Land Clearing Cost Per Acre in Wyoming (2026 Guide)

Juniper is creeping into the sagebrush where your cattle graze, Russian olive has choked the creek bottom, or you need a house site cut out of pine near Sundance, and you want to know what it costs. Our crew clears ground like that for $1,500 to $4,500 an acre, the same bands we publish for Ranchettes and north Cheyenne. Light windbreak and fence line work comes in low; timber cleared to bare soil comes in high, and taking stumps out below grade is priced in the quote.

Our Wyoming work runs through our Ranchettes market north of Cheyenne, and land elsewhere in the state is still worth asking about. Tell us where your land is, and our crew will contact you to discuss your property, access and the clearing you need.

At a glance:

• Windbreak and fence line clearing, young juniper in sagebrush included: $1,500 to $2,500 an acre
• Forestry mulching of juniper stands, Russian olive or pine thickets where they grow: $1,500 to $4,000 an acre
• Land clearing, a whole parcel taken to a finish agreed in the quote: up to $4,500 an acre
• Smallest job: a minimum charge of about $1,500, where small jobs start, not a fee added on top
• Burning brush: no DEQ permit while the day’s smoke stays under 0.25 tons of fine particulate, roughly 8 acres of shrubland, and never while county fire restrictions are in force.
• Stormwater: 1 to 5 acres disturbed falls under a no-application state permit; 5 acres or more needs a Notice of Intent and a stormwater plan.
• Weeds: Russian olive, saltcedar and leafy spurge are on Wyoming’s state designated noxious weed list.

To get started, request a free quote. Our crew will be in touch to talk through the job and what has grown up.

How Much Does It Cost to Clear Land in Wyoming?

The price tracks what is standing and how it has to leave. Here is how our bands sit against Wyoming ground:

What is standing	Cut Brush price per acre	What it looks like
Windbreak and fence line clearing: shelterbelt rows, fence line brush, young juniper in sagebrush	$1,500 – $2,500	Windbreaks on the high plains, scattered trees in open range
Forestry mulching: juniper stands, Russian olive and saltcedar thickets ground in place	$1,500 – $4,000	Juniper hillsides near Casper, a creek bottom you cannot drive through
Land clearing: pine or mixed timber cleared to an agreed finish	$1,500 – $4,500	Wooded parcels on the Black Hills edge in Crook and Weston counties
Lot and homesite prep: house site, drive and utility path	$1,500 – $4,500 per acre equivalent	Acreage lots outside Cheyenne, Laramie, Casper and Riverton

Access and your property set the quote.

What the price includes. Forestry mulching grinds brush, small trees and stumps into mulch on site, with stumps flush with the ground and nothing hauled away. Full stump removal below grade and cut-and-haul for very large trees are discussed and priced in the quote. Grading and build pads are not part of our price: we clear to the ground so a builder can grade.

Where these numbers come from. Each band is the one published on our Ranchettes pricing page, and a given acre can fall anywhere inside it depending on the growth and the ground. Small jobs start at a minimum charge of about $1,500, not a fee on top of an acre rate, because pulling the trailer to a ranch gate outside Wheatland costs the same whether the machine then clears half an acre or forty.

What Changes the Price of a Wyoming Job

How far the juniper has moved in. Wyoming has 12 native conifers, and two junipers among them, Rocky Mountain juniper included, are the ones invading sage and grass. Cut juniper can be handled four ways: lop and scatter, mastication, cut and pile, or leaving them where they drop. Near Casper the reason to clear is often water: a mature juniper can draw 40 gallons a day from soil that gets about 13 inches of precipitation a year. Scattered young trees fit our lowest band; a hillside where the crowns meet does not.

Russian olive and saltcedar, which come back. Both resprout. Russian olive cut and treated with herbicide straight away needs little follow-up, while mastication alone often brings heavy sprouting and years of spraying. Before you sign for a creek bottom, find out who treats the stumps and when. Our Wyoming Russian olive removal guide sets out the visits.

Pro tip: On cut-stump jobs, book a licensed applicator to treat each fresh cut immediately. After mastication, plan treatment of the regrowth instead. Herbicide works best in fall, when the tree is moving sugars down to its roots. Herbicide on stumps or resprouts is work for a licensed applicator.

Getting the machine to the parcel. Trailering a tracked machine to remote ground adds to the bill. Spread over forty acres that barely shows; on two acres it is much of the bill.

What happens to the wood. Mulched juniper stays as a chip mat: no pile, no smoke, nothing to watch. Piles work on open range within the DEQ smoke limit below. Hauling costs the most: cutting and hauling very large trees is discussed and priced in the quote, and it mostly pays near town, where a builder wants bare ground.

Ground that stays wet into summer. Plenty of Wyoming valley floors carry a high water table through the growing season. A tracked machine on a hay meadow or creek terrace ruts in June where it would ride clean in September, so wet ground often waits.

Land Clearing Costs Across Wyoming

The southeast plains. Wheatland and Torrington, across Platte and Goshen counties, with Cheyenne, Laramie and the Laramie County towns covered below. Work here is shelterbelts, fence lines and acreage at the edge of town.

Ranchettes, Cheyenne and the Colorado line. This is our Wyoming market: Ranchettes, Cheyenne, Fox Farm-College, South Greeley, Burns and Pine Bluffs in Laramie County, LaGrange, WY and Laramie, WY, and over the state line Wellington, Laporte, Nunn, Pierce and Ault. Our crew takes out windbreak rows, fence line brush and Russian olive in draws, and clears new house sites, many of them small enough to start at the minimum charge. Laramie County’s fire warden allows burning on private land only when no fire restrictions are in place, wants a call to the Combined Communications Center at 307-637-6525 when you burn, and asks for a 10-foot cleared ring around the pile. The Ranchettes land clearing page covers the towns and county rules, and the Ranchettes pricing page lists the per-acre bands.

The Bighorn Basin. Cody, Powell, Greybull, Worland and Thermopolis. The Greybull soils lie over soft shale and gets 5 to 9 inches of precipitation a year. Clearing here is about water: the state’s wildlife and natural resource trust has funded tamarisk and Russian olive removal along the Big Horn River in Hot Springs County and about 1,750 acres on Gooseberry Creek in Washakie County, with sprouts re-treated afterward. Expect resprout work in the scope.

Casper and the Wind River country. Casper, Glenrock and Douglas, then Riverton, Lander and Dubois in Fremont County. Around Casper it is juniper in sagebrush; Near Glenrock it is Russian olive. Up the Wind River, Lander soils near Dubois sit on terraces that flood from April through August, with a water table 20 to 40 inches down for 90 days or more. Bottom ground there is fall work.

The northeast and the Black Hills edge. Sundance, Hulett and Newcastle in Crook and Weston counties. Citadel soils on the limestone plateau grow ponderosa pine with Black Hills spruce, aspen and bur oak, over a subsoil of 35 to 45 percent clay that turns very plastic when wet. Work is pine thinning and ladder fuels, and dry weather prices best.

Jackson Hole and Star Valley. Jackson and Wilson in Teton County, Afton and Thayne in Star Valley. Tetonville soils on the Jackson Hole floor are gravelly and cobbly, hold water within 12 inches of the surface in the growing season, and see fewer than 90 frost-free days; Greyback soils around Star Valley see fewer than 60. Teton County Fire/EMS requires 30 feet of defensible space for new homes, additions and alterations, with trees 10 feet from the house and from each other. Zone work like that is priced by the share of an acre it covers.

Burning, Fire Restrictions and Stormwater in Wyoming

Burning brush. Wyoming’s open burning rule, Chapter 10, Section 2, lets you burn vegetative material without a DEQ permit only while daily emissions stay at or under 0.25 tons of PM10. You must tell the local fire authority before lighting, check on the fire through the burn, and stay at least 500 feet from a population unless DEQ grants a waiver. That limit works out to roughly 8 acres of shrubland or 25 acres of grass a day. Anything bigger falls under the state’s smoke management rules and needs notice to DEQ.

Fire restrictions first. Counties set their own burn bans, and the State Forestry Division maps them county by county. No DEQ allowance overrides a ban in force that day, and towns can be stricter.

Stormwater. DEQ’s Small Construction General Permit covers clearing and other construction disturbing at least 1 acre but less than 5. Nothing is filed: you are covered by following every provision. At 5 acres or more, the large permit needs a Notice of Intent, a stormwater plan, a fee and an access map before work starts; DEQ charges $200 per 12 months. We never file permits; the owner or builder holds them, and any grading belongs to your dirt contractor.

Frequently Asked Questions

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

Plan on $1,500 to $4,500, the bands on our Ranchettes pricing page. Scattered juniper and windbreak rows run $1,500 to $2,500, a mulched Russian olive thicket up to $4,000, and a parcel cleared to an agreed finish up to $4,500; pulling stumps below grade is priced in the quote.

Can I burn brush piles in Wyoming without a permit?

Often, yes, under DEQ’s daily smoke limit of 0.25 tons, about 8 acres of shrubland. You must notify the fire authority, watch the burn and stay 500 feet from a population. Nothing burns while county fire restrictions are in force.

Will Russian olive grow back after it is mulched?

Usually. Mastication often leads to heavy sprouting that needs herbicide for years, spraying stumps right after mastication is rarely feasible, and trees cut with a saw and treated on the spot need far less follow-up.

Do I need a stormwater permit to clear land in Wyoming?

From 1 acre of disturbance you fall under DEQ’s small construction permit, which needs no application but binds you to its terms. At 5 acres or more you file a Notice of Intent and a stormwater plan.

Get a Wyoming Clearing Quote

When our crew calls, we will go over the thickest patch and the access (gate, two-track, creek crossing), the main growth (juniper, Russian olive, saltcedar or pine), and the finish you want: open sagebrush for grazing, a thinned stand around the house, or ground ready for your dirt contractor.

Request a free quote for your Wyoming land and our crew will contact you to go over the property and the finish you want.

Land that runs over the state line is in our Colorado and Montana guides.

Sources

• University of Wyoming Extension, B-1354, open burning limits
• Wyoming DEQ, Large and Small Construction General Permits