Hardwood Lumber Prices Per Board Foot (2026)
2026 prices for 13 common lumber options: poplar from $3.50 to walnut at $10–$18 per board foot, plus grade, surfacing, and waste-allowance math.
What hardwood actually costs in 2026
At a real hardwood dealer in mid-2026, 4/4 FAS domestic hardwood runs roughly $3.50 to $18.00 per board foot depending on species. Poplar sits at the bottom near $3.50, red oak and hickory around $4.50–$8.50, cherry $6.00–$9.00 and ash $6.00–$8.50, hard maple $7.00–$10.00, white oak $7.00–$11.00, and walnut at the top from $10.00 to $18.00. Those are rough-sawn, kiln-dried, per-board-foot prices before surfacing. Three variables move them more than anything else: your region, the NHLA grade, and whether you are buying from a lumberyard or a home center. The gap between the last two is about 2.6x.
2026 hardwood price table: 4/4 FAS, rough, kiln-dried
Prices below reflect published 2026 retail price lists from US hardwood dealers. The low end represents rural Midwest and Appalachian yards; the high end represents coastal metro dealers and specialty suppliers. Verify with your own supplier before you budget — a single phone call is worth more than any published table, and local markets swing 20–30% in either direction.
| Species | 4/4 FAS, per BF | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| White pine (Eastern) | $2.50 – $4.00 | Softwood; 8/4 around $3.25 |
| Poplar | $3.50 – $6.50 | Cheapest paint-grade hardwood |
| Red oak | $4.50 – $8.00 | 8/4 around $6.00 |
| Hickory | $4.50 – $8.50 | 8/4 jumps to $8.00; hard on tooling |
| Aromatic red cedar | $5.00 – $7.50 | Softwood; sold with knots; low clear yield |
| Soft maple | $5.00 – $7.50 | Best value paint-grade substitute |
| Cherry | $6.00 – $9.00 | 8/4 around $6.75 |
| Ash | $6.00 – $8.50 | Air-dried can drop to $3.00 |
| Hard maple | $7.00 – $10.00 | 8/4 around $7.75 |
| Sapele | $7.00 – $13.50 | Imported; price tracks container freight |
| White oak | $7.00 – $11.00 | Rustic grade drops to $6.50 |
| Quartersawn white oak | $10.00 – $15.00 | 8/4 reaches $13.00 |
| Walnut | $10.00 – $18.00 | 8/4 around $12.50; 12/4 around $13.00 |
Figured and wide stock lives outside this table entirely. Live-edge slabs, curly maple, and wide clear walnut tabletop stock routinely run $20–$50+ per board foot at specialty dealers.
How NHLA grade changes the price
The National Hardwood Lumber Association grades boards by clear-face cutting yield — how much usable defect-free material a board produces, not how pretty it looks.
- FAS (Firsts and Seconds): yields 83-1/3% (10/12ths) clear face cuttings up to 100%. Minimum board size 6" wide by 8' long; minimum cuttings 4"x5' or 3"x7'.
- F1F and Select: the best face grades FAS, the reverse face grades No. 1 Common. Same 83-1/3% yield on the good side.
- No. 1 Common: yields 66-2/3% (8/12ths) up to just under the FAS threshold. Minimum board 3" wide by 4' long; smallest cuttings 3"x3' and 4"x2'. Known in the US as cabinet grade because kitchen cabinet parts are short.
FAS typically commands 40–80% more than No. 1 Common in the same species, which puts Common roughly 29–44% below FAS. Walnut at $10.75 FAS lands near $6.99 in No. 1 Common at a 35% spread. Because Common boards are narrower and shorter, you buy about 10–15% more volume to net the same parts — so 0.65 × 1.15 = 0.7475, a real-world saving of about 25%. If every part in your project is under 3 feet long, No. 1 Common is nearly always the correct buy.
Why home-center hardwood costs 2-3x a lumberyard
Run the arithmetic on a big-box board. A 1 in. x 4 in. x 6 ft. S4S red oak board at Home Depot lists at $15.13. Its actual dimensions are 0.75" x 3.5" x 72", which is 189 cubic inches, or 1.3125 actual board feet. That is $11.53 per actual board foot — against $4.50 for rough red oak at a Midwest yard. A 2.6x premium. Priced on nominal volume (1 x 4 x 6 ÷ 12 = 2 BF), it is still $7.57 per board foot.
The premium buys you four things you probably do not want: pre-surfacing to 3/4" you would have milled anyway, short random lengths, narrow widths that force extra glue joints, and a species list of maybe four woods. It also removes the ability to pick your own boards.
Rough vs S2S vs S4S: what surfacing costs in dollars and thickness
Hardwood is sold by rough nominal thickness. You pay for 4/4 — a full inch — no matter what you receive.
- Rough: full 1" or slightly over, saw-marked, uneven. Cheapest and most flexible.
- S2S (surfaced two sides): 4/4 planes down to 13/16" (0.8125"). Edges left rough for your own jointing.
- S4S (surfaced four sides): loses roughly 5/16" total, landing 4/4 near 11/16" to 3/4" with both edges straight-lined.
Surfacing charges typically run $0.10 to $0.20 per board foot. The bigger cost is thickness: you are billed on 1" but receive 13/16", meaning you pay for 23% more thickness than you take home (0.1875 ÷ 0.8125 = 0.231). If you own a planer, buy rough — you keep the material and the choice of final thickness. If you do not, S2S at $0.20/BF is far cheaper than buying a planer for one project.
Computing your project's lumber bill
The formula is fixed:
Board feet = Thickness (in) × Width (in) × Length (ft) ÷ 12
Use nominal rough thickness, not finished thickness. Run each part through the board foot calculator rather than doing it by hand — the unit mismatch between inches and feet is where most people lose money.
Worked example: 72" x 36" walnut dining table
- Top, 4/4: 1 × 36 × 6 ÷ 12 = 18.0 BF
- Aprons, 4/4, 4" wide, two at 64" and two at 28" = 184" = 15.33 ft: 1 × 4 × 15.33 ÷ 12 = 5.1 BF
- Legs, 8/4, four blanks 2" x 2" x 29" (2.42 ft): 2 × 2 × 2.42 ÷ 12 = 0.81 BF each × 4 = 3.2 BF
Net material: 23.1 BF in 4/4 plus 3.2 BF in 8/4. Now add waste. Budget 20–30% — 20% for straight rips from FAS, 30% when you are grain-matching a top or working in No. 1 Common. At 30%: 23.1 × 1.30 = 30.0 BF of 4/4, and 3.2 × 1.30 = 4.2 BF of 8/4, rounded to 5 BF for the mill minimum.
At $10.75 for 4/4 walnut and $12.50 for 8/4: (30 × $10.75) + (5 × $12.50) = $322.50 + $62.50 = $385.00. Add S2S surfacing on 35 BF at $0.20 = $7.00, for $392.00 total. Skip the waste allowance and you would have budgeted $288 in lumber alone — $294 with the same S2S surfacing charge applied to 26.3 BF — and come up three boards short.
Buying strategies that actually cut the bill
- Shorts and cutoff bins. Most yards sell offcuts under 3 feet at a steep discount. For drawer fronts, boxes, and cutting boards this is the single cheapest hardwood in the building.
- Quantity breaks. Published tiers at one dealer: $0.35 off per BF at 20+ BF, $0.70 at 50+, and $1.05 at 100+. On $10.95 walnut that final tier is a 9.6% cut — $105 saved on a 100 BF order. Combining two projects into one purchase is free money.
- Sawmills direct. Local mills undercut retail substantially, and custom sawing runs about $0.40 per board foot if you bring your own logs. Bulk wholesale pricing typically opens at 500 BF.
- Craigslist and Facebook slabs. Genuine bargains exist, but nearly all of it is air-dried. Slabs bought this way are the standard feedstock for river tables — size your pour with the epoxy resin calculator before buying, since resin frequently costs more than the wood.
- Check moisture before you pay. Interior furniture needs 6–8% MC; cabinetry and millwork want 6–7%. Air-drying outdoors bottoms out near 12% outside of desert climates. Indoor equilibrium moisture content is 7–8% at 35–40% RH and 8–9% at 45–50% RH. Air-dried stock at $3.00/BF against $6.25 kiln-dried is only a bargain if you can sticker it indoors for months first.
Price two or three yards before every significant project, ask what arrived on the last truck, and convert every quote to dollars per board foot with the board foot calculator so you are comparing like with like. Per-piece pricing exists to make comparison hard.