Don’t Pay Yet: That Tree Might Be the City’s. St. Louis Tree Removal Costs
Revised October 25, 2026
What is a fair price for cutting down a tree?
A fair price matches the whole job: height, what the tree hangs over, access, condition and whether the stump is included. One cost guide puts the typical St. Louis tree removal at $614 to $832, with stump grinding a separate $75 to $1,000. Compare written quotes line by line, not by total.
Keep reading ↓The silver maple that just split over your Tower Grove South bungalow might belong to the city, and nobody tells you that until after you’ve paid. You heard it before you saw it. A dry crack like a rifle shot, a long tearing sigh, then a thud that rattled the storm door in its frame. By morning its biggest limb is lying across the yard and into the alley, leaves still green, the torn wood pale and wet and smelling sharp, like a fresh-cut board at the lumberyard. It missed the garage. Barely.
So now you’re standing in damp grass with your coffee going cold, looking up at the rest of that tree the way you’d look at a dog that just bit somebody. The question sitting in your chest isn’t about species or crown structure. It’s simpler and it’s heavier. What is this going to cost me?
Before you call anyone, do the one thing almost nobody does first, because it can take the bill to zero. Walk out to the curb and look at where the trunk actually comes out of the ground. In the City of St. Louis, city-owned trees are located between the curb and sidewalk, or typically within 10 feet of the curb, and the Forestry Division manages them. If the tree that scared you stands in that strip, it isn’t yours to pay for. You report it to the city at 314-622-4800 or online, and you get an email with a request ID so you can follow it.
That strip matters in the other direction too. A private crew can’t just walk up and cut a city tree for you. Under the city’s Forestry Ordinance, Ordinance 68607, pruning, spraying or removing any City tree takes a Permit to Maintain, and the city only issues it to a commercial tree service with at least one ISA Certified Arborist on staff. Hold on to that last detail. It comes back later.
If the trunk is clearly on your side of the sidewalk, it’s yours. Here’s what yours costs.
What is a fair price for cutting down a tree?
A fair price is one that matches the job, and the job is almost never just “the tree.” One cost guide puts the typical range to remove a tree in St. Louis at $614 to $832. The stump is usually its own line: the same guide lists stump removal at $60 to $350 and grinding at $75 to $1,000, depending on the diameter and how deep the wheel goes.
Treat those numbers as a floor to reason from, not a promise. The three quotes you get on the same tree can land far apart, and most of the time nobody is cheating you. They’re pricing different jobs. One includes the stump and the other doesn’t. One hauls every chip away and the other leaves a mountain of mulch by the alley. One crew saw a limb leaning toward your neighbor’s roof and priced the risk.
In this city the price is mostly about the alley. A redbud by the front walk is a couple of hours, one saw and a chipper whining at the curb. A big old pin oak behind a two-family flat, crown spread over a detached brick garage and the service drop sagging through its branches, is a climber in a harness and a groundman leaning on a rope all day, lowering it piece by piece. Every piece is labor.
Then the lot itself. Old city lots run deep and narrow between brick walls, and if the truck can’t back down the alley, every branch goes through the side gate by hand, scraping the siding on the way. You’ll hear that in the quote. Condition is the counterintuitive one: a dead tree often costs more than a live one, because dead wood snaps without warning and nobody wants to tie a rope to it.
The ash in your yard is on a clock
If the tree is an ash, the price conversation has a deadline built in. The city’s own emerald ash borer guidance says plainly that no permit is required for removing or treating ash trees on private property. Easy enough. But it also says that if a privately owned ash dies or becomes hazardous, it’s subject to a nuisance violation under Ordinance 68607, and the owner gets a notice to remove it.
Think about what that means for your wallet. A living ash is a choice: treat it, or take it down on your own schedule, in the slow season, at a calm price. A dead ash is a brittle, peeling hazard that gets pricier to climb every month, and eventually the city may be the one setting your timeline. The cheap version of this decision is the early one. You can feel the difference standing under it - firm bark versus bark that flakes off in your hand.
Before the saw starts
What is the typical cost of removing a tree in St. Louis, MO?
One cost guide puts a typical St. Louis tree removal at $614 to $832. The stump is its own line: $60 to $350 to pull it or $75 to $1,000 to grind it. A tree leaning over the roof or the wires costs more, because it comes down in roped sections.
The insurance question that protects your house, not theirs
Remember the arborist detail? Here it pays off. The city won’t let anyone touch a street tree without a certified arborist on staff. That’s a useful bar for the tree in your back yard too, especially when the real question is whether it needs to come down at all. A company that only removes trees tends to find that trees need removing.
Then ask about workers’ compensation, and don’t take a shrug for an answer. Missouri’s rule surprises people: you must carry workers’ comp with five or more employees, or with one or more if you’re in the construction industry. So a small crew can sometimes be completely legal and still carry none. That’s not a reason to panic. It’s a reason to ask the question out loud, in your driveway, before a man with a running saw climbs up over your roof.
Ask for the certificates to come straight from the insurance agent, not as a crumpled photocopy from the truck’s dashboard. A legitimate crew will send them without blinking.
What a quote you can hold someone to actually says
The quotes that turn into arguments are the ones with two words and a number. A quote worth signing names:
- Which tree, described so there’s no doubt - species, rough height and where it stands
- Whether the stump is included, and ground to what depth
- What happens to the wood and brush - hauled, chipped and left, or cut and stacked
- Whether the crew repairs ruts or lawn damage from the equipment
- Liability and workers’ comp certificates, with dates that cover your job
- Who calls in the underground utility locates before any stump grinding
That last line gets skipped all the time. Stump grinding puts a spinning toothed wheel into ground that can hide gas, water, electric and fiber lines. If a company waves the question off, picture that wheel a foot from your gas service and find another company.
Waiting on a crew all morning works up an appetite. St. Ann’s restaurant lineup is a good place to spend the wait.
Sometimes the cheapest tree job is no removal at all
Not every scary tree has to go. A limb that tore out in a storm may have come from one weak fork that can be pruned out, with a cable added to steady what’s left. Roots heaving a walkway are often a paving problem more than a tree problem. Some deadwood in a healthy, leafy crown is normal for big old hardwoods, and it gets trimmed, not felled.
The signs that do argue for removal are structural: a cavity or real decay through the main trunk, a lean that changed recently with the soil cracking and lifting on the far side, roots cut by nearby digging, much of the crown dead, or an ash that’s already past saving. Pruning doesn’t fix those. If you knock on the trunk and it sounds hollow, like rapping on an empty barrel, take that seriously and have someone qualified look before the next windy night.
If you’re trimming instead, mind the calendar with oaks. The Missouri Department of Conservation’s rule is short: don’t prune oaks mid-March through June, when fresh wounds draw the insects that carry oak wilt.
People are asking
Who pays when tree roots clog your sewer line in St. Louis?
Inside city limits, you do - the City says the entire sewer lateral from your house to the MSD main is private property. Its Sewer Lateral Repair Program, paid for by a $28 fee on the tax bills of residential properties with 6 or fewer units, fixes breaks under the public right of way, but it “does not cover clearance of clogs/tree roots along ANY portion of the lateral line.” Many city sewer lines are clay pipe over 100 years old, so when the floor drain gurgles and the basement smells like the street, ask the plumber to show you the camera video, not just describe it. If that video shows a break under the street, the Street Department wants the plumber’s statement and the video.
When to call, and how to get a fair number without a fight
The worst week to buy tree work is the week after a big storm. Every crew is booked, phones go to voicemail, and door hangers from outfits you’ve never heard of show up on your knob. If your tree isn’t an active hazard, let that wave pass. Late winter, with the leaves down and the schedules thin, is a calmer time to get quotes, and a climber can see every fork in bare branches.
Get three written quotes with the same scope - removal, stump, debris, cleanup - and compare them line by line instead of total to total. The honest levers are real ones: flexible timing, letting the crew leave the wood, bundling several trees into one visit. What backfires is pushing a company below the cost of its own insurance.
If money is the wall, call your city forester or public works office and ask whether there’s any help for hazardous trees or for older residents. Help like that varies by city and by year, so ask the question directly instead of assuming the answer is no.
More on the same storm, from both ends:
- What a roof replacement costs in St. Louis, if the limb took shingles with it
- Storm-proofing your trees, so the next crack in the night never comes
Check the curb first, then call a crew that will put it all in writing. Browse tree services around St. Louis on St Louis Near Me Directory and compare crews side by side before the next storm makes the choice for you.
If you’re the tree crew, the arborist or the one-truck stump grinder who answers these storm calls, a listing in the directory puts your name in front of the next homeowner standing under a cracked maple, so you can get more customers from the work you already do well.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to cut down a 40 ft tree?
It depends less on the 40 feet than on what’s under it. One cost guide puts the typical range to remove a tree in St. Louis at $614 to $832. A 40-footer standing clear in an open yard sits toward the easy end; the same tree over a roof or wires has to come down in roped sections and costs more.
How big of a tree to charge $1000 for removal?
There’s no fixed height that hits that number. A tree bigger than average, past the typical St. Louis range of $614 to $832, or an ordinary tree that needs roping over a house, can cross it, and so can adding stump grinding, which runs $75 to $1,000 on its own.
Is it cheaper to have a tree cut down or trimmed?
Trimming is almost always cheaper that day, and it’s the right call when the tree is sound and the problem is clearance or deadwood. It’s the wrong call when the trunk is decayed or the tree is dying, because you pay for the trim now and the removal later.
What months should you not trim trees?
For oaks in Missouri, the Department of Conservation says don’t prune mid-March through June, when fresh cuts attract the beetles that spread oak wilt. Storm damage and real hazards are the exception and get handled when they happen.
What is the cheapest time of year for tree removal?
Late winter tends to be the calmest time to book, with the leaves down and crews less swamped. The priciest stretch is the week after a big storm, when every crew in town is booked solid.
Can seniors get free tree cutting service?
Possibly, if the tree belongs to the city. In St. Louis, trees between the curb and sidewalk are managed by the Forestry Division, so report those to the city at 314-622-4800. For a tree on your own lot, ask your city forester or public works office whether any help exists before you pay.
How to negotiate tree removal?
Get three written quotes that list removal, haul-away and stump work as separate lines, then compare line by line. Bundle several trees into one visit, let the crew leave the wood, and book outside storm season. Don’t push a crew below what its insurance costs.
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.