Landfill and transfer station fees
Landfill prices per ton: the gate rate printed by each public site
Pick the public dump nearest you and a weight. The fee comes from that site’s own price list, then the same load is priced at every other site we checked. A site that charges a flat fee per vehicle shows that fee instead.
Independent site, not a waste hauler or a landfill operator.
A weighed load at one landfill, and at the others
Example: Seattle, Washington. Pick your own dump.
At North and South transfer stations
$69.60
| Rule applied | 0.40 tons at $174 a ton |
| Per-ton rate printed | $174 a ton |
| Cheapest of 24 sites for this load | $0 (free resident load), 27th Avenue and North Gateway transfer stations (Phoenix) |
| Most expensive for this load | $97.35, King County transfer stations (Seattle) |
Seattle Public Utilities (public), price list effective April 1, 2026, checked on November 7, 2026.
A landfill price per ton, also called the tipping fee or gate rate, is what the weigh station at the gate charges for each ton of waste you bring, and almost every public site adds a minimum charge for light loads. On the 22 public schedules we read on November 7, 2026, the per-ton rate for household trash runs from $30.30 at Trail Ridge Landfill (Jacksonville) to $243.38 at King County transfer stations (Seattle). Transfer stations in large cities charge the most, because the waste is trucked again to a distant landfill. Most loads from a household weigh well under a ton, so the minimum charge, not the per-ton rate, usually sets the bill: a 400 lb load at North and South transfer stations pays the $37 minimum, not 0.2 tons at $174. The calculator applies the right rule for the site you pick.
Fee schedules read and sums checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · How the fees are read and priced
Every per-ton rate we read, lowest first
The table lists the rate for household trash brought by a resident. Flat-rate sites appear with the rate they charge once a load is too heavy or too large for the flat fee. The middle of the list is $60 a ton, at Alcoa/Maryville/Blount County Sanitary Landfill.
| Site | Area | Per ton | Minimum | Price list dated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trail Ridge Landfill | Jacksonville | $30.30 | none printed | current page, no effective date printed |
| Salt Lake Valley Landfill | Salt Lake City | $36 | $17 | current schedule, no effective date printed |
| South Wake Landfill | Raleigh | $37 | none printed | current page for haulers, no effective date printed |
| Washington County landfill | St. George | $37.15 | none printed | January 1, 2026 |
| Los Reales Sustainability Campus | Tucson | $38 | $18 | July 1, 2026 |
| Franklin County Sanitary Landfill | Columbus | $39.75 | $5 | current rates page; SWACO's FAQ dates the $39.75 rate to April 1, 2017 |
| McCommas Bluff Landfill | Dallas | $45.78 + $4 | none printed | October 1, 2026 |
| Badlands, Blythe, Lamb Canyon and El Sobrante landfills | Riverside–San Bernardino | $52.68 | $43.20 | July 1, 2026 |
| 27th Avenue and North Gateway transfer stations | Phoenix | $55 | $40 | current page, no effective date printed |
| Broome County Landfill | Binghamton | $55 | $5 | current page, no effective date printed |
| Orange County Landfill, Porter and McLeod Road transfer stations | Orlando | $56.40 | $10 | October 1, 2026 |
| Alcoa/Maryville/Blount County Sanitary Landfill | Knoxville | $60 | $15 | current page, no effective date printed |
| Kiefer Landfill | Sacramento | $61.35 | $45 | January 1, 2026 |
| County landfills and transfer stations | Riverside–San Bernardino | $61.49 | none printed | July 1, 2023 |
| North Area Recovery Station | Sacramento | $89.90 | $50 | January 1, 2026 |
| Olinda Alpha and Prima Deshecha landfills | Orange County, south of LA | $92.70 | none printed | July 1, 2026 |
| I-66 Transfer Station and I-95 Landfill Complex | Fairfax (DC area) | $98 | $39 to $98 | July 1, 2026 |
| Seminole Road Landfill | Atlanta | $99.80 | none printed | January 1, 2026 |
| Miramar Landfill | San Diego | $102 | none printed | July 1, 2026 |
| North Dade and South Dade landfills, Resources Recovery Facility | Miami | $119.51 | none printed | rates the page says are effective as of October 1 (no year printed; the county's sheet dated October 1, 2025 shows $115.80) |
| North and South transfer stations | Seattle | $174 | $37 | April 1, 2026 |
| King County transfer stations | Seattle | $243.38 | $40.25 | January 1, 2026 |
What the rate includes, and what it does not
Most schedules fold state fees into the gate rate. South Wake Landfill states that its $37 includes the North Carolina excise tax of two dollars a ton, and the Miramar flat rates include a California state recycling fee. Others add charges at the window. McCommas Bluff Landfill in Dallas adds a processing fee and an environmental fee of two dollars a ton each to its $45.78 gate rate for walk-up customers, which the table shows as a second figure. Penalties for an uncovered load sit outside the rate everywhere: from three dollars in Seattle to forty in Dallas, and double the fee in San Bernardino County.
Rates also change on a fixed date, often July 1 for a county fiscal year, October 1 for a city, or January 1. King County transfer stations have already announced their 2027 rates: the minimum goes to $43.50 and the rate to $264.01 a ton on January 1, 2027. When a page printed no date, the table says so rather than guessing.
Turning a load into tons
A ton is 2,000 pounds. Household trash, loose, weighs about 250 to 300 lbs a cubic yard on the EPA’s conversion factors, so an eight-foot pickup bed of loose trash, level with the rails, stays well under half a ton. Concrete, dirt and roofing shingles are three to four times heavier for the same space. The load weight calculator turns the size of a pile into pounds, and the truckload page prices a pickup bed directly.
Below the minimum, weight does not matter at all. Above it, every extra hundred pounds costs one twentieth of the per-ton rate: about $1.52 at the cheapest site on the list and $12.17 at the most expensive.