How much does garden clearance cost?
Updated 19 Oct 2026
Typical cost per clearance
£150 – £500
Garden clearance in the UK typically costs £150–£500, with badly overgrown gardens running higher. Most of the price is labour and disposal rather than skill — how much material comes out, and what it costs to get rid of, are the two numbers that matter. Whoever takes the waste away should hold a waste carrier registration.
| Job | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| Small garden or light clearance | £100 – £250 |
| Average clearance | £150 – £500 |
| Large or heavily overgrown | £400 – £900 |
| Per van load removed | £150 – £300 |
| Skip hire (you load it) | £200 – £400 |
| Two-person day rate | £250 – £400 |
Typical UK guide prices — see the note at the foot of this page.
What you are actually paying for
Two things: the hours it takes to cut, dig and drag everything out, and the cost of making it disappear afterwards. Disposal is frequently the larger half.
That is why quotes vary so much for gardens that look similar. A garden full of soft green waste is cheap to dispose of. The same garden with old fencing, broken slabs, a rotten shed and half a patio is a different disposal problem entirely, and mixed waste costs more at the tip.
When asking for a price, describe what is coming out, not just the size of the garden. Photographs help enormously, and any contractor quoting a firm price without seeing it is either padding the number or planning to revise it on the day.
Access is the third factor. Everything that cannot go through a side gate has to be carried through the house or over a fence, and that changes the hours substantially.
Check the waste carrier registration
Anyone transporting waste from your property as part of a business needs to be a registered waste carrier with the Environment Agency, and you can check a registration on their public register.
This is not bureaucratic box-ticking. Householders have a duty of care over their waste, and if it is fly-tipped after you handed it over, the trail can lead back to you. Paperwork showing who took it and that they were registered is what protects you.
Ask for the registration number and a waste transfer note. Legitimate operators produce both without fuss.
Be particularly wary of very cheap quotes offered for cash with no paperwork — that price often reflects the fact that the waste is not going to a licensed facility.
Skip, van or grab?
A skip suits large volumes when you are doing the labour yourself, typically £200–£400 including the permit if it goes on the road. You need somewhere to put it, and you may need a licence from the council for a road position.
A man-and-van clearance costs more per volume but includes the loading, which is most of the work. For a garden where the labour is the point, this is usually the better value.
Grab lorries handle soil, rubble and hardcore efficiently, and are worth asking about if you are removing a patio or a lot of earth.
A practical middle path: have the contractor do the cutting and heavy work, and put the soft green waste through your own council collection over the following weeks to reduce what has to be hauled away.
How to keep the cost down
Separate the waste yourself where you can. Clean green waste is much cheaper to dispose of than mixed waste, so keeping soil, rubble and timber apart genuinely reduces the bill.
Use your council green bin in the weeks beforehand to take the volume down.
Do it in stages if the budget is tight — a cut-and-clear now, structural work later.
Clear the access route first so the crew is not shifting your bins and furniture on the clock.
And get quotes from photographs rather than descriptions. It gets you real prices and avoids the day-of-work revision that vague briefs invite.
Frequently asked questions
How much does garden clearance cost?+
£150–£500 typically, with heavily overgrown gardens £400–£900. Disposal is often more than half the cost, so what comes out matters more than garden size.
Is a skip cheaper than a clearance service?+
The skip itself is cheaper at £200–£400, but you do all the loading. A man-and-van clearance costs more because it includes the labour, which is most of the job.
Do I need to check they can carry waste?+
Yes. Ask for the waste carrier registration number and a waste transfer note. Householders have a duty of care, and fly-tipped waste can be traced back to the property it came from.
Do I need a permit for a skip?+
If it stands on a public road, yes — a licence from the council, usually arranged by the skip firm. On your own driveway you do not.
How long does a garden clearance take?+
A typical garden is a day for two people. Heavily overgrown gardens, or those with poor access requiring everything to be carried through the house, can take two or three.
Can I reduce the cost by doing some myself?+
Yes, and the most effective way is putting soft green waste through your council collection in the weeks beforehand. That cuts the volume that has to be hauled and tipped.
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