How Much Does a Yard of Concrete Weigh?

A cubic yard of normal-weight concrete weighs about 3,780 to 4,050 lb, or roughly 2 tons. That comes from the standard range of 140–150 lb per cubic foot times the 27 cubic feet in a yard. Below are concrete weight tables per cubic foot, per cubic yard and per square foot by thickness, plus how to turn a sidewalk tear-out into haul-off tons.

Key takeaways

Normal-weight concrete: about 140–150 lb/ft³ (Iowa DOT IM 340), so 3,780–4,050 lb per cubic yard.
Call it 2 tons per yard for planning. Use 1.9 if your mix is light, about 2.04 if you use the 159 rule.
4-inch slab: about 47–50 lb per square foot. 6-inch: about 70–75 lb.
For removal, tons = SF ÷ 159 × thickness (in). It assumes about 151 lb/ft³, the heavy side of normal, which keeps haul-off estimates safe.

How much does a yard of concrete weigh?

Concrete weight comes down to one number: its unit weight, or density, in pounds per cubic foot. The Iowa DOT's materials procedure for weighing concrete, Matls IM 340, states that normal-weight concrete falls in the range of 140 to 150 lb per cubic foot. Multiply by 27, the number of cubic feet in a cubic yard:

Weight per cubic yard = lb per ft³ × 27 · Tons per CY = lb per CY ÷ 2,000

Unit weight (lb/ft³)	Weight per cubic yard	Tons per cubic yard	Notes
140	3,780 lb	1.89	Low end of normal weight
145	3,915 lb	1.96	Middle of the range
150	4,050 lb	2.03	High end of normal weight
150.9	4,075 lb	2.04	The SF ÷ 159 rule
155	4,185 lb	2.09	Heavier, higher-strength mixes

So the short answer to "how much does a yard of concrete weigh" is about 4,000 lb, or 2 tons. The honest answer is a range of about 7% depending on the aggregate, the mix design, the air content and whether there's steel in it. When a ready-mix supplier gives you the unit weight for a specific mix, use that instead of any table, including this one.

Concrete weight per cubic foot

Most of a concrete mix by volume is stone and sand, so the aggregate does most of the work in setting the weight. A few reference points:

Iowa DOT IM 340: normal-weight concrete is in the range of 140–150 lb/ft³. The procedure covers freshly mixed concrete.
FHWA: a Federal Highway Administration report on proposed bridge specification changes for higher-strength concrete (FHWA-HRT-05-057, Appendix C) notes unit weights ranging from about 140 to 155 lb/ft³, rising with compressive strength. Its proposed dead-load values for 5,000–15,000 psi concrete are 140 + 0.001 f'c for plain concrete and 145 + 0.001 f'c for reinforced. At 5,000 psi, that's 145 lb/ft³ plain and 150 lb/ft³ reinforced.
Bagged premix: the Quikrete Concrete Mix 1101 data sheet lists a typical unit weight of approximately 140 lb/ft³ (ASTM C138).

The FHWA reinforced figure shows something useful: steel adds about 5 lb/ft³ in that formula. For flatwork with light mesh or a few bars, the difference is small. For heavily reinforced structural members it isn't, and that weight goes in the truck with the rest of the debris when you demo it.

For quick field math, 145 lb/ft³ is a reasonable middle and 150 lb/ft³ is a reasonable heavy-side number. The Jobsite Reel app uses about 151 lb/ft³ for removal tons, through the SF ÷ 159 rule, so its haul-off estimates lean slightly high rather than low.

Weight of concrete per square foot by thickness

For slabs, sidewalks and driveways you usually know square feet and thickness, not cubic feet. Convert thickness to feet and multiply:

lb per SF = thickness (in) ÷ 12 × lb per ft³

Thickness	At 140 lb/ft³	At 145 lb/ft³	At 150 lb/ft³	159 rule (≈151)
4 in	46.7 lb	48.3 lb	50.0 lb	50.3 lb
5 in	58.3 lb	60.4 lb	62.5 lb	62.9 lb
6 in	70.0 lb	72.5 lb	75.0 lb	75.5 lb
8 in	93.3 lb	96.7 lb	100.0 lb	100.6 lb

A handy shortcut at 150 lb/ft³: 12.5 lb per square foot per inch of thickness. A 5 × 5 ft sidewalk panel at 4 inches is 25 SF × 50 lb, about 1,250 lb, which is why one panel is a machine job, not a two-person carry.

How much does a bag of concrete weigh vs what it yields?

A bag's label weight is the dry mix. What you get out of it is volume, and the yield is printed on the bag and the manufacturer's data sheet. Quikrete's data sheet for its standard Concrete Mix lists:

Bag (dry weight)	Yield	Bags per cubic yard	Dry mix per cubic yard
40 lb	≈ 0.30 ft³	90	3,600 lb
60 lb	≈ 0.45 ft³	60	3,600 lb
80 lb	≈ 0.60 ft³	45	3,600 lb

Every bag size works out to the same 3,600 lb of dry mix per yard. Then you add water. The same data sheet calls for roughly 6 to 9 pints of water per 80 lb bag. At 45 bags, that's about 34 to 51 gallons, or roughly 280 to 420 lb of water at 8.34 lb per gallon. Dry mix plus water lands near 3,880 to 4,020 lb per yard, inside the same neighborhood as the published range. (The data sheet's own unit weight figure is approximately 140 lb/ft³; yields are approximate, so don't expect the numbers to tie out to the pound.)

Two practical takeaways. First, if you're hauling bags in a pickup or on a trailer, a yard's worth is 3,600 lb before you've added a drop of water; check your payload. Second, to figure how many bags a job needs, use our concrete calculator, which counts 40, 60 and 80 lb bags with waste.

Wet vs cured concrete weight

Published unit weights, including the IM 340 range, are measured on fresh concrete: a known container filled with plastic concrete and weighed. After placement, part of the mix water combines with the cement and stays in the concrete, and some evaporates as it dries. So hardened concrete can weigh a little less than it did coming down the chute.

How much less depends on the mix, the curing and the environment, and we're not going to put a single number on it. For the questions contractors actually ask, like truck payloads, a trailer rating or disposal tons on old concrete, that difference is small next to the 140–150 lb/ft³ spread between mixes. Most estimators use one number for both and lean to the heavy side.

Lightweight concrete weighs less

Not all concrete is normal weight. Structural lightweight concrete uses manufactured lightweight aggregate such as expanded shale, clay or slate. An April 2025 article in STRUCTURE magazine, written by a technical consultant at a lightweight aggregate producer, puts it at typically 110–125 lb/ft³, with mixes designed as low as 90 lb/ft³, versus 140–155 lb/ft³ for normal weight. You'll mostly see it in elevated decks and bridges, not in sidewalks, curbs or driveways. If you're tearing out flatwork, assume normal weight unless you know otherwise.

Haul-off example: tearing out a sidewalk

Disposal sites and trucks care about weight, so removal is priced and planned in tons. The quick way to get there from square feet is the 159 rule:

Removal tons = square feet ÷ 159 × thickness (in)

Where it comes from: one square foot one inch thick is 1/12 of a cubic foot. At about 151 lb/ft³ that's 12.6 lb, and 2,000 ÷ 12.6 ≈ 159 square-foot-inches per ton. It's the same divisor paving crews use in our asphalt tonnage calculator, and the one the Jobsite Reel app uses for sidewalk and curb removal.

The job

Say you're replacing a run of HOA sidewalk: 180 ft of 5 ft walk at 4 inches, plus one driveway crossing, 12 × 20 ft, poured at 6 inches.

Walk: 5 × 180 = 900 SF. Tons: 900 ÷ 159 × 4 = 22.64 tons
Driveway crossing: 12 × 20 = 240 SF. Tons: 240 ÷ 159 × 6 = 9.06 tons
Total: 31.70 tons of concrete to haul
Volume check: 300 ft³ + 120 ft³ = 420 ft³ = 15.56 CY in place; 420 × 150.9 ÷ 2,000 = 31.70 tons ✓

How sensitive is that to the density assumption?

Assumed unit weight	Walk (300 ft³)	Crossing (120 ft³)	Total
140 lb/ft³	21.00 tons	8.40 tons	29.40 tons
145 lb/ft³	21.75 tons	8.70 tons	30.45 tons
150 lb/ft³	22.50 tons	9.00 tons	31.50 tons
159 rule (≈150.9)	22.64 tons	9.06 tons	31.70 tons

The spread is about 2.3 tons on a 30-ton job. The 159 rule sits at the top, which is where you want a disposal estimate: if the scale ticket comes in lighter, nobody complains.

Truck loads

Divide total tons by your truck's legal payload. We won't guess at that number; it depends on the truck, axle configuration and local rules. As an illustration only, a truck rated for 14 tons of payload would need 31.70 ÷ 14 = 2.26, so 3 loads.

Then check volume. Broken concrete doesn't pack as tightly as it sat in the slab, so the same tons take up more room in the bed than the 15.56 CY in place. On thin slabs and light trucks, weight usually governs; with big slabs or a high-sided box, check that the pieces actually fit.

For the full pricing picture, including sawcutting, forming and replacement yards, see our concrete sidewalk replacement cost guide. For curb, where you work from linear feet and cross-section, the curb and gutter calculator gives removal tons too.

Keeping the numbers with the job

Haul-off estimates go wrong for the same reason pour orders do: a panel missed, a thickness assumed, a driveway crossing forgotten. Jobsite Reel keeps each area's photos, measurements, GPS pin and quantities together on your iPhone. For a sidewalk item it shows square feet, removal tons (SF ÷ 159 × depth) and replacement yards as soon as you type the dimensions, and the PDF report totals them by folder with a satellite map of every numbered area. The 159 divisor and waste percentage are editable in Settings if your shop uses different numbers.

Field note: iPhone GPS is typically good to about 10–16 ft in open sky. Good enough to find each repair again and show a board where the work is; not a survey.