How Much Does a Yard of Dirt Weigh?
A cubic yard of screened topsoil weighs about 2,200 pounds, or roughly 1.1 tons, with a working range of 2,000 to 2,700 pounds depending on how wet it is and how much organic matter is in it. Fill dirt runs a little heavier at about 2,300 pounds, with a range of 2,000 to 2,600. Wet clay soil sits at the top of those ranges and can push higher; dry sandy soil sits at the bottom.
Moisture is the variable that moves the number most. The same yard of topsoil, delivered after a dry week versus after three days of rain, can differ by 400 pounds or more. That is why suppliers sell soil by volume and truckers care about weight.
Updated September 2026
Run your own numbers in ten seconds. Our free soil and gravel calculator takes your area and depth, then gives you cubic yards and the tonnage for topsoil, fill dirt, sand, gravel and mulch side by side, so you can order in whichever unit your supplier uses.
How much does a yard of dirt weigh, by material
Here is the master chart. All figures are pounds per cubic yard for material in a normal, moderately moist condition, which is how it actually arrives on a truck.
| Material | Typical lb per cu yd | Range | Tons per cu yd |
|---|---|---|---|
| Screened topsoil | 2,200 | 2,000 to 2,700 | 1.10 |
| Fill dirt | 2,300 | 2,000 to 2,600 | 1.15 |
| Sand, concrete or masonry | 2,700 | 2,600 to 2,900 | 1.35 |
| Crushed stone, #57 | 2,700 | 2,600 to 2,800 | 1.35 |
| Pea gravel | 2,800 | 2,700 to 2,900 | 1.40 |
| River rock | 2,800 | 2,600 to 3,000 | 1.40 |
| Crusher run or road base | 3,000 | 2,800 to 3,200 | 1.50 |
| Decomposed granite | 3,000 | 2,800 to 3,200 | 1.50 |
| Compost | 1,000 to 1,400 | Varies widely with moisture | 0.50 to 0.70 |
| Garden soil blend, soil and compost | 1,400 to 1,900 | Depends on the blend ratio | 0.70 to 0.95 |
| Bark or hardwood mulch | 600 | 400 to 800 | 0.30 |
The pattern to remember: anything mineral runs between 2,200 and 3,000 pounds per yard. Anything with a lot of organic matter in it drops fast, and mulch is barely a quarter the weight of dirt.
For a full material by material conversion including how suppliers switch between units, cubic yards to tons has the extended chart and the conversion both directions.
Per cubic foot, per bag, per scoop
A cubic yard is a big unit and it is not how most people encounter soil, so here are the smaller ones.
| Unit | Volume | Topsoil weight |
|---|---|---|
| 1 cubic yard | 27 cu ft | About 2,200 lb |
| 1 cubic foot | 1 cu ft | About 81 lb |
| A 40 lb bag | About 0.5 cu ft | 40 lb |
| A 1 cu ft bag | 1 cu ft | 75 to 85 lb, sold as 0.75 to 1 cu ft |
| A 5 gallon bucket | 0.67 cu ft | About 55 lb |
| A contractor wheelbarrow, heaped | 4 to 6 cu ft capacity | 325 to 490 lb, far too heavy |
| A wheelbarrow, practical load | About 3 cu ft | About 245 lb |
| A skid steer bucket, standard | About 0.8 cu yd | About 1,760 lb |
Two useful conversions fall out of that table.
Bags to a yard. At 0.75 cubic feet per bag, one cubic yard is 36 bags. At 1 cubic foot per bag, it is 27 bags. Once you are past about 12 to 15 bags, bulk delivery almost always makes more sense in both handling and money, and it is far easier on your car.
Wheelbarrow trips per yard. At a realistic 3 cubic feet per load, a cubic yard is 9 trips. Not 4 or 5, which is what people assume from the barrow's stated capacity. A 6 cubic foot barrow filled to the brim with wet topsoil weighs close to 500 pounds, which is more than most people can steer, let alone tip.
Why moisture swings the number so much
Dirt is a mix of mineral particles, organic matter, air and water. The mineral part is fixed. The water is not, and water is heavy: 8.34 pounds per gallon, or 62.4 pounds per cubic foot.
Soil in a stockpile typically carries somewhere between 10 and 25 percent moisture by weight. Push a pile up to saturation after heavy rain and that fraction climbs steeply, which is where the top of the range comes from.
What this means practically:
- Order after a dry stretch if you are paying by the ton. You are buying less water.
- Order after rain if you are paying by the yard. Volume is volume, and moist soil is easier to spread than dust.
- Never trust a weight-based estimate for hauling after a storm. Your truck's payload does not care that the supplier's chart says 2,200.
- Clay holds water and stays heavy. Sandy soil drains and lightens quickly. Two piles of "topsoil" from different suppliers can be genuinely different products.
What "screened" means. Screened topsoil has been run through a mesh to pull out rocks, roots and clumps, usually to a 1/2 inch or 3/8 inch screen. It spreads and grades far better and it is what you want under sod or seed. Unscreened material is cheaper, heavier per yard because of the rock content, and much harder to rake level.
Dirt, topsoil, fill dirt and garden soil are not the same thing
The words get used interchangeably at the supply yard and they should not be.
| Material | What it is | Use it for | Do not use it for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fill dirt | Subsoil with the organics removed | Filling holes, building up grade, backfill | Growing anything |
| Screened topsoil | The upper soil layer, screened | Lawn repair, grading under sod, bed base | Deep structural fill |
| Garden soil or planting mix | Topsoil blended with compost | Beds, borders, vegetable gardens | Areas that must not settle |
| Compost | Fully decomposed organic matter | Amending existing soil, top dressing | Filling anything, it settles hard |
| Raised bed mix | Topsoil, compost and aeration material | Raised beds and containers | Large volumes, it is the priciest by yard |
| Sand fill | Washed or bank sand | Leveling under pavers, drainage | Growing, it holds nothing |
Fill dirt is the one people get wrong most often. It has the organic matter deliberately removed, which is exactly why it compacts well and does not settle later. That property makes it right for building up a low spot and completely wrong for spreading under new grass.
If your project is base material under pavers or a retaining wall rather than growing medium, the compaction and drainage requirements are different again, and how to build a retaining wall covers the aggregate specifications that actually matter behind a wall.
Coverage: how far a cubic yard of dirt goes
Weight tells you what you can haul. Coverage tells you what to order. One cubic yard is 27 cubic feet, so:
| Depth | Coverage per cubic yard | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| 1/4 in | 1,296 sq ft | Light top dressing over an existing lawn |
| 1/2 in | 648 sq ft | Top dressing, leveling minor dips |
| 1 in | 324 sq ft | Overseeding prep, light grading |
| 2 in | 162 sq ft | Under new sod, bed refresh |
| 3 in | 108 sq ft | New bed over existing soil |
| 4 in | 81 sq ft | New lawn from seed, garden beds |
| 6 in | 54 sq ft | Deep bed prep, raised bed base |
| 12 in | 27 sq ft | Filling a hole or a raised bed |
The rule underneath the table: coverage in square feet equals 324 divided by the depth in inches. Memorize 324 and you never need the chart again.
Then add for settlement. Loose delivered soil settles once it is spread, watered and walked on. Plan on 10 to 20 percent shrink for topsoil, and toward the top of that if the area gets compacted at all. Order accordingly, because a second small delivery usually carries the same delivery charge as a large one.
If you are laying sod over the new soil, the grading tolerance matters more than the depth, and how to lay sod covers the prep sequence and the rolling step that most DIY lawns skip.
What your truck can actually carry
This is the section that saves people from a very bad afternoon. Payload ratings include passengers, tools and the tongue weight of anything you tow, so the usable number is always lower than the sticker.
| Vehicle | Typical payload | Topsoil it can legally carry |
|---|---|---|
| Small SUV or crossover | 900 to 1,300 lb | Bags only, well under half a yard |
| Half-ton pickup, standard | 1,300 to 2,000 lb | About 0.6 to 0.9 cu yd |
| Three-quarter-ton pickup | 2,500 to 3,500 lb | About 1.1 to 1.5 cu yd |
| One-ton dually | 4,000 to 6,000 lb | About 1.8 to 2.7 cu yd |
| Single axle dump trailer | 3,000 lb capacity | About 1.3 cu yd |
| Tandem axle dump trailer | 7,000 lb capacity | About 3 cu yd |
| Supplier dump truck, single axle | 5 to 7 cu yd | The usual small delivery |
| Supplier tri-axle | 12 to 16 cu yd | Large jobs |
Read that half-ton row again. A half-ton pickup, the most common truck in America, cannot legally carry one cubic yard of topsoil. Loader operators at the yard know this, and a good one will ask what you are driving before they scoop. A bad one will fill your bed because you asked for a yard, and you will drive home on the bump stops with a truck that does not steer or stop properly.
The same math is why gravel deliveries look small. A tandem dump trailer rated at 7,000 pounds holds only about 2.3 cubic yards of crusher run, since it weighs 3,000 pounds per yard.
Worked example: topsoil for a 20 x 30 lawn repair
A lawn area 20 ft by 30 ft that needs 2 inches of screened topsoil before overseeding.
| Step | Math | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Area | 20 x 30 | 600 sq ft |
| Depth in feet | 2 / 12 | 0.167 ft |
| Volume in cubic feet | 600 x 0.167 | 100 cu ft |
| Volume in cubic yards | 100 / 27 | 3.7 cu yd |
| Plus 15 percent for settlement | 3.7 x 1.15 | 4.26 cu yd |
| Order | Round up | 4.5 cu yd |
| Weight at 2,200 lb per yd | 4.5 x 2,200 | 9,900 lb, or 4.95 tons |
| Wheelbarrow trips at 3 cu ft | 121.5 cu ft / 3 | 41 trips |
What that tells you. Nearly 10,000 pounds is well past any pickup and past most rental trailers, so this is a supplier delivery, and a single axle dump truck handles it in one trip. The 41 wheelbarrow trips are the real cost of this project, and they are the reason people rent a small skid steer for anything over about 5 yards.
The cross-check on coverage. Using the 324 rule, one yard at 2 inches covers 162 sq ft. 600 divided by 162 = 3.7 yards. Same answer, arrived at two ways, which is exactly what you want before you place an order you cannot return.
The bagged comparison. 4.5 cubic yards at 36 bags per yard is 162 bags of 0.75 cubic foot topsoil. That is more than three pallets, several car trips, and every one of them has to be opened, poured and flattened. Bulk wins decisively at this scale, and the crossover point is far lower than most people assume.
For the volume math on any other shape, including circles and irregular beds, the cubic yard calculator handles depth conversions, and the square footage calculator sorts out the area first if your yard is not a rectangle.
Ordering by the yard versus by the ton
Suppliers do it both ways and the difference matters more than it looks.
Sold by the yard. You are buying volume. Moisture is free, and heavy wet soil costs you nothing extra. Volume is also what your project actually needs, since you are filling a space, not buying weight.
Sold by the ton. You are buying weight, so you are also buying whatever water came with it. To convert, divide your cubic yards by the tons per yard figure from the chart above. For topsoil at 1.1 tons per yard, 4.5 cubic yards is about 4.95 tons.
The trap in the middle. If one supplier quotes by the yard and another by the ton, you cannot compare them until you convert. Convert to whichever unit your project uses, which is almost always cubic yards, then compare. Also confirm which figure the supplier's conversion uses, since a yard priced against a 2,000 pound assumption and a yard priced against a 2,700 pound assumption are different deals.
Ask two more questions before ordering. First, is delivery included and is there a minimum load. Second, where exactly will the truck dump it, because a pile in the wrong corner of the yard turns into extra wheelbarrow trips at 245 pounds each.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a yard of topsoil weigh in tons?
Screened topsoil runs about 1.1 tons per cubic yard, based on roughly 2,200 pounds per yard at normal moisture. The realistic range is 1.0 to 1.35 tons, because a saturated pile after heavy rain can approach 2,700 pounds per yard while a dry sandy soil sits nearer 2,000. If a supplier is selling by the ton, ask what conversion they use so you can compare their quote with one priced by the yard.
Will a yard of dirt fit in a pickup truck?
It fits by volume in most full-size beds, but it does not fit by weight in a half-ton truck. A cubic yard of topsoil is around 2,200 pounds, and a typical half-ton payload after passengers and tools is closer to 1,300 to 1,800 pounds. Three-quarter-ton trucks handle a yard, and one-ton trucks handle two. Overloading is hard on brakes and suspension and it is a real safety issue on the drive home.
How many bags of topsoil make a cubic yard?
Thirty-six bags at 0.75 cubic feet each, or twenty-seven bags if the bags are a full cubic foot. Check the bag, because sizing varies by brand and the weight printed on the bag tells you nothing about its volume. Past about a dozen bags, bulk delivery is usually cheaper, faster, and much better for your vehicle.
How much area does a yard of dirt cover?
Divide 324 by your depth in inches. One cubic yard covers 324 square feet at 1 inch, 162 at 2 inches, 108 at 3 inches, and 27 square feet at a full foot of depth. Add 10 to 20 percent to whatever you calculate, because loose soil settles once it has been spread, watered and walked on.
Is fill dirt heavier than topsoil?
Slightly, yes. Fill dirt averages around 2,300 pounds per cubic yard against topsoil's 2,200, because it has less light organic matter in it and often more clay or rock. The bigger practical difference is behavior rather than weight: fill dirt compacts and stays put, which makes it right for building up grade, and it grows almost nothing, which makes it wrong under a lawn.
How much does a wheelbarrow of dirt weigh?
A practical load of about 3 cubic feet weighs roughly 245 pounds. A contractor wheelbarrow filled to its rated 6 cubic feet would hold close to 490 pounds of topsoil, which is far more than most people can lift and steer safely. Plan on 9 trips per cubic yard rather than the 4 or 5 the barrow's capacity suggests.
Does wet dirt weigh a lot more than dry dirt?
Yes, and it is the single biggest variable in these numbers. Water weighs 62.4 pounds per cubic foot, so soil that has taken on an extra 10 percent moisture by weight gains a couple of hundred pounds per cubic yard. That is why chart figures are always ranges, and why you should never plan a hauling load using the lightest number in the range.
How much does a yard of dirt weigh compared to gravel or mulch?
Dirt sits in the middle. Topsoil is around 2,200 pounds per cubic yard, gravel and crushed stone run 2,700 to 3,000, and bark mulch is only about 600. A yard of crusher run weighs roughly 36 percent more than a yard of topsoil, and a yard of mulch weighs about a quarter of it. This matters most for hauling, since the same trailer holds a very different number of yards depending on which one you are carrying.
Related tools: Soil and Gravel Calculator | Cubic Yard Calculator | Square Footage Calculator | Mulch Calculator
Related reading: Cubic Yards to Tons | How to Lay Sod | How to Build a Retaining Wall
