There is no official number for what a dumpster costs in the United States. No federal agency collects it. No trade association publishes it. The figures that fill the first page of search results come from lead generation sites that do not say how many companies they looked at, in which cities, or when.
So we counted. This index publishes what rental companies advertise, taken from the prices they post on their own websites, with the sample size and the collection window attached to every figure. It is rebuilt on the 23rd of every month.
Price by container size
Dot is the median; the line runs from the lowest to the highest published price. Dumpster Controls Market Data · Checked August 23, 2026
The steps are not even. Ten to fifteen yards adds $17 to the median. The step that costs real money is twenty to thirty: $455 to $587, because that is where the load starts carrying weight the hauler pays for at the scale.
| Size | Lowest | Median | Highest | Prices in sample |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 yard | $200 | $388 | $600 | 78 |
| 12 yard | $249 | $400 | $500 | 13 |
| 15 yard | $195 | $405 | $725 | 117 |
| 20 yard | $200 | $455 | $895 | 136 |
| 30 yard | $320 | $587 | $1,150 | 68 |
| 40 yard | $450 | $655 | $1,375 | 36 |
Dumpster Controls Market Data · Checked August 23, 2026
Those ranges are not noise. The lowest and the highest advertised price for the same 20 yard container differ by a factor of 4.5. The likeliest reasons are local: what the nearest landfill charges, how far the truck drives, and how many companies compete for the same driveway. We can measure the first of those, and it is below.
The same 20 yard box advertised at about $299 in Utah is advertised at $750 in Massachusetts. Nothing about the steel is different.
Price by state
Sorted from most to least expensive. The "20 yd prices" column is the sample behind each median, which matters: a state with nine companies but only three twenty yard prices is a thinner number than it looks. 16 states qualify this month; the 2 with the lowest medians are in the CSV.
| State | Median 20 yard | 20 yd prices | Companies |
|---|---|---|---|
| Massachusetts | $750 | 9 | 11 |
| New Hampshire | $719 | 7 | 8 |
| Tennessee | $493 | 12 | 16 |
| Texas | $482 | 22 | 29 |
| Delaware | $480 | 5 | 6 |
| Oregon | $460 | 5 | 7 |
| Arizona | $449 | 9 | 9 |
| California | $449 | 4 | 6 |
| South Carolina | $448 | 8 | 9 |
| Georgia | $438 | 4 | 5 |
| Nevada | $429 | 3 | 5 |
| Missouri | $408 | 4 | 6 |
| Louisiana | $375 | 5 | 7 |
| Idaho | $349 | 9 | 12 |
Dumpster Controls Market Data · Checked August 23, 2026
Price by city
City level is where this data earns its keep, because it is the level at which a homeowner or a contractor decides. We publish a city only when at least 3 companies there advertise prices, which is why this list is short and will grow every month rather than starting large and vague.
| City | Median 20 yard | 20 yard range | 20 yd prices | Companies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Memphis, TN | $533 | $465 to $600 | 2 | 3 |
| Nashville, TN | $515 | $475 to $555 | 5 | 6 |
| Austin, TX | $495 | $385 to $575 | 9 | 10 |
| Houston, TX | $475 | $359 to $550 | 4 | 4 |
| Phoenix, AZ | $474 | $330 to $550 | 4 | 4 |
| San Antonio, TX | $455 | $405 to $535 | 5 | 8 |
| Portland, OR | $455 | $450 to $460 | 3 | 3 |
| Fresno, CA | $449 | $400 to $499 | 4 | 5 |
| Las Vegas, NV | $429 | $385 to $429 | 3 | 5 |
| Nampa, ID | $349 | $345 to $350 | 3 | 3 |
| Boise, ID | $323 | $300 to $345 | 2 | 3 |
| Salt Lake City, UT | $310 | $280 to $369 | 4 | 5 |
| Albuquerque, NM | $295 | $280 to $470 | 3 | 3 |
Dumpster Controls Market Data · Checked August 23, 2026
What it costs to dump the load
The other half of the equation is disposal, and it is the half nobody outside the industry sees. We have gone through official county, city or operator sources for 43 facilities, out of 2,911 landfills and transfer stations in the free database we publish. Of those, 28 publish a rate we could record; the rest post hours and rules but no price, which is itself worth knowing before a driver makes the trip.
For comparison, the Environmental Research and Education Foundation put the national average MSW tipping fee at $62.28 per ton in 2024, a 10 percent increase over 2023. Our median sits below that, and the reason is our sample, not theirs: most of the facilities we have verified so far are in Florida and the Southeast, consistently the cheapest region in the EREF series. We will say so in every edition until the sample is national.
The facilities that charge by volume, not by weight
3 of the 28 facilities with a recorded rate bill by the cubic yard instead of by weight. We do not know how common that is nationally. We know it exists, and that it changes how a driver should load: with no scale, a light bulky load costs the same as a dense one, so compacting means paying for air.
| Facility | Location | Published rate |
|---|---|---|
| Huntington SLF | Crescent City, FL | $15 per cubic yard |
| South Side Landfill Inc. | Indianapolis, IN | $25.50 per cubic yard |
| GreenWaste Zanker Resource Recovery Facility | San Jose, CA | $46 per cubic yard |
Dumpster Controls landfill database, each rate verified against the operator or county page · Checked August 23, 2026
Why we publish this
We make dumpster software, and the software is free. That is the whole business model: we earn when a customer pays a company by card, not when a company pays us a subscription. So a hauler who knows what the market advertises and what the landfill costs is worth more to us than one who does not.
The data comes from work we were doing anyway. Every company in our directory and every facility in our landfill database was researched with the source recorded. Publishing the aggregate costs us nothing and gives the industry a number it never had.
Next edition: September 23, 2026. The sample grows as the directory grows, and each edition notes what changed and what became large enough to publish for the first time.