How much does fill dirt cost in Louisiana?
Fill dirt costs about $5 to $25 per cubic yard delivered, or $150 to $400 for a standard 10 to 14 yard truckload, according to 2026 national cost guides. Louisiana runs toward the top of that band. One Baton Rouge area supplier publishes $15 to $60 per yard and $300 to $600 per load.
Those are market ranges, not our price list. We sell and deliver fill dirt out of Hammond, and the number we give you depends on yards, distance and whether we spread and pack it. The figures below are for budgeting before you call.
What fill dirt costs per yard and per load
Price follows grade. Unscreened fill straight from a pit is cheapest. Screened fill has the roots and rocks sifted out. Structural fill is blended to compact under a slab. Here is the spread in the guides.
| Material | Per cubic yard | Per truckload (10 to 14 yd) |
|---|---|---|
| Standard, unscreened fill dirt | $5 to $20 | $150 to $250 |
| Clean, screened fill dirt | $8 to $25 | $200 to $300 |
| Structural fill | $10 to $30 | $250 to $400 |
| Topsoil, for comparison | $10 to $50 | $150 to $500 |
| Louisiana published pricing, all grades | $15 to $60 | $300 to $600 |
Sources: HomeGuide, Angi and LA Landscape Supply in Baton Rouge. By weight, fill dirt runs $4 to $15 a ton.
Delivery is often quoted on top of the material. The guides put it at $50 to $150 per trip, roughly $50 for a single axle truck, $75 for a tandem and $150 for a tri axle, plus about $10 a mile past the first five. Orders of 10 yards or more often get free delivery or a break on price, and small orders eat the delivery fee across a few yards.
Dumping is not spreading
A dump truck leaves a pile. Getting that pile into a level, packed layer is a second job with a machine. The guides add $200 to $400 for rough spreading, or $50 to $150 an hour for labor and $100 to $300 an hour for a machine with an operator.
That second step is where fill jobs go right or wrong. Fill dumped in a hole and left alone settles for years. Fill placed in lifts of a few inches and packed after each lift stays where it was put. The whole point of the material is to raise ground so water leaves, and loose fill does not do that.
If the fill is going under a house pad or a shop slab, the packing matters even more. That is site preparation work, and it is priced as a job, not by the truckload.
How much dirt is actually in a truckload?
Depends on the truck, and weight fills it before volume does. A single axle dump truck carries 5 to 8 cubic yards. The tandem axle ten wheeler most dirt yards run carries 10 to 14. A tri axle carries 12 to 16. When someone says “a truckload of dirt” with no qualifier, figure 10 to 14 yards.
The weight limit is the real constraint. A yard of dirt weighs 1.3 to 1.5 tons, and wet dirt weighs more. Federal limits cap a tandem axle at 34,000 pounds. That is why a dirt truck often looks half empty and is legally full.
For scale, 10 yards covers about 1,080 square feet at 3 inches deep, or about 550 square feet at 6 inches. One yard is 9 to 14 wheelbarrow loads, so a truckload is not a weekend with a shovel.
How to figure the yards you need
Length times width times depth, all in feet, divided by 27. One cubic yard is 27 cubic feet, a block 3 feet on each side. If your depth is in inches, divide by 12 first.
Take a 40 by 30 foot pad raised 6 inches. That is 40 times 30 times 0.5, or 600 cubic feet. Divide by 27 and you get 22.2 yards. Round up to 23. That is two tandem loads.
Then add for settling. A U.S. Department of Transportation study of 26 soils compacted to standard density found that sandy loam shrinks the most, around 14 percent, while clay soils may not shrink at all. Louisiana’s state soil, the Ruston series, is a fine sandy loam, so on upland ground around Hammond you should expect some shrink. Order a little more than the bare math, and confirm it with whoever is delivering.
| Depth | Area one yard covers |
|---|---|
| 3 inches | about 108 square feet |
| 6 inches | about 55 square feet |
| 8 inches | about 41 square feet |
Why so many people around Hammond buy fill dirt
Elevation. In August 2016, the National Weather Service estimates 50,000 to 75,000 structures flooded across south Louisiana. East Baton Rouge, Livingston, Ascension and Tangipahoa parishes saw the most widespread flooding. Thirteen people died, and twelve of those deaths were in the Baton Rouge and Hammond areas. Rainfall near Zachary reached 26 inches over two days.
That event reset how this region thinks about the height of a lot. Under flood insurance rules, a new house’s lowest floor has to sit at or above the base flood elevation. LSU AgCenter’s guidance on those rules says buildings in A zones may reach that elevation by sitting on compacted fill, while buildings in coastal V zones may not be supported on fill at all.
Most fill jobs around here are smaller versions of the same idea. Raising a low back yard that holds water. Building up a shop pad. Correcting ground that slopes toward the slab so runoff moves away from it, which is land grading work as much as dirt work. Backfilling around new construction.
Do you need a permit to fill your lot?
In a mapped flood zone, plan on it. Federal rules (44 CFR 59.1) define development to include filling, grading and excavation. LSU AgCenter puts it plainly: all development in a special flood hazard area requires a permit, and development includes stockpiling and contouring land.
Neighboring St. Tammany Parish says it directly on its own site. All development in the floodplain requires a permit, including earthwork, and anyone who fills or excavates without one can be made to put the land back the way it was at their own cost.
For Hammond and Tangipahoa Parish, floodplain work falls under the parish flood prevention ordinance, and the Permit Office requires a flood determination on every property before it permits anything. That determination is the right first step, not a guess. Tangipahoa Permit Office: Hammond (985) 542-2117, Amite (985) 748-2024. Parish floodplain and planning office: (985) 340-9028.
What we need to quote your fill job
Tell us the address, how big the area is, how much you want it raised, and whether you want the dirt dumped or spread and packed. A photo of where the truck would come in helps, because soft ground and tight gates change the plan. The estimate is free.
Call or text J-Rod’s Dirt Work at (985) 500-4145, or send the form. If gravel is part of the plan, our gravel driveway cost guide covers that material too.
Sources used for the ranges above: HomeGuide, Angi, LA Landscape Supply, the U.S. DOT shrink and swell study (1983), 44 CFR 59.1 via Cornell LII, LSU AgCenter’s NFIP minimum requirements page, the Tangipahoa Parish permit and flood protection pages, St. Tammany Parish Permits and Inspections, the National Weather Service August 2016 flood summary and the USDA Ruston soil series description.