How much does concrete removal cost in Seattle?

There is no official Seattle price list for concrete removal. Crews quote after they have measured the slab, checked for rebar and seen how close a machine can get. What can be pinned down is a national benchmark, which we label as national every time it appears, and the Seattle-area costs that are published: what the recycling yards charge to take the rubble, and where the City’s permit thresholds sit. Every figure below was re-read from its source on 13 October 2026.

What actually drives the price

Nobody can price a tear-out from a photo of the surface, because the things that move the bid are underneath it and around it. Fixr’s concrete removal cost guide, a national guide updated 31 January 2025 and re-read on 13 October 2026, names the same handful of factors in its own words:

• Machine or hand. “Using a skid steer to lift a single piece of concrete and remove it at once costs considerably less” than breaking a thick slab by hand.
• Thickness and size. “The thicker the concrete, the harder it is to remove.” Larger areas also mean more concrete to dispose of.
• Reinforcement. Rebar “needs to be removed before the slab goes”, which means cutting through both the concrete and the steel.
• Access. “If the concrete has to be moved long distances by hand in a wheelbarrow, expect higher costs.”
• Disposal. Costs rise further where the concrete cannot be recycled.

Access is why a straight run to the curb is a different job from a patio behind a narrow side gate, which is why tearing out a driveway a machine can drive onto prices differently from hand-breaking a backyard patio slab. Reinforcement bites twice: it adds cutting time, and it pushes the rubble into a dearer tier at the recycling yard, as the disposal table below shows.

The national benchmark, and how far to trust it

We could not find an independent, published Seattle price survey for concrete removal. The closest thing to a benchmark is Fixr’s national guide. Read every row below as a United States figure from January 2025, not as a Seattle quote.

Fixr’s headline sentence is specific about what its average describes: the “national average cost range is $500 – $5,000, with most homeowners paying around $1,856 to remove 600 square feet of concrete sidewalk.” It also splits its per-square-foot range: “about $0.50 to $2 is the cost of disposal”, and “the remaining $1.50 to $4 a square foot is made up of the labor costs, and the costs of bringing the equipment to the job site and other fees”. Labor and disposal both vary by city, so treat these as a sense of proportion, not a Seattle price.

The disposal side of the bill

Seattle Public Utilities lists “Asphalt Paving, Bricks, Concrete” among construction and demolition waste that is not accepted at the city’s transfer stations and “must be taken to a Recycler”, so every removal carries a tipping cost somewhere. Three Puget Sound yards published something about concrete on their own pages on 13 October 2026. Note the unit in each cell: one prices by volume, one by weight, and one publishes only surcharges and a minimum.

The unit is the trap. Dirt Exchange charges for the space your rubble takes up in the truck, air included, which is not the same as the volume the slab occupied when it was still a slab:

That is why it pays to ask for a written bid that lists breaking, hauling and the dump fee as separate lines, so you can see which side of the line the tipping cost sits on. If you would rather the debris were simply someone else’s problem, a job that includes loading and hauling the broken concrete to a recycler takes that part off your plate. Our companion guide to which Seattle-area yards take broken concrete and what each one charges has the full list, the opening hours and the size limits.

Removal on its own, or remove and replace

If a new pour is following the tear-out, you are pricing two jobs, and the permit picture changes too: SDCI’s 750 square foot grading threshold, covered below, is about adding or replacing paving, not about removal on its own.

Heavier work sits outside both columns. Foundation walls, steps and retaining structures are demolition rather than flatwork removal. Fixr’s national guide prices foundation removal at $4,000–$10,000, “depending on the size and how it was reinforced”; we found no published Seattle figure.

Where a permit changes the number

Seattle’s published grading-permit thresholds are about area, not about the fact of removal. SDCI’s paving page says a grading permit “is required if you add or replace 750 square feet (75 feet by 10 feet) or more of paving”, and that “if you remove existing paving and replace it, a grading permit is required once you reach the 750 square feet limit.”

Above 5,000 square feet of new or replaced paving, the same page says you are required to hire a civil engineer.

Removal on its own is not exempt from the grading code either. SDCI’s grading permit page counts “removing a hard surface (building, pavement, walkways, etc.)” as land-disturbing activity, and says a permit is needed where you “disturb land in an area that is 5,000 square feet or larger.”

On cost, SDCI says the grading review fee is based on the time the review takes at its hourly rate, plus a technology fee, so it is not a flat number you can budget from a web page.

Doing it yourself, and what that really saves

The saving from DIY is the labor, and Fixr’s national guide says “Labor makes up a big percentage of the cost to remove concrete”. What it is not is free. The same guide warns that “Breaking concrete is a difficult job”, and that renting a jackhammer to make it easier “is expensive because the project takes many hours to complete.”

Three costs survive the decision to do it yourself. You still pay at the gate: Renton Concrete Recyclers published a $45.00 minimum charge per load on 13 October 2026, so a small load is not a small bill. You still have to break the pieces down: Dirt Exchange’s cheapest concrete tier is capped at under 2 ft and no thicker than 8 in, and rebar is banned from it.

And you still have to get the load there. Reece’s yards are in Arlington and Lake Stevens, a round trip north into Snohomish County before you have paid a cent at the scale, and its rate is a per-ton rate, which is not comparable to a per-cubic-yard rate without weighing your load.

How to get a real number for your job

A measured quote is the only Seattle number that counts. Have these six things ready and a quote stops being a guess.

• Length and width in feet, and the thickness if you can see a broken edge.
• Whether there is rebar or mesh — often visible at a cracked edge, and the factor that raises both the cutting time and the dump fee.
• How wide the narrowest access is, gate included. This decides machine or hand.
• Whether something is being poured back, because that changes both the bid and the permit question.
• Whether any of it touches the sidewalk or the curb, which puts the right-of-way rules into play.
• Photos, from far enough back to show the access.

Send those measurements and a couple of photos and we’ll pass your details to one local concrete removal company, who will come back with a price for your slab rather than a national average. Get a price range →

One last caution about dates. The national figures were last updated in January 2025, and the recycling yards say their pricing is subject to change. We re-read every source on 13 October 2026 and date the page accordingly, but a five-minute call to the yard beats any web page, and a measured quote beats both.

Prices above come from Fixr (national), Dirt Exchange, Reece Aggregates and Renton Concrete Recyclers, with permit rules from the SDCI pages listed under sources. None of them is a price from this site.