How log prices differ from stumpage prices

A delivered log price is what a mill pays for logs already cut and hauled to its yard, quoted per thousand board feet (MBF) of log scale for a given species and grade. A stumpage price is what a buyer paid for the same wood still standing, and the gap between the two is the cost of falling, yarding, loading and hauling the logs plus the buyer's margin. What is stumpage covers the standing side; this guide covers the log side and the gap in dollars.

What a delivered log price is

The Oregon Department of Forestry's log term definitions define pond value as "the amount a mill will pay for a log delivered to the mill location." The buying mill sets it, by species and grade. In ODF's grade list a Douglas-fir No. 2 sawmill log (2S) is one suitable for Construction and Better lumber, alongside peeler, special mill, No. 3 and No. 4 sawmill grades, each priced on its own. A quote for "Douglas-fir #2 sawmill" means that grade, delivered.

The MBF in a log price is log scale, not lumber tally. ODF's definitions call the Scribner rule, in its Scribner Decimal C form, the main rule used in Oregon and Washington by private industry and state agencies. What is an MBF explains the difference.

These are domestic prices. ODF's old survey was titled for "Domestically Processed Logs," and Washington DNR says its survey prices apply to logs processed in the U.S. Export logs, sold unprocessed to overseas buyers, are a separate market, and ODF timber cannot enter it: every bidder signs a certification that it "will not directly or indirectly export the unprocessed State timber."

Douglas-fir log prices in Oregon

ODF surveyed mills for quarterly pond values for decades and has stopped. Its timber sales page says ODF "is now using subscription services to obtain log prices for our Timber Appraisal System, and is no longer soliciting quarterly pond values from mills." The historical file still posted there ends with the first quarter of 2017, when Douglas-fir No. 2 sawmill in Region 1, northwest Oregon and the Willamette Valley, stood at $680 per MBF on 16 quotes.

ODF's newer figures show up in each sale prospectus instead, where the appraisal prints a Douglas-fir pond value and the month of local pond values behind it. Commercial reporters sell monthly series by subscription; Fastmarkets, for one, lists Douglas-fir No. 2 sawmill delivered to southern Oregon and the Willamette Valley in dollars per MBF, with no figures shown publicly.

Douglas-fir log prices in Washington

Washington DNR still publishes. Its Delivered Log Price Survey collects monthly "street price" quotes for logs delivered to mills from producers and purchasers in Washington, Oregon and Idaho, and reports an average, a range and the number of quotes by species and grade for a Coast and an Eastside marketing area. In the September 2026 sheet, Douglas-fir No. 2 saw averaged $690 per MBF in the Coast area on a range of $680 to $700, No. 3 saw $653 and No. 4 saw $515. DNR calls the figures estimates that may not reflect actual sale values.

Do not mistake that survey for the Washington Department of Revenue's stumpage value tables, which are stumpage, not log prices. RCW 84.33.091 has Revenue set them every six months, as what each species would sell for on the stump for immediate harvest, to figure timber excise tax. The tables for July 1 through December 31, 2026 are per thousand board feet, net Scribner log scale.

Douglas-fir log prices in British Columbia

The province's Timber Pricing Branch posts Coast Log Market Reports: "average domestic prices for old and second growth log sales in the Vancouver Log Market," as one-month and three-month averages by species and grade, in dollars per cubic meter. The province's Coast Appraisal Manual describes them as invoiced free-on-board values from arm's-length domestic sales around the Strait of Georgia and other coastal waters, and feeds them into its stumpage appraisals.

On October 12, 2026 the newest report posted covered the month ending January 31, 2026. In that report, second-growth Douglas-fir (the "Fir" column) in grade J, 68.89 percent of the fir volume, averaged $117.16 per cubic meter. That does not line up with an Oregon or Washington price: a cubic meter measures solid log volume while a Scribner MBF estimates the lumber inside the log, so no fixed factor turns one into the other.

Worked example: one Oregon sale, both prices

Standard Bearer is a 110-acre clearcut in ODF's Forest Grove district, in Washington County. ODF's appraisal, dated June 8, 2026 and built on "LOCAL POND VALUES, April 2026," puts a single Douglas-fir pond value on the sale's 3,281 MBF of cruised Douglas-fir: $748.11 per MBF. That one number covers 2,255 MBF of No. 2 sawmill and 1,026 MBF of No. 3 and No. 4, so it is not a No. 2 quote; it is used here because ODF published it for these exact logs.

The sale was auctioned by sealed bid on September 18, 2026. Boise Cascade Wood Products won with a Douglas-fir bid of $621.90 per MBF against three other bidders (ODF sale results), the $622/MBF this site carries for it on the Forest Grove district page.

• Delivered: $748.11 per MBF (ODF Douglas-fir pond value, April 2026)
• Stumpage: $621.90 per MBF (winning Douglas-fir bid, September 2026)
• Gap: $748.11 minus $621.90 = $126.21 per MBF

That $126.21 is what was left to cover falling, yarding, loading, hauling, road work and the buyer's margin. ODF's appraisal costed those items for the sale's Douglas-fir at $307.30 per MBF: $117.31 for logging, $130.10 for hauling, $12.04 for road maintenance, $39.77 for profit and risk, and $8.08 for fire protection, slash disposal, branding and other items. $748.11 minus $307.30 is $440.81, the Douglas-fir minimum on the notice of sale. The winning bid ran $181.09 over that minimum, which is exactly how much narrower the market's gap came in than ODF's cost estimate ($307.30 minus $126.21). How ODF builds that cost stack is covered in how stumpage is appraised.

Treat the $126.21 as an illustration, not a measured logging cost. The two figures come from different sources five months apart: one is ODF's estimate of the April delivered market, the other a sealed bid from a buyer working off its own log values and its own costs. The arithmetic says the winner valued the logs above ODF's April figure, expected to log and haul for less than ODF assumed, or accepted a thinner margin than ODF's 15 percent profit and risk allowance, or some mix of the three. It cannot say which.

ODF sales on this site's record have run a volume-weighted $596/MBF for green sawtimber, charted below by month.

Every point on that chart is stumpage. The delivered price for the same logs sits above each one by whatever the logging, haul and margin came to.

Why the gap moves

Haul is the largest single item on Standard Bearer, and it swings from sale to sale. Back Track, another Forest Grove sale ODF appraised in May 2026, assumed three truck trips a day at 4.8 MBF a load and costed its Douglas-fir haul at $88.55 per MBF. Standard Bearer assumed two trips a day at 4.9 MBF and $130.10. Same district, same $1,250-a-day truck allowance, and $41.55 per MBF more haul on one than the other.

Ground and logging system come next. On Standard Bearer ODF costed the tower-yarded share at $118.72 per MBF and the shovel-logged share at $90.58, before profit and risk, so cable ground leaves less for the stump.

Grade and sort mix move the delivered side. In DNR's September 2026 coast sheet, No. 2 saw averaged $690 per MBF and No. 4 saw $515, so a cruise heavy in No. 4 carries a lower delivered value than one heavy in No. 2, with much the same logging bill.

Then timing. A bid is fixed on auction day, and ODF's contract rules out market conditions as a reason to adjust it, but the logs reach the mill over a term that on Standard Bearer runs to October 31, 2029. In DNR's coast survey, Douglas-fir No. 2 saw averaged $702 per MBF in April 2026, $751 in July and $690 in September. That is a Washington series, not Forest Grove, but it is the same kind of number as ODF's April pond value.

The table above sets ODF's districts side by side, each row stumpage net of that district's own haul, ground and grade mix. For where those costs fall between award and mill deck, see from auction to mill; for Douglas-fir stumpage across every agency tracked here, see the Douglas-fir page. This site reports what public timber sold for, not log prices or what a tract is worth to bid.