Land Clearing Cost Per Acre in Illinois (2026 Guide)

Maybe it is a hedge row of Osage orange that has crept twenty feet into a field, or a farm woodlot so thick with bush honeysuckle you can no longer walk it, and you want a number before you call anyone. Our crew clears this kind of Illinois ground for $1,500 to $4,500 an acre, the same bands we publish for the Fox Valley around Gilberts. Read it as a working budget from the people who do the job; the firm number comes after we have talked through the ground.

At a glance:

• Hedge rows, fence lines and brushy field edges: $1,500 to $2,500 an acre
• Honeysuckle and saplings mulched under timber you keep: $1,500 to $4,000 an acre
• A whole tract cleared to a finish you name, or a homesite cut from woods: $1,500 to $4,500 an acre
• Stormwater: disturb an acre or more and Illinois EPA coverage under general permit ILR10 applies, with a one-time fee of $250 under 5 acres and $750 at 5 or more.
• Burning: brush cut to clear land for new development or a business is trade waste, and may only be burned in an air curtain incinerator with permits.

Our crew works Illinois from the Fox Valley around Gilberts, the Illinois River valley around Peoria and the Ohio River around Metropolis, IL. Request a free quote for land anywhere in the state and we’ll contact you to discuss your property, access and the clearing you need; travel is part of the quote farther from those three markets.

What Clearing an Illinois Acre Costs

Land clearing means taking the brush, vines and trees off a piece of ground and leaving it at a finish you choose: a mulched woodlot floor, a field edge pushed back to the fence, or open ground handed to your dirt contractor. We price it by what is standing, because that is what sets the machine hours. Forestry mulching grinds brush, small trees and stumps into mulch on site, stumps flush and nothing hauled away; full stump removal below grade and hauling very large trees are priced in the quote. Grading and build pads are not part of our price; we clear to the ground so a builder can grade.

What is standing	Cut Brush price per acre	What it looks like in Illinois
Hedge rows, fence lines, brushy field edges	$1,500 – $2,500	Osage orange, locust and multiflora rose along a field line
Honeysuckle, buckthorn, autumn olive and saplings under timber you keep, mulched in place	$1,500 – $4,000	A farm woodlot, creek corridor or suburban oak grove you can no longer walk through
Whole-tract clearing to a named finish	$1,500 – $4,500	Timber opened up for pasture, a pond or a machine shed
Homesite: house envelope, drive and utility path	$1,500 – $4,500 per acre equivalent	A building spot carved out of a wooded lot

Access and your property set the quote.

Where these numbers come from. They are the four bands on our Gilberts pricing page, the same on the Peoria and Metropolis, IL pricing pages. Trailering a tracked machine to half an acre costs what it costs to trailer it to five, so every job carries a minimum charge near $1,500: small jobs start there, and access, density and any added work set the final quote.

Mowing grass uses a tractor and rotary cutter and is quoted separately from mulching woody brush.

What Makes an Illinois Job Cost More or Less

Spring water in black prairie soil. Drummer, mapped on more than 500,000 acres of northern and central Illinois, stays poorly drained even with tile. The USDA puts its seasonal water table anywhere from half a foot above the surface to a foot below it, January through May. A tracked machine on that ground in April moves slowly and ruts a field you may want to farm again. Book the same work for August or September and it goes faster and finishes cleaner.

Hedge, locust and rose. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources lists Osage orange, black and honey locust and multiflora rose as brush targets alongside honeysuckle and autumn olive, and says every removal method needs follow-up. A quarter mile of mature hedge with rose woven through it takes longer per foot than open brush. Tell us up front if your fence rows are hedge.

Honeysuckle that sprouts again. Bush honeysuckle is probably in every Illinois county. A tractor-mounted cutter is one of the fastest ways through a dense stand, but the chips make stumps hard to find for herbicide, so resprouts are best treated while they are small. That is why we suggest budgeting a return visit as well as the first pass; herbicide on the resprouts is a licensed applicator’s work.

What happens to the cut material. Burning is narrowly allowed here (see the permits section), and hauling adds trucks and tipping fees. Mulching in place leaves the brush on your ground as chips and drops that line from the bill. Cut Brush clears; grading and pad work belong to your dirt contractor and are priced by them.

Land Clearing Costs Across Illinois

Ice once covered about 85 percent of Illinois, and where it stopped explains much of what a machine meets on your ground.

Chicago region and the northeastern moraines. Moraine ridges, most of the state’s glacial lakes and peat, and the flat, poorly drained Chicago Lake Plain around Calumet City. Lots are smaller and towns often limit burning, so machine access and mulching in place usually decide the price.

Gilberts and the Fox Valley. For land in Kane, McHenry, northwest Cook and eastern DeKalb counties, see land clearing around Gilberts and the Gilberts pricing page. This is our crew’s Gilberts market, where common buckthorn and bush honeysuckle under oak woods are the usual problem; our Illinois buckthorn removal guide sets out the plan.

The Grand Prairie. Black-soil prairie and potholes between the Shelbyville and Bloomington moraines, with Drummer named near Urbana in Champaign County. Trees grow mostly in hedge rows, creek corridors and farmstead groves, so jobs run in long lines and the calendar matters more than the tree count.

Peoria and the Illinois River valley. For land in Peoria, Tazewell, Woodford, Fulton and Marshall counties, see land clearing around Peoria and the Peoria pricing page. This is our crew’s Peoria market, where bush honeysuckle under the bluff timber is a common job; our Illinois bush honeysuckle removal guide sets out the plan.

The Effingham Plain and southern till. Flat country drained by the Kaskaskia River, with post oak flatwoods on its uplands. Cisne soil, named near Newton in Jasper County, has a clay layer starting about 16 to 21 inches down and a water table within a foot of the surface from January to May. Level ground helps; that clay makes timing matter.

The Shawnee Hills. Illinoian ice stopped near Carbondale. South of it sit sandstone ridges in the Greater Shawnee Hills and limestone, sinkholes and caves in the Lesser. Grantsburg soil, named at Dixon Springs in Pope County, carries hardwood forest on slopes of 2 to 18 percent, with a fragipan 24 to 40 inches down and water perched on it from December to April. Slope and stem size push these quotes toward the top of the band.

The river bottoms. The American Bottoms near East St. Louis, the western bottomland running up to Calhoun County with timber inside the levees, and the Wabash floodplain with its sloughs and oxbow lakes. River stage decides when a machine can get in, so a flexible date saves money here.

Metropolis and the Ohio River. For land in Massac, Johnson and Alexander counties, and across the river around Paducah, KY, see land clearing around Metropolis, IL and the Metropolis, IL pricing page. This is our crew’s Metropolis market, where kudzu on fence rows and field edges and wet bottomland along the Ohio are the usual work; kudzu has been recorded in Massac County, and its vines need repeated control after the first clearing. Our Illinois kudzu removal guide sets out the plan.

Permits and Burning Rules in Illinois

Stormwater. Illinois EPA requires ILR10 coverage for construction that disturbs an acre or more, or less than an acre when it is part of a larger plan of development or sale that will reach an acre. The Notice of Intent goes in with an electronic stormwater pollution prevention plan, and the fee is paid once: $250 under 5 acres, $750 at 5 or more. We do not file permits, so settle who will before work starts, and ask your county whether it runs its own review.

Burning. Brush from clearing for new development or a business is trade waste: an air curtain incinerator and the right permits, or no fire. Ordinary landscape waste has no statewide ban, but towns can set hours, limit materials or forbid it, and state law does not override them. Farm waste may be burned only on the farm that produced it, outside restricted areas (a town of 1,000 or more people plus a one-mile ring), more than 1,000 feet from homes, and only when no reasonable alternative exists.

Pro tip: In the southern third of Illinois, bush honeysuckle often holds its green leaves until mid-November, after most native shrubs are bare. Walk the woods then and you will see exactly how far it runs.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does it cost to clear an acre of land in Illinois?

Plan on $1,500 to $4,500. A hedge row or a light honeysuckle pass under trees you keep sits near the bottom. Mature hardwood on a Shawnee Hills slope, or a whole tract cleared for a building, sits near the top, and mulching alone tops out around $4,000.

Can I burn brush piles after clearing land in Illinois?

It depends on why the brush was cut and where. Clearing for development or a business makes it trade waste, which needs an air curtain incinerator and Illinois EPA permits. Farm waste has its own distance and restricted-area rules, and many towns limit burning further.

Do I need a permit to clear land in Illinois?

If the work disturbs an acre or more, or is part of a larger plan that will, ILR10 coverage from Illinois EPA applies. Counties can add their own review, so ask yours before the machine is booked.

When is the cheapest time of year to clear land in Illinois?

Late summer into fall for most of the state. Drummer and Cisne hold water near the surface from January to May, and Grantsburg perches water from December to April, so dry months mean fewer ruts and fewer machine hours.

Is there cost share for clearing honeysuckle out of an Illinois woodlot?

Possibly, through IDNR’s Forestry Development Act cost share, if you have at least 10 contiguous acres enrolled and an approved forest management plan. Apply first: work started before the IDNR forester approves the application does not qualify.

Get a Land Clearing Quote for Your Illinois Ground

Request a free quote and we’ll contact you to discuss your property, access and the clearing you need. It helps to know, before we talk, the finish you want, whether the field is tiled, whether it floods, and whether hedge is in the mix.

Sources

• University of Illinois farmdoc, machinery cost estimates: field operations, 2025
• Illinois EPA, open burning fact sheet