$25 Permit, $10,400 Slab: What a 20x40 Driveway Costs in St. Louis
Revised October 29, 2026
How much does a 20x40 concrete driveway cost?
A 20x40 concrete driveway is 800 square feet, and at St. Louis rates of $7 to $13 per square foot for un-reinforced concrete, that comes to about $5,600 to $10,400 before any tear-out. Reinforced concrete runs $8 to $14 per square foot, and breaking out an old slab adds $1.40 to $2.30 per square foot. In the City of St. Louis, the permit to rebuild a residential driveway is $25.
Keep reading ↓Your toe finds it before your eyes do. Dark morning, coffee in one hand, keys in the other, and the front of your shoe catches the lip where one slab of the driveway has heaved up over its neighbor. You stumble, you swear, you look down. The crack that was a pencil line last spring is now a step, packed with grit and old rock salt, and the panel by the garage has tipped toward the door.
That lip is the St. Louis winter doing its work. Water gets into the crack, freezes, swells, thaws, and comes back the next night to do it again, while the clay underneath swells in the wet months and shrinks in the dry ones. The concrete is not failing all at once. It is being pried apart a little at a time, and every cold snap that lands near freezing gives it another nudge.
So you call for quotes, and the first thing to know is the number. The second thing is smaller, and almost nobody prices it in.
How much does a 20x40 concrete driveway cost?
A 20x40 concrete driveway is 800 square feet, and at St. Louis rates of $7 to $13 per square foot for un-reinforced concrete, that comes to about $5,600 to $10,400 before any tear-out. Reinforced concrete runs $8 to $14 per square foot, and breaking out an old slab adds $1.40 to $2.30 per square foot. In the City of St. Louis, the permit to rebuild a residential driveway is $25.
The $25 line on the whole job belongs to City Hall
Here is the part that makes contractors in the county laugh when they hear it. If your house is inside the city limits, the Street Department’s fee to reconstruct a residential driveway is $25. A brand-new residential driveway is $50. And if the work pulls up the old granite curb at the street, the City will cart that granite to storage for $5.
Think about that for a second. Thousands of dollars of concrete, a crew of four, a ready-mix truck idling at the curb with its drum turning, and the line item that keeps you legal costs less than a pizza. Skip it, and an inspector or a neighbor can stop the job while the forms are still wet.
The Department of Streets takes applications online, and you can reach it at (314) 647-3111 or at 1900 Hampton Ave, St. Louis, MO 63139, Monday thru Friday, 8:00 to 4:30. Ask your contractor, before anything else, who is pulling the permit and whether that $25 is already in the bid. If you live outside the city, call your own city hall before the old slab comes out.
Why the base matters more here than the concrete
Walk past any ranch house in Crestwood or Ferguson on the morning of a pour and you can smell it before you see the truck: wet gravel, diesel, the cold mineral smell of the mix sliding down the chute. Everyone on the sidewalk watches the concrete. The gravel under it decides how long you keep it.
St. Louis homes sit on clay-dense soil that expands and contracts with the freeze-thaw cycles, which is why a slab here needs more than a quick scrape and a pour. A good job digs below the slab, brings in compacted aggregate base, and packs it in layers, not one pass with a truck tire. A slab laid on loose fill cracks along the line where the fill gave way, usually within a few winters.
When one quote is thousands under another, the base is often where the money went. It is also the one part of the job you will never see again once the truck pulls away.
What moves the price up or down
On a city lot the job starts with a saw. It screams through the old apron where the driveway meets the granite curb, the gray dust settles on every parked car on the block, and the neighbors come out to look. The plain broom finish that follows is what the per-foot rates above assume. Staining and stamping are priced on top.
Steel is the next line. Un-reinforced concrete is the low number; rebar or wire pushes you into the reinforced range. Ask how the steel will sit. Mesh lying flat on the dirt does nothing, and rebar held up on chairs in the middle of the slab does its job. Thickness matters too: a thicker slab, 6 to 8 inches rather than 4 to 5, costs more and earns it where a truck or a dumpster will park.
Then the tear-out. Breaking up the old drive is loud, dusty work, the jackhammer rattling your windows for a morning, and at $1.40 to $2.30 a square foot it adds $1,120 to $1,840 to an 800-square-foot drive. If the old slab only sank and never broke apart, ask whether it can be lifted back into place instead. Slab lifting is a different trade at a different price, and on settling clay it is worth the question before you sign for a full replacement.
What a slab runs here
How much for a 200 sq ft concrete patio?
A reinforced concrete patio in St. Louis runs $7 to $11 per square foot, so 200 square feet lands around $1,400 to $2,200; stamped runs $9 to $16 a foot, or about $1,800 to $3,200. Driveways run $7 to $13 un-reinforced, and steel, thickness and tearing out an old slab push either job toward the top.
Four questions that sort the bids
Lay the quotes side by side on the kitchen table and they blur together. Four questions pull them apart fast. How deep will you dig, and what goes in for a base? How thick is the slab? What steel goes in, and how is it held up off the ground? Where will the control joints go, and how soon after the pour will you cut them?
A contractor who answers all four without a pause has done this a few hundred times. One who waves them off as details is telling you which parts of the job he plans to rush, and those are the parts that decide whether you are standing in this same spot, toe on a fresh crack, a few winters from now.
Listen for drainage too. Stand at the garage door after a hard rain and watch where the water goes. If it pools against the door or runs back toward the foundation, the new slab has to be pitched to send it away, and that may mean regrading or a trench drain at the apron. That work belongs in the written quote, not in a phone call after the concrete has set.
Concrete or asphalt, said plainly
On an August afternoon you can feel the difference through your sneakers. Asphalt goes soft and gives off that hot tar smell; concrete stays pale and hard. Up front, asphalt in St. Louis runs $5 to $8 per square foot, and that price includes demolition of an existing asphalt driveway. Concrete costs more to put in and asks less of you for years after. On a house you plan to keep, that usually tips it toward concrete. On a short hold, asphalt can be the sensible call.
What a written quote should spell out
The quote with one number and no detail is the one that keeps you up at night. A good one reads like a recipe:
- Square footage and the slab thickness
- Removal and disposal of the old surface
- Depth of the dig, the base material, and how it is compacted
- Reinforcement type and how it will be held off the ground
- The concrete mix, and whether it is air-entrained for freeze-thaw
- Where the control joints go and when they are cut
- Finish: broom, exposed aggregate or stamped
- Grading and drainage away from the house and garage
- Who pulls the permit, and whether the fee is in the bid
- The warranty, and exactly what it says about cracks
No honest contractor promises concrete that never cracks. What a good warranty covers is failure: settling, heaving, flaking and cracks past a stated width. The one who swears you will never see a crack is telling you what you want to hear.
Pouring a slab for the kids instead of the cars? Here is what a backyard basketball court costs in St. Louis.
The first winter decides a lot
The new slab looks perfect the day the crew rolls up the hoses, pale gray and smooth, the joint lines crisp. Then the first ice storm comes, and the bag of rock salt in the garage starts calling your name. Leave it there. Spread sand for grip through that first winter instead. Salt damage on young concrete shows up later as a flaking, pitted surface that looks exactly like bad workmanship, and no warranty will cover it.
Keep heavy trucks and dumpsters off it until your contractor says it is ready, and ask them how the slab will be cured. A crew that has a plan for a hot, windy pour day has seen one go wrong before. Sheeting, curing compound or a slow soak from the hose all keep the surface from drying out faster than the slab beneath it.
Caught your toe on that crack one too many times? Browse concrete contractors near you on St Louis Near Me Directory, and ask every one of them to write down the base prep and who pulls the permit, not just the price.
If you’re the flatwork crew that digs out the base before the truck ever shows up, the homeowner holding a one-line quote is looking for a crew who explains itself. List your business and get more customers who already know what a good driveway costs.
More St. Louis home costs, read the same way:
- Basement waterproofing in St. Louis, where the same clay shows up again
- What a roof replacement costs in St. Louis
- What an electrician costs in St. Louis
- What car detailing costs in St. Louis, for the road salt on the other side of the garage door
- Can’t park on the new slab yet? Waterloo, IL’s dinner options are right here.
Frequently asked questions
How much to pour 1000 sq ft of concrete driveway?
At St. Louis rates of $7 to $13 per square foot for un-reinforced concrete, a 1,000-square-foot pour comes to $7,000 to $13,000. At $8 to $14 a foot for reinforced concrete, that 1,000-square-foot pour runs $8,000 to $14,000, and tearing out an old slab adds $1.40 to $2.30 a foot on top.
How much does a 200 ft concrete driveway cost?
It depends whether you mean 200 square feet or 200 feet long. A 200-square-foot slab at $7 to $13 a foot runs about $1,400 to $2,600. A drive 200 feet long and 10 feet wide is 2,000 square feet, and 2,000 square feet at $7 to $13 a foot is $14,000 to $26,000 un-reinforced.
Is it cheaper to do a concrete driveway or asphalt?
Asphalt is cheaper up front. In St. Louis it runs $5 to $8 per square foot, including demolition of an old asphalt drive, against $7 to $13 for un-reinforced concrete before demolition. Concrete costs more to install and needs less upkeep afterward.
What is the cheapest option for driveways?
Between the two paved choices, asphalt. If you already have an asphalt drive that is worn but sound, an overlay is cheaper still: resurfacing runs $2 to $4 per square foot for a 2-inch overlay in St. Louis, against a full new pour.
How much would a 20x20 concrete patio cost?
At St. Louis rates of $7 to $11 per square foot for reinforced concrete, a 400-square-foot 20x20 patio costs $2,800 to $4,400 with a plain finish. Stamped at $9 to $16 a foot, that 400-square-foot patio runs $3,600 to $6,400.
What is the average cost of a 12x12 concrete patio?
At $7 to $11 per square foot for reinforced concrete in St. Louis, a 144-square-foot 12x12 slab costs $1,008 to $1,584. Stamped at $9 to $16 a foot, that 144-square-foot slab runs $1,296 to $2,304.
What are the downsides of having a concrete driveway?
It costs more up front than asphalt, you wait before you can park on it, and patches never fully disappear. It will crack, so the control joints decide where. And it hates rock salt, especially in its first winter, so spread sand instead.
Written by a dedicated team of St. Louis locals who live, work, and play right here in the St. Louis metro. Founder Lane Forman and team are committed to building the region’s most trusted directory by verifying listings and connecting local businesses with loyal customers across Missouri and Illinois.