Guides Earthworks takeoff Pricing guide
Cut and fill cost per m³ in Australia (2026)
Published 2026 cut and fill rates per m³ in Australia, and how to build your own: excavator and truck hours, tip fees, the EPA levy and rock.
There is no single price for cut and fill, but there are honest ranges, and there is a way to build your own rate that holds up when the trucks start running. This guide gives both. The published figures were checked on 19 October 2026. The sources are listed at the end, and every figure is ex GST unless it says otherwise.
The short answer
| What | Published range | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Bulk cut and fill, cut kept on site | $35–70 per m³ | NSW civil contractor, 2026, tipping excluded |
| Cut (excavation) | $50–120 per m³ | Builtly, August 2026 |
| Bulk excavation, easy soil / clay | $40–80 / $70–120 per m³ (inc GST) | Leadkit, July 2026 |
| Engineered fill, placed and compacted | $60–120 per m³ | NSW civil contractor, 2026 |
| Fill compaction including testing | $40–90 per m³ | Builtly, August 2026 |
| Cartage and tipping | $55–120 per m³ | Goingrate, June 2026 |
| Truck and tip | $80–150 per m³ | Builtly, August 2026 |
| Load and haul | $40–80 per m³ in Sydney, $25–55 regional NSW | NSW civil contractor, 2026 |
| Rock | $75–160 per m³ hammered; up to about $700 for the hardest classes | Goingrate; NSW civil contractor |
| Residential site cut | $8k–15k level block; $20k–40k+ sloping block (inc GST) | Leadkit, July 2026 |
Read the table this way: the cut itself is the cheap part. Where the soil goes decides the price. Cut that becomes fill on the same site costs a fraction of cut that has to be trucked to a tip.
What drives the rate
- Where the cut goes. Cut to fill on site needs no trucks off site and pays no tip fee. Cut to spoil pays for both.
- What the material is. Clay and sand dig fast. Rock needs a hammer or a ripper, and the published range for rock spans several hundred dollars per m³. Price it from test pits or the geotechnical report, not from a table.
- How it is classified. Clean fill and contaminated soil go to different places at very different prices. At one Melbourne landfill, the July 2026 gate price for clean fill was $40.96 a tonne and for Category C contaminated soil $275.99 a tonne, both including GST. If you don't know the classification, price the testing before you price the tip.
- The levy. EPA Victoria's landfill levy for metropolitan municipal and industrial waste is $177.19 a tonne in 2026-27, and $296.18 a tonne for Category B priority waste. In New South Wales the metropolitan waste levy is $180.20 a tonne in 2026-27. Landfills build the levy into what they charge for soil they accept as waste. It is one more reason reuse on site is worth designing for.
- The haul. Trucks are paid by the hour, from leaving the site until they are back, so a tip twice as far away costs nearly twice as much in truck time per load.
- Swell and shrink. Trucks carry loose m³, and fill is measured compacted. Get the conversion wrong and the truck count is wrong. See soil bulking and shrinkage factors.
- Size and access. Small jobs pay minimum hires and floats. One Brisbane hirer charges a minimum of 8 hours plus the float for excavators of 13 tonnes and over. Tight access means smaller machines and smaller trucks.
- Specification. Structural fill with density testing costs more than general fill. Published density testing costs run about $350–800 per test, or $600–1,800 for a residential pad.
Machine and truck rates
Wet hire (machine with operator), per hour, ex GST:
| Plant | Published rates | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Excavator 5–8 t | $150–157 (Brisbane hirers' rate cards); $120–155 (Melbourne, estimating guide) | Impact, M&K, Herbies, 2025; FlowSpec |
| Excavator 13–16 t | $165 | Impact, M&K, Herbies |
| Excavator 20–25 t | $170–175 (rate cards); $180–280 (estimating guide) | M&K, Herbies; FlowSpec |
| Excavator 30 t | $180 | M&K, Herbies |
| Truck and dog | $185–200; Victorian Government cost schedule $174.86 (a cost guide, not a recommended rate) | M&K, Herbies; vic.gov.au 2025-26 |
| Roller, wet hire | about $75–135 by size | iSeekPlant, June 2026 |
One marketplace guide to Melbourne excavator hire lists rates about double the hirers' own rate cards (for example $330–440 an hour for 20–25 t). Ask for quotes before you lock a rate in.
Build your own rate: a worked example
Here is 1,000 m³ of clean clay cut, carted to a Melbourne landfill as clean fill. The numbers below are example assumptions, not a quote. Change them to your own.
Assumptions
- Swell 1.30: 1,000 bank m³ becomes 1,300 loose m³.
- Clay at about 1.9 tonnes per bank m³. Your tip's weighbridge has the real figure.
- 20 t excavator wet hire at $200 an hour, loading 75 loose m³ an hour. That is well under the handbook maximum, because trucks take time to swap and nobody works a 60-minute hour.
- Truck and dog at $185 an hour, carrying 16 m³ loose, on a 2-hour round trip to the tip.
- Clean fill gate price $40.96 a tonne including GST, which is $37.24 ex GST.
Working
| Line | Working | Total | Per bank m³ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dig and load | 1,300 ÷ 75 = 17.3 h × $200 | $3,467 | $3.47 |
| Trucks | 1,300 ÷ 16 = 82 loads × 2 h × $185 | $30,340 | $30.34 |
| Tip | 1,000 × 1.9 t = 1,900 t × $37.24 | $70,756 | $70.76 |
| Direct cost | $104,563 | $104.56 |
That lands inside the published $80–150 per m³ for truck and tip. It still leaves out mobilisation, supervision, testing and margin.
Two things stand out:
- The excavator is about 3% of the cost. The tip is about two-thirds, and the trucks most of the rest. A faster machine barely moves the price. A closer tip, a reuse site or a better balance on site moves it a lot.
- Classification is the biggest risk. The same 1,900 tonnes as Category C soil, at $275.99 a tonne including GST, would cost about $477,000 ex GST at the tip instead of $71,000.
Cut that stays on site as fill skips both the trucks and the tip. That is why the published rates for bulk cut and fill ($35–70 per m³) sit so far below cart-away.
Checking your rate against the takeoff
A rate is only as good as the quantity it multiplies:
- Price excavation on bank m³, cartage on loose m³ and the tip on tonnes. Don't let one of them slip into another.
- Work out the surplus as cut − (fill ÷ shrink), not cut − fill. On the example in our bulking guide, treating cut − fill as the surplus overstates the cart-away by half.
- Put your rates into the free cut and fill calculator. It applies them to your volumes and truck loads and shows an indicative cost.
SitesAI Estimate does the same from the plan: it measures the cut and fill from your PDF, DWG or DXF plan, applies swell and shrink per element, and builds the estimate from your own rate build-ups and stages. If you price with an AI assistant, teach Claude or Codex your rates once and it prices every job the same way.
Sources
Checked 19 October 2026. Prices change, so check the source before you rely on a figure.
- O'Niels Civil, civil construction costs NSW 2026: onielscivil.com.au/civil-construction-costs-nsw-2026
- Goingrate, site cut cost (reviewed June 2026): goingrate.com.au/trades-extra/site-cut-cost
- Leadkit, excavation cost Australia 2026 (8 July 2026): leadkit.com.au/blog/excavation-cost-australia-2026
- Builtly, cut and fill construction Australia (August 2026): builtly.com.au/guides/cut-and-fill-construction-australia
- Impact Plant Hire, wet hire prices (27 July 2025): impactplanthire.com.au/wet-hire-equipment-prices
- M&K Plant Hire, price list (2025): mandkplanthire.com.au/price-list
- Herbies Earthmoving, price list (January 2025): herbiesearthmoving.com.au/Price-List
- FlowSpec, how to quote excavation and earthmoving jobs: flowspec.com.au/how-to-quote-excavation-earthmoving-jobs
- iSeekPlant, excavator hire rates in Melbourne (30 June 2026) and roller hire rates (15 June 2026): iseekplant.com.au/blog
- Victorian Government, truck and quad-axle dog cost schedule 2025-26: vic.gov.au/tip-truck-owner-drivers-rates-and-costs-schedules
- EPA Victoria, waste levy (updated 20 May 2026): epa.vic.gov.au/waste-levy
- NSW EPA, levy rates (updated 16 March 2026): epa.nsw.gov.au
- Melbourne Regional Landfill (Cleanaway), pricing flyer from 1 July 2026
- Trusted Tradie Network, soil testing cost: trustedtradienetwork.com/blog/how-much-does-soil-testing-cost
Questions people ask
How much does cut and fill cost per m³ in Australia?
The 2026 price guides we checked put bulk cut and fill at about $35–70 per m³ ex GST when the cut stays on site, and cartage and tipping at a further $55–150 per m³. Rock runs from about $75 to several hundred dollars per m³ depending on how hard it is. Your own rate depends on the machine, the haul, the tip and the material.
How much does a site cut cost?
One 2026 guide puts a residential site cut at about $8,000–15,000 on a level block and $20,000–40,000 or more on a sloping block, including GST. Another prices a pad cut at about $45–95 per m² of pad. The volume, the soil and where the spoil goes decide where a job lands.
Why does carting soil away cost so much?
Three things stack up. The soil swells about a quarter to a third once it is dug, so there is more of it to carry. Every load needs a truck for the round trip. Then the tip charges per tonne. In Victoria, the EPA landfill levy for metropolitan industrial waste is $177.19 a tonne in 2026-27, and it is part of what a landfill charges for soil it accepts as waste.
Is earthworks priced per bank or loose cubic metre?
Both appear, so check which one a quote uses. Excavation is usually priced on bank m³ (the ground as it sits). Cartage is driven by loose m³, because that is what fills the truck. Tips charge by the tonne. Convert between them with the swell factor and the material's density.
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