Timber Selling Guides
Everything you need to know before you sell a single tree. Written for landowners, not industry insiders. Each guide works wherever your land is. Where the rules change from state to state, the guide says so and tells you where to check yours. A guide about one state's own rules carries that state's name.
Free Tool
Not sure what your timber is worth?
Use our free Timber Value Calculator to get a rough estimate in 2 minutes.
Start Here
How to Sell Timber on Your Land: The Order the Steps Go In
The order matters more than the price. Here is the whole sequence, from finding your lines to cashing the check and paying the tax, with nothing skipped.
How Many Acres of Timber Is Worth Selling?
There is no single number. What decides whether a crew will come is how much wood is standing and how cheaply it gets to a mill, and small tracts have options.
I Inherited Land With Trees on It. What Do I Do First?
Nothing about inherited timberland is urgent. Here's what to find out first, why the date of death matters so much, and who to call about the woods.
Do I Have to Pay Taxes When I Sell Timber?
Yes, timber money is taxable. It is usually a long-term capital gain rather than ordinary income, and basis comes off before tax is owed on the rest.
What Is Stumpage Value? How Timber Is Priced on Your Land
Stumpage is what you get for trees still standing, not what the mill pays for the logs. Here is where the difference goes and how to check an offer.
Will Selling Timber Mess Up My North Carolina Present-Use Value Tax?
Harvesting is what the forestry present-use value program is built around. What ends the deferral is losing eligibility, and your county assessor decides.
What Affects the Value of My Timber? Six Things That Decide the Check
Two tracts the same size can be worth very different money. Here are the six things that decide it, from somebody who spent fifty years cutting timber in North Carolina.
More Guides
Selling Timber in South Carolina: What to Do Before You Sign
South Carolina licenses foresters, requires a load ticket for every load on a per-unit sale, and gives you a deadline for getting paid. Three protections North Carolina landowners do not have, and each one only works if you sell a certain way.
What Rules Do Loggers Have to Follow in South Carolina?
South Carolina does not license loggers, and its forestry Best Management Practices are voluntary. The state says out loud that the landowner is the one ultimately responsible for them. That puts the rules in your contract.
How to Look Up What Timber Is Actually Selling For in South Carolina
South Carolina publishes its own quarterly standing timber prices, free, and keeps every past quarter online. Here is where they live, how to read a line, and why the statewide average is not your price.
Do I Need a Permit to Cut Timber on My Own Land in South Carolina?
South Carolina has no timber harvest permit and no harvest notification. It has a stormwater exemption written into statute, a preemption statute that rewards a management plan, and one notification most people forget.
Do I Need a Forest Management Plan, and What Does One Cost?
Not usually to sell timber. A plan is what property tax breaks, cost-share money and Tree Farm certification turn on. Here is who writes one and what it costs.
Who Pays to Replant After a Timber Harvest?
Replanting is the landowner's bill unless the timber sale contract puts it on the buyer. What help exists, and what it costs you to wait.
What Should Be in a Timber Sale Contract?
Everything you are afraid of in a timber sale is either handled by the paper in front of you or not handled at all. These are the clauses to look for.
How Not to Get Ripped Off by a Timber Buyer
The buyer prices standing timber every week. You are doing it once. Two moves close most of that gap, and both happen before anybody starts a saw.
What Happens to Your Land After the Loggers Leave?
A fresh harvest looks like a disaster the first time you see it. What is normal, what is not, and what to check before the last check clears.
Do I Need a Forestry Consultant Before Selling My Timber?
Usually yes, if you are selling standing timber for the first time. What one does, how they get paid, and the cases where you do not need one.
How to Find and Mark Your Property Lines Before Selling Timber
A county GIS map is not a boundary. Before a saw runs, here is how to find your real lines, mark them so a crew can see them, and stay out of a trespass case.
Someone Cut Timber on My Land Without Permission. What Now?
Most states let you recover more than the timber was worth, often triple. Whether you can prove that value depends on what you do this week.
Are My Hardwood Trees Worth Anything? Hardwood vs. Pine
Hardwood can be worth more per tree than pine, or a lot less. Grade decides it, not species, and most people guess wrong about which trees a mill wants.
Clear-Cut vs. Selective Cut: Which Is Right for Your Land?
A clearcut is the right call for even-aged pine more often than people think, and what a buyer calls a selective cut is sometimes a high-grade.
Selling Timber on Heirs' Property: Can You Sell If the Deed Is in a Dead Relative's Name?
If the deed still names somebody who died, you probably cannot sell the timber yet. Here is who has to agree, what your state's law decides, and how families get there.
Do I Need a Permit to Cut Timber on My Own Land in North Carolina?
North Carolina has no timber harvest permit. It does have mandatory water quality rules and a few situations that need a permit. Here is which is which.
What Rules Do Loggers Have to Follow in North Carolina?
North Carolina does not license loggers. What binds a crew on your land is water quality rules, insurance, and the contract you sign.
What Is Timber Basis, and Why It Matters If You Inherited the Land
Inherited timber usually gets a fresh tax value on the day the owner died. Nobody works that number out for you, and you cannot claim what you cannot prove.
Storm-Damaged Timber: What to Do After a Hurricane or Ice Storm
Downed sawtimber starts losing value in weeks, and every landowner around you is selling at the same time. Here is how to move fast without getting taken.
Selling Timber Directly to a Mill: Pros, Cons, and What It Costs You
Some mills buy standing timber. Many only buy logs delivered to the gate, which means you still need a logger. And one mill is one bid.
Tons, Cords, and Board Feet: How Timber Gets Measured
Two offers on the same trees can use two different units and two different log rules. Here is how to read them, and how to check the math yourself.
When Should You Thin a Pine Stand Instead of Cutting It All?
A crowded pine stand with growing left in it is usually a thinning, not a clearcut. How to tell which one you have, and what a bad thinning costs you.
How to Look Up What Timber Is Actually Selling For in North Carolina
There is a free quarterly price report for North Carolina standing timber. Here is where it lives, how to read it, and why the average in it is not your price.
Load Tickets: How to Know How Much Timber Left Your Land
On a pay-as-cut sale, a stack of paper tickets decides your whole check. Here is how to make sure you get every one, and how to check them against your own count.
When Is the Best Time to Sell Timber? Weather, Markets, and Who Is Watching Them for You
There is no best month on the calendar. There is a best time for your trees, on your ground, near your mills. Here is how timing works, and why a forester's sense of it is worth paying for.
How Much Is a Black Walnut Tree Worth? What One Tree Brings, and Why Most Bring Less
A walnut can be the most valuable tree on your land or worth almost nothing. Here is what decides it, what walnut is selling for in 2026, and how to sell it without getting taken.
Selling Timber in Georgia: The Rules That Touch Your Sale
Georgia taxes standing timber once, when it's sold, and who pays depends on how you sell. Counties can require the logger to give notice, every load needs a ticket within 20 days, and a timber thief owes three times the value. Here's how each one works.
Selling Timber in Virginia: The Seed Tree Law and Three Other Rules
Virginia has a seed tree law most landowners have never heard of: cut 10 or more acres of loblolly or white pine and you must leave seed trees or follow an approved plan. Here's that rule, the logger's harvest notice, the state's replanting help, and triple damages for timber theft.
Selling Timber in Tennessee: What the State Does and Doesn't Do for You
Tennessee has no licensing for consulting foresters, its state foresters won't value or sell your timber, and its timber price data is thin. It does give you double or triple damages if someone cuts your trees, and no state income tax on the sale.
Your North Carolina Building Site Has Timber on It: How to Get It Cleared, Sometimes for Free
For the developer, site superintendent or estimator with a wooded parcel in North Carolina and a grading schedule. The trees are a line item to you. To a logger they may be a paycheck. How to make that work, and the two North Carolina rules that can stop your project cold.
Selling Timber in Texas: Check the Forester, Paint the Line, Watch the Trucks
In Texas, anyone can call themselves a forester, pine prices are down from a year ago, and most timber theft starts with a logger who says he got turned around. What Texas landowners should do before they sign, with current East Texas prices.