How much does it cost to dump at a landfill?

Median dump fee by state

The middle rate in each state, from the 297 sites in the table below. New England, Alaska, Hawaii and the Pacific Northwest fill the top of the chart, led by Massachusetts (a single town station), Alaska, Maine and New Hampshire; Alabama, Montana, Kentucky, Indiana, Utah and Nevada sit at the bottom, at $40 a ton or less. A state median based on only a few sites is a rougher guide than one based on many.

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How we collect this data

• From the operator, not a directory. Every rate comes from the published fee schedule or rate page of whoever runs the site: a city, county, solid waste district or authority, or the private company that operates it. We read each one ourselves and link it from the matching city or county page. No estimates, surveys or third-party listings.
• Which rates count. The published per-ton rate (per-pound rates are converted to per-ton) that the public pays for household trash or bulky and mixed loads. Residents-only rates count where residents are the ones using the site. We leave out rates that apply only to construction debris, haulers or businesses, prices quoted only per load or per cubic yard, and places that are free for residents.
• One rate per site. The main household-trash rate, before sales tax unless the operator builds tax into it. Minimum charges are listed separately below.
• The math. The national median is the middle value of all 297 sites; the middle half runs from the 25th to the 75th percentile ($46 to $102). State medians use only the sites we track in that state, so the chart shows how many each one rests on.
• Kept current. We re-check rates whenever we update a state's pages and add new places as we go. This page was last verified on October 24, 2026. If you spot a rate that has changed, email support@findlandfill.com and we'll check it against the operator's schedule.

The short answer, in four numbers

• Median published gate rate: $64.75 a ton. That's the midpoint of the 297 disposal sites, serving 299 cities, that publish a per-ton rate for household trash.
• Range: $18.50 to $300 a ton. Canyon County's Pickles Butte Landfill near Nampa, Idaho ($18.50 for Canyon and Owyhee County residents, after a $15 minimum) and Coffee County's landfill in Elba, Alabama ($22, plus a $1-a-ton state fee) at the bottom; North Kingstown, Rhode Island's transfer station (15 cents a pound for bulky items) at the top. About a 16× difference for the same load — and out-of-area rates go higher still: $137.60 in Killeen without City trash service, $156 at Palm Beach County's sites for waste from outside the county.
• Minimum charge: $1 to $125. This is the number that usually applies to a normal pickup load, not the per-ton rate.
• What most city residents pay: $0. Read on, because this is the part that decides your price.

Those figures come from every fee schedule behind our city pages, across forty-eight states. They're the right answer to “what should I expect,” and the wrong answer to “what will my gate charge” — fees are set city by city, and neighboring towns routinely differ by double. For your own number, jump to what it costs where you are or use the finder further down.

The biggest factor isn't the landfill. It's whether you live there.

People searching for a dump fee usually assume the facility sets the price. It mostly doesn't. Your address does.

Free resident self-haul is normal, not a regional quirk. We found it in state after state — Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth in Texas, county drop-off centers across Georgia, county-funded sites in Florida. Not a discount: free, with proof of address. So the first question to answer is never “what does this landfill charge” but “does my address get in free, and what proof does the gate want?”

This is not generosity. You already paid. Those cities collect a sanitation fee on your water or utility bill, and that fee funds the landfill. Charging you again at the gate would be charging twice. It also explains the hard edge at the city limit: a county address a mile outside town isn't paying that fee, so it doesn't get the free trip. If you're not sure which side of the line you're on, check who bills you for trash pickup — that is the same test.

What that gap is worth, in one example: in Harlingen, Texas the same load under 500 pounds costs $12 for a resident and $93.50 for everyone else. Same landfill, same trash, same day. The difference is a utility bill.

So before you look up a rate, find out whether you qualify as a resident and what proof the gate wants. Usually it's a driver's license plus a matching utility bill. San Antonio asks specifically for a CPS Energy bill and photo ID; Fort Worth wants a water bill showing the sanitation charge on it.

Published per-ton gate rates

These are the disposal sites in our set that publish a per-ton rate for household trash, lowest first. Where neighboring cities share one site, they share a row. Sites that take only construction debris or brush are left out, and so are places that price by the load or the cubic yard instead (those are further down).

Two things worth noticing. First, the state doesn't predict the price — Idaho has both the cheapest entry (Canyon County, $18.50) and Madison County at $100, Minnesota runs from $78 at Rice County to $155 at a private station in Rosemount, and California from Fresno County's $29.52 to South Gate's $123.12. The top of the table belongs to New England town stations, where weighed loads of bulky waste often run $150 to $300 a ton, to Ketchikan, Alaska ($255.72) and Harrisburg's rate for city trash ($251.33), and to Washington and Oregon transfer stations, led by King County at $243.38. Even inside Washington the spread is wide: Yakima County charges $46. Second, almost nobody actually pays these rates, because almost nobody brings a ton.

Why the per-ton rate probably isn't what you'll pay

A ton is 2,000 pounds. A pickup bed of household junk — furniture, boxes, bagged trash — is usually somewhere between 300 and 600 pounds. So the per-ton math gives you a number that the landfill will not honor.

Denton, Texas makes this concrete. The rate is $45.50 a ton. A 300-pound load works out to $6.83. But Denton's minimum charge is $26.50, so $26.50 is what you pay — nearly four times the per-ton math.

For most people hauling one load, the minimum charge is the real price. Look it up before the per-ton rate, not after.

And watch for fees stacked on top of the posted rate. Montgomery County, Ohio advertises $30.50 a ton, then adds a $4.75 Ohio EPA fee and $3.65 in general fees — so the number you actually pay is about $38.90, a quarter more than the sign says. Dallas does the same thing on a smaller scale, adding $2 environmental and $2 processing per ton. Ask what the all-in rate is, not the headline.

Some places don't weigh you at all

Not every facility runs your vehicle over a scale. A good number price by what you arrived in, which is usually better news for a small load:

• Durham, North Carolina — $5 a carload, $10 a small SUV, $10 to $20 a pickup, $15 a full-size van. Billed by vehicle, never by the ton.
• Statesville, North Carolina — $8 for a half pickup load, $16 for a full one, at the county convenience sites.
• Winston-Salem, North Carolina — a flat-rate lane starting at $7, sitting alongside the scale lane. The flat-rate lane is to the left of the scale house, and it is easy to drive past.
• St. Petersburg, Florida — $4.25 flat for a car, $11.75 for an unmodified pickup or van.
• Toledo, Ohio — $16 for the first cubic yard, rising $16 a yard to $80 for five. Rounded to the nearest cubic yard, and cash only.
• Harlingen, Texas — $12 a load for residents up to 500 pounds, $22 up to 1,000 and $32 up to 1,500.

If your load is modest, a by-vehicle facility usually beats a scale with a minimum charge. It's worth the extra few miles.

The fees that show up at the scale

These are the ones that turn a $20 trip into a $60 trip, and none of them appear in the headline rate.

The untarped load fee. If your load isn't covered and secured, many sites add a charge on arrival — and it is not small relative to the trip:

• Lufkin, Texas — $5
• Corpus Christi, Texas — $15
• Killeen, Texas — $26.25
• Kerrville, Texas — $30
• Dallas, Texas — $40 for an uncovered load
• Gastonia, North Carolina — a $200 surcharge for an uncovered load

A $10 tarp and four bungee cords pays for itself on the first trip almost anywhere on that list. In much of Texas it is also a legal requirement in transit, not just a gate rule.

Item-specific pricing. Certain materials are priced separately no matter what your load costs by weight:

• Shingles — $125/ton in Denton, against $49.50/ton for ordinary waste. Roofing tear-off is its own category almost everywhere.
• Concrete and clean fill — often cheaper, not dearer: $23.50/ton in Denton.
• Tires — $3.00 each in Orlando, capped at 8 per visit; $1.50 to $28 each in Jacksonville depending on size.
• Mattresses — around $63 each in Tyler, Texas. Mattresses are one of the most consistently expensive single items in the country.
• Appliances — $8 each at the Angelina County landfill in Lufkin. Anything holding refrigerant is usually refused outright unless the refrigerant has been certified-removed.
• Construction and demolition debris — priced separately from household waste, sometimes below the household rate and sometimes well above it.

And the one that isn't a fee at all: the volume cap. Free resident programs are usually capped. San Antonio's bulky-waste centers take four cubic yards a visit. Miami caps construction debris at three cubic yards. Gainesville, Florida allows a level pickup-truck load and means level — heaped above the bed rails and you're over.

What it costs where you are

Fees are set city by city, so the only number that matters is the one at the gate you're driving to. To price a specific load, try our junk removal pricing calculator, which uses these same rates. We publish full fee schedules for every state we cover:

• Cost to dump in Texas — 33 cities, from free resident drop-off in the big metros to $99.93 a ton in the Hill Country
• Cost to dump in North Carolina — the by-vehicle pricing state; several cities never weigh you
• Cost to dump in Florida — county-funded drop-offs and the residency rules that gate them
• Cost to dump in Georgia — where several counties run no public landfill at all
• Cost to dump in Ohio — every posted rate gets $4.75 a ton in state fees on top, so the price at the scale is rarely the one on the sign
• Cost to dump in Tennessee — free county convenience centers, and what the transfer stations charge when you outgrow them
• Cost to dump in Virginia — free for residents in Hampton Roads and the Roanoke Valley, up to 12 visits a year; $78 to $98 a ton in Northern Virginia
• Cost to dump in South Carolina — free household trash for Greenville and Lexington county residents; $33 to $100 a ton at the scales
• Cost to dump in Arizona — free monthly loads for Phoenix, Glendale, Scottsdale and Flagstaff residents; Tucson's $18 small load
• Cost to dump in California — free household trash for Kern County residents; $9.45 to $75 for a small load in most areas, from Fresno County to San Diego; at least $83.13 in Los Angeles County, where every load is billed as a ton
• Cost to dump in Washington — every load weighed; $4.93 to $42 for a small load, $46 to $243.38 a ton
• Cost to dump in Oregon — $8.50 for a small load in Klamath Falls to a $51 minimum at Metro; $111 to $176.70 a ton
• Cost to dump in Colorado — county landfills from an $8 minimum to $72 a ton; Larimer County charges $20 a carload
• Cost to dump in Maryland — free resident drop-off in several counties; elsewhere $5 a carload to $125 a ton
• Cost to dump in Wisconsin — a free carload in Milwaukee; county landfills $58 to $82 a ton
• Cost to dump in Minnesota — a $3 bag in Itasca County; county landfills $78 to $98.50 a ton
• Cost to dump in Alabama — a $10 carload in Shelby County; $22 a ton in Coffee County
• Cost to dump in Utah — free for Washington County residents up to a ton a month; $7 a pickup in Bountiful
• Cost to dump in Iowa — $12 a car in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines; $14 under 600 lbs in Iowa City
• Cost to dump in Kansas — free for Reno County residents; $10 minimums in Leavenworth County, Emporia and Ellis County
• Cost to dump in Idaho — free household garbage in Valley County; a $15 minimum in Ada and Canyon counties
• Cost to dump in Connecticut — free up to a limit in Milford, Stamford and Westport; $3 town bags in Guilford
• Cost to dump in New York — a $6 carload in Brookhaven; $55 a ton with a $5 minimum in Broome County
• Cost to dump in New Hampshire — free household trash in Bedford, Goffstown and Nashua; 7 to 11 cents a pound for debris
• Cost to dump in Maine — stickers from free to $150, pay-as-you-throw bags in many towns, 10 to 20 cents a pound for demolition debris
• Cost to dump in Montana — household trash covered by the tax assessment in many counties, $27 to $104.94 a ton at the scale
• Cost to dump in New Mexico — free for Clovis residents, $1 bags in San Juan County, up to $68.05 a ton in Las Cruces
• Cost to dump in Oklahoma — 12 free trips a year in Enid, $13 for 600 pounds in Norman, a $55 minimum at the Tulsa Indoor Dump
• Cost to dump in New Jersey — county landfills from $86.55 a ton in Cape May County to $105.44 in Burlington
• Cost to dump in Nebraska — $5.25 a car in Lincoln, a $12 minimum in Hastings, $52 a ton in Beatrice
• Cost to dump in Nevada — free for Nye County residents, $30 a ton in Carson City, $133 at the Douglas County transfer station
• Cost to dump in Indiana — free household trash in Lawrence County, $25.60 a ton in Daviess County, $60 in Elkhart County
• Cost to dump in Arkansas — free for Conway residents, $37.40 a ton in Garland County, $57 in Little Rock
• Cost to dump in Michigan — a free monthly load in Midland, $15 car loads at Smiths Creek, $30 to $40 in Kent County
• Cost to dump in Kentucky — free large items for Louisville residents, $30 a ton in Daviess County, $38.05 in Hardin County
• Cost to dump in Pennsylvania — free drop-off in Philadelphia, $69.80 a ton in Lycoming County, $100 at LCSWMA in Lancaster County
• Cost to dump in Louisiana — free resident dumping in Jefferson, East Baton Rouge, Caddo and Calcasieu parishes; $43.26 to $48 a ton otherwise
• Cost to dump in West Virginia — every landfill's rate, $32.50 to $72.75 a ton, plus a free day each month by law
• Cost to dump in Missouri — $43.85 a ton in Springfield, $50 in St. Joseph, $55 in Columbia
• Cost to dump in Massachusetts — town dump stickers from free in Needham to $410 in Barnstable
• Cost to dump in Mississippi — free county rubbish sites in Jackson, DeSoto and Hancock counties
• Cost to dump in Illinois — $63 a ton at the Knox County Landfill and a free weekly load in Peoria County
• Cost to dump in Vermont — $4 a bag plus $1 a visit around Burlington, $171 a ton near Middlebury
• Cost to dump in Rhode Island — $115 a ton at the Central Landfill, town stickers from free to $325
• Cost to dump in Delaware — $80 a ton statewide at DSWA landfills and transfer stations
• Cost to dump in South Dakota — $41 to $73 a ton, flat $10 to $30 loads in Rapid City
• Cost to dump in North Dakota — $51 to $67 a ton at city landfills, minimums from $6
• Cost to dump in Wyoming — $5 car loads to $124 a ton, plus free-load programs
• Cost to dump in Alaska — free household trash on the Kenai to $255.72 a ton in Ketchikan
• Cost to dump in Hawaii — free or $5 household loads; landfills $119 to $128 a ton

Common questions