How much does an excavation contractor cost in Jacksonville, FL?
Most residential jobs here land between $2,500 and $28,000. That spread is useless until you know your job type, so here it is broken down, with the same numbers we quote from.
The short version by job type
| Job | Jacksonville range | Typical time on site |
|---|---|---|
| Utility or drainage trench | $2,500 to $9,000 | 1 to 3 days |
| Land clearing, per acre | $2,500 to $12,000 | 1 to 3 days per acre |
| Residential building pad | $9,000 to $28,000 | 3 days to 2 weeks |
| New pond, up to 1/2 acre | $5,000 to $25,000 | 2 days to 2 weeks |
| French drain / yard drainage | $3,500 to $14,000 | 1 to 4 days |
| Emergency call-out | $450 to $650 + $185 to $325/hr | same day in Duval County |
The full table with fifteen job types lives on the published cost guide. Every quote we write traces back to a row on it.
How the math runs on a real job
Say you have an acre of light brush in Middleburg to clear. The published range is $2,500 to $4,500 per acre. Dry ground, open gate, mulch stays on the property: you land near $2,800. Same acre with a wet back corner and everything hauled to the landfill: the wet ground slows the machine and haul-off adds $150 to $350 per truckload, so you land near $4,300 plus trucking. Both numbers come off the same row. The site conditions, named to your face at the walk-through, are the difference.
Or a drainage trench in a Jacksonville backyard: 80 feet at 3 feet deep in dry sand is a $2,800 kind of job, done in a day plus the utility locate wait. The same trench where groundwater shows up at 2 feet needs a pump on site and lands closer to $5,500. Nobody can honestly quote either number without asking about water first.
Why Jacksonville prices differ from the national guides
The big home services directories put typical excavation between roughly $1,500 and $6,500 nationally. Two local facts bend that here. First, our sandy soil digs fast, so machine time goes further than it does in clay country and small jobs often come in under the national average. Second, the water table pushes the other way: deep digs that would be routine elsewhere need dewatering here, $1,200 to $4,500 when a job calls for it. A Jacksonville quote that never mentions water on a low site is a quote with a change order hiding in it.
Timing matters too. A Sunshine 811 utility locate takes two full business days before any planned dig, it’s free, and the contractor should be the one filing it. Emergencies use the expedited process.
What moves a quote inside its range
- Water: high water table or wet season adds pumping, matting or a schedule shift.
- Access: a gate a big machine fits through is money. Tight access means smaller machines and more hours.
- Haul: spoil spread on your own land is cheap. Every truckload off site is $150 to $350.
- Spec: a pad with an engineered compaction spec and density tests costs more than a rough grade, and should.
- Findings: a gopher tortoise burrow or mapped wetland stops the clock until it’s handled legally.
More on comparing bids line by line in how to choose an excavation contractor and who offers upfront pricing.
Get your range in writing
Tell us the job and we’ll answer with the row it prices from. Or call (443) 364-3676 and ask.