How much does a dump truck load of fill dirt cost in Houston?

Most Houston-area truckloads of basic fill dirt land between $150 and $450 delivered, depending on haul distance and load size. A tandem truck carries about 12 to 15 cubic yards. Long hauls, small orders and wet material push the price up, so the same dirt can cost two different amounts at two addresses.

Is fill dirt cheaper than topsoil?

Yes, by a wide margin. Fill dirt is unscreened structural material and usually the cheapest thing on a supplier's list. Topsoil is screened growing material and often costs two to four times more per yard. If you are raising grade or filling a hole, paying topsoil prices for the job wastes money.

How many yards of dirt are in a truckload?

A tandem dump truck typically hauls 12 to 15 cubic yards of dirt. Smaller single-axle trucks carry less, and larger end dumps carry more. With wet dirt the truck reaches its legal weight limit before the bed is full, so a rainy-season load can run a few yards lighter.

How much should a yard of fill dirt cost?

As a market range around Houston, basic fill dirt commonly runs somewhere between $5 and $25 per cubic yard before delivery, with screened and select material higher. The spread is wide because hauling, order size and material quality matter more than the dirt itself. Volume orders price by the load, not the yard.

Can I get free fill dirt in Houston?

Sometimes. Contractors with excess dirt give it away to skip dump fees, and free-dirt listings exist for the Houston area. Free fill can work for a low spot in a pasture. It comes with no source control and no testing, so it does not belong under a slab, a pad or anything structural.

How Much Does Fill Dirt Cost in the Houston Area?

If you are pricing fill dirt around Houston, the short answer looks like this: basic fill dirt commonly runs $5 to $25 per cubic yard at the source, a tandem truckload delivered usually lands between $150 and $450, and select fill costs more than common fill. The number that actually moves your total is not the dirt. It is the trucking.

We sell select fill and fill dirt out of two pits we own in southeast Fort Bend County, so we watch these prices from the supply side. Here is how the market actually works, in the units people ask about.

What does fill dirt cost per yard, per ton and per truckload?

Suppliers quote in three different units, and they are not interchangeable. As 2026 market ranges for the Houston area:

Unit	Typical market range	Notes
Per cubic yard	$5 to $25 (basic fill)	Screened material runs higher
Per ton	roughly $4 to $15 (basic fill)	A yard of dirt weighs about 1.25 tons
Per tandem truckload	$150 to $450 delivered	About 12 to 15 cubic yards
Delivery fee	$50 to $150 per trip	On top of cheap material, within a supplier’s normal radius

The conversion worth memorizing: a cubic yard of dry fill dirt weighs roughly 2,300 to 2,700 pounds. Call it a ton and a quarter per yard. So 2,000 pounds of dirt is only about four fifths of a yard, and a per-ton price multiplied by tons per yard gives you the per-yard equivalent. When two quotes look far apart, check the units first.

Why does the same dirt cost more at your address?

Because you are paying for a truck, a driver and diesel, not just material. Published marketplace pricing shows fill dirt around $35 per ton near central Harris County and around $48 per ton in the Richmond area, the same product about 30 miles apart. That is roughly a 40 percent jump, all haul distance.

Most suppliers build 10 to 20 miles of hauling into a “delivered” price. Past that, every mile is on the bill. This is why a pit’s location matters more than its price list. Our pits sit in southeast Fort Bend County, inside the area we deliver to, which keeps the trucking short for jobs from Richmond down through Needville, Guy and Rosharon. The dump truck hauling is ours too, so the material and the freight come from one place.

Fill dirt, select fill, bank sand, topsoil: which price are you looking at?

The material ladder runs cheapest to dearest, and each rung has a job:

Common fill dirt sits at the bottom. Unscreened, unglamorous, right for raising grade and filling holes.
Select fill costs more because it is a tested sandy-clay blend that compacts predictably. Engineers spec it under slabs and pads. If your builder’s plans say select fill, common fill will not pass.
Bank sand runs higher again and handles leveling, bedding and utility work.
Topsoil is the expensive one, often two to four times the price of fill. It is a growing layer, never a structural one.

We wrote a plain-language breakdown of what select fill actually is and a side-by-side guide to select fill vs bank sand vs topsoil if your project sits on that line.

What about free fill dirt?

“Free dirt Houston” is a real search, and free dirt is a real thing. Excavation jobs generate surplus, and hauling it to a dump costs money, so contractors sometimes give it away to whoever is closest.

Take it with open eyes. Free fill has no source control and no testing. It can show up full of clods, roots and chunks of concrete, and nobody will stand behind how it compacts. For topping off a low corner of a pasture, fine. Under a foundation, a driveway or a building pad, it is a false saving that a soils report will catch later.

When retail pricing stops making sense

Per-yard pricing exists for landscape-scale orders: three yards for flower beds, ten yards for a backyard regrade. A pad build or a lot raise is a different animal. Those jobs run 30, 100, sometimes several hundred truckloads, and they price on the load count and the haul, not a retail board.

That volume end of the market is where we live. Our projects generally start around $10,000, we sell by the truckload, and on big orders our trucks run in rotation until the count is done. One number covers the dirt and the delivery because both are ours.

What a firm quote needs

A real number comes from the job, not a chart: where the site is, how many yards or loads, what material the spec calls for, and what the access looks like for tandem trucks. Market ranges like the ones above tell you if a quote is sane. They do not tell you what your job costs.

If the project is anywhere southwest of Houston, call us at (281) 750-6510 or send the form. We will count the loads and put a firm number on it.