Soil being shovelled into a garden bucket

Reference

Topsoil weight and coverage

Soil is ordered by the cubic yard and weighed by the ton, and the two are linked by one thing that changes with the weather: how much water is in it. Everything on this page follows from the yard — 27 cubic feet — and the weight of that yard, dry, moist or wet.

How much does a yard of topsoil weigh? About 2,200 lb (1.10 tons) when moist, the way it is usually delivered. Dry it is nearer 1,900 lb, and soaked by rain it can reach 2,600 lb — about 1,543 kg per cubic metre.

How much does a yard of topsoil weigh?

Moisture moves the weight more than anything else. A load that leaves the yard moist and sits out in a storm comes back heavier by hundreds of pounds, with not a single extra shovelful in it. Fill dirt, with little organic matter, is the heaviest; compost is the lightest by far.

Material	Dry, lb/yd³	Moist, lb/yd³	Wet, lb/yd³	Moist, tons/yd³	Moist, kg/m³
Screened topsoil	1,900	2,200	2,600	1.10	1,305
Fill dirt	2,100	2,400	2,800	1.20	1,424
Compost	800	1,000	1,300	0.50	593

For hauling, the wet column is the one to plan with. A single cubic yard of moist topsoil is more than a ton, so check the payload rating on your truck's door-jamb sticker before loading it — many pickups are rated for less than that once passengers and a bed liner are counted.

How many cubic feet of soil are in a yard?

A cubic yard is a cube 3 feet on each side: 3 × 3 × 3 = 27 cubic feet, or about 0.76 cubic metres. Bagged soil is sold in cubic feet, bulk soil in cubic yards, and a delivery ticket often in tons — this is the table that joins them for moist topsoil.

Cubic feet	Cubic yards	Tons, moist topsoil
10	0.37	0.41
27	1.00	1.10
50	1.85	2.04
100	3.70	4.07
200	7.41	8.15
324	12.00	13.20

Going the other way, one ton of moist topsoil is about 0.91 cubic yards. A tandem dump truck carries around 12 cubic yards, which is roughly 13 tons of moist topsoil.

Yards to tons for each material

Suppliers quote some materials by the yard and others by the ton. One cubic yard of each, moist, and how many yards one ton buys:

Material	1 yard, moist	1 ton, moist	1 yard, wet
Screened topsoil	1.10 tons	0.91 yd³	1.30 tons
Fill dirt	1.20 tons	0.83 yd³	1.40 tons
Compost	0.50 tons	2.00 yd³	0.65 tons

How much will a yard of soil cover?

Spread the 27 cubic feet out at a depth and it covers 27 × 12 ÷ depth in inches square feet. These are finished depths — order a little over them, because loose soil settles once it is raked and watered.

Depth	One yard covers	Square metres	Typical use
1 in	324 sq ft	30.1 m²	Top-dressing a lawn
2 in	162 sq ft	15.1 m²	Levelling low spots in turf
3 in	108 sq ft	10.0 m²	Over-seeding a thin lawn
4 in	81 sq ft	7.5 m²	New lawn from seed or sod
6 in	54 sq ft	5.0 m²	New planting bed

How many bags of topsoil in a yard

Bags are sold by volume, so the count is simply 27 divided by the bag size, rounded up.

Bag size	Bags per cubic yard	Bags per 100 sq ft at 4 in
0.75 cu ft	36	45
1 cu ft	27	34
1.5 cu ft	18	23
2 cu ft	14	17

How much topsoil for a lawn, a raised bed or fill

A new lawn wants about 4 inches: a 20 × 27 ft lawn is 540 sq ft, so 180 cubic feet or 6.67 yards before settling. A raised bed takes its inside height less any drainage layer: a 4 × 8 ft bed 12 inches deep holds 32 cubic feet, about 1.2 yards. Filling a hole or low spot takes fill dirt to within a few inches of grade, then topsoil to finish, because fill packs hard and grows little.

Topsoil for a raised bed, by height

A 4 × 8 ft bed — the most common kit size — at each height, with 15 per cent added for settling and no drainage layer.

Bed height	Cubic feet	Cubic yards	Tons, moist	0.75 cu ft bags
6 in	18.4	0.68	0.75	25
8 in	24.5	0.91	1.00	33
10 in	30.7	1.14	1.25	41
12 in	36.8	1.36	1.50	50
18 in	55.2	2.04	2.25	74
24 in	73.6	2.73	3.00	99

The topsoil calculator does all three, adds the settling allowance, and weighs the load dry, moist or wet.

Work out your topsoil →

Figures: Stone densities: Renovimo gravel calculator figures, unchanged. Topsoil and fill dirt: Ottr Landscape Supply, How much does a yard of dirt weigh (ottrsupply.com); Centex Excavation, How much does a yard of dirt weigh (centexexcavation.com); Select Site Group, How much does a yard of topsoil weigh (selectsg.com). Compost: City of Columbus Compost Facility, How much Com-Til do I need (1,000 lb per cubic yard); Sustainability in Practice, Compost formulas (900 lb per cubic yard). Bark and hardwood mulch: dry weights from retail listings of 2 cu ft bags (Jolly Gardener, Garick, Green Thumb), scaled to the cubic yard; wet weights from landscape-supplier ranges. Rubber mulch: 0.8 cu ft bag weights from retail listings (Vigoro, GroundSmart); 6 in depth from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission Public Playground Safety Handbook. Pine straw: 40 sq ft per bale at 3 in, landscape supplier guidance. Dump truck: a tandem-axle truck carries 10 to 14 cubic yards (Boom & Bucket; Aggregate Markets). Accessed 2026-09-30. Soil weight varies with texture and organic matter as well as moisture — a load weighed after rain is heavier than one weighed dry — so treat these as planning figures and check the supplier's ticket.

The rest of the yard

These are the weights and coverages every yard calculator on the site runs on. Each tool applies them to one material.

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