hudson Valley land clearing page.

The Southern Tier and the Catskill side. Volusia and Lordstown ground: wet over a pan on the long slopes, shallow flagstone bedrock on the hilltops. Sullivan and Ulster lots in our territory share some of it.

The Finger Lakes and Central New York. The Honeoye soil, first described in Marcellus in Onondaga County, is very deep till from limestone and shale, with bedrock below 60 inches. Little rock to dig through, but stones over 10 inches can cover up to a fifth of the surface, which means rock picking before the final grade.

Western New York and the lake plains. The Collamer soil, first described near Geneva, is lake-laid silt and very fine sand with almost no stone. The grading cost shifts to keeping cut banks stable and the silt on site.

Long Island. Riverhead and Plymouth soils are deep outwash sand and gravel that drain fast, with no bedrock near the surface. Locates here go through New York 811 rather than UDig NY.

Stormwater, 811 and Contract Rules in New York

Stormwater. DEC’s construction general permit, GP-0-25-001, took effect on 29 January 2025 and runs to 28 January 2030. Inside New York City the line is 20,000 square feet. Above the threshold, the operator prepares a stormwater pollution prevention plan, then files an electronic notice of intent through DEC’s nForm portal. Some agricultural, silvicultural and routine maintenance work is excepted. The fee is set in Environmental Conservation Law 72-0602.

The locate. New York’s rule (16 NYCRR Part 753) defines excavation as moving earth or rock with mechanized equipment, so the grading needs a locate through 811: UDig NY for most of the state, New York 811 for the city and Long Island. Holidays do not count toward the two to ten working days, and the request lapses if work has not started within ten working days of the stated date. Machines stay out of the two-foot tolerance zone on each side of a marked line until it is exposed by hand (UDig NY excavator manual).

The contract. Anywhere in the state, a residential job over $500 needs a written contract with a three business day right to cancel, and money taken before the work is done must be escrowed or bonded. Ask your excavation contractor for that contract.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does it cost to clear and grade a lot in New York?

Clearing runs $1,500 to $4,500 an acre with Cut Brush. Grading is a separate quote from your excavation contractor, usually hourly, and farm rate guides put a dozer at $80 to $150 an hour. Most homesites grade only the pad, drive and septic area, not the whole cleared acre.

Do you grade or build pads in New York?

No. We clear the envelope, drive corridor and service runs and stop where your excavator takes over. Grading, compaction, septic and permits stay with your builder, engineer and excavation contractor.

Do I need a stormwater permit to build a house in New York?

If the project disturbs one acre or more, yes, under GP-0-25-001. East of the Hudson in the New York City watershed the line is 5,000 square feet, and some towns set lower thresholds of their own. The state fee is $110 per disturbed acre plus $675 per acre of new roof and paving.

Who calls 811, me or the contractor?

The excavator. The person or company doing the digging places the locate request and waits for every utility to respond. Any machine work that moves earth or rock needs one, so ask for the ticket number before machines arrive.

Does a residential grading job in New York need a written contract?

Yes, when it is over $500. Statewide, a residential job over $500 needs a written contract with a three business day right to cancel.

Get Your New York Lot Cleared for the Excavator

Pick your nearest area below and request a free quote for a written clearing figure. Our crew will contact you to talk through the lot, the way in from the road and the footprint your builder or engineer has drawn for the house, drive and septic, so the handoff to your excavation contractor lands the same week. For wooded edges you are keeping, see the New York underbrush removal cost guide and the New York forestry mulching cost guide.

Sources

• NYSDEC: Stormwater permit for construction activity (GP-0-25-001)
• Cornell Cooperative Extension Franklin County: 2022 Custom Rates & Fees