How Much Does It Cost to Replace Carpet with Hardwood Floors?
Changing carpet to hardwood floors costs $12 to $30 per square foot all in, removal included. A 300 sq ft living room plans at $3,500 to $8,000, a 12x12 bedroom at $1,700 to $4,100. Carpet removal is the cheap part at $0.70 to $1.60 per sq ft.
Planning figures, not contractor quotes. How we calculate
Short answer
Replacing carpet with hardwood typically runs $2,400 to $6,000 for a 200 sq ft bedroom in solid hardwood, or $2,000 to $5,000 in engineered. A 500 sq ft living area plans at $6,000 to $15,000 in solid and $5,000 to $12,500 in engineered. These totals are derived from the combined all-in bands of $12 to $30 per square foot for solid and $10 to $25 for engineered, carpet removal included. Removal is the cheap step; the wood and the condition of the subfloor set the final quote.
Cost summary
Estimates per square foot. See the cited sources and methodology before using these figures for a decision.
| Cost level | Estimate |
|---|---|
| Low | $12.00 |
| Typical | $20.00 |
| High | $30.00 |
Calculate your planning range
Enter rates from your own quotes or research. We do not supply unverified local prices.
What you'll actually pay
Replacing carpet with hardwood is two projects stacked together: tearing out the old carpet, then installing new wood. The combined planning range is $12 to $30 per square foot for solid hardwood, and the hardwood does nearly all the heavy lifting. Carpet removal is cheap. Wood is not.
Here is how the two stack up. Carpet removal runs $0.70 to $1.60 per square foot (HomeGuide) or $1 to $5 (Angi, which folds in waste disposal and cleanup). Solid hardwood installs at $11 to $25 per square foot (HomeGuide, corroborated by HomeAdvisor's $10 to $25 band). Add the two together and you get the $12 to $30 all-in band. Engineered hardwood at $9 to $20 installed brings the combined band down to roughly $10 to $25 per square foot.
Sources: Angi: How Much Does Replacing a Carpet Cost? [2026 Data], HomeGuide: Carpet vs. Laminate Cost (2026), HomeAdvisor: How Much Does Hardwood Floor Installation Cost? [2025 Data], HomeGuide: How Much Does Engineered Hardwood Vs. Hardwood Cost? (2026)
How much does it cost to change carpet to hardwood floors?
Changing carpet to hardwood floors costs $12 to $30 per square foot all in, with carpet removal and hardwood installation wrapped into one project. That works out to $1,700 to $4,100 for a 12x12 bedroom, $3,500 to $8,000 for a 300 sq ft living room with a sound subfloor, and $11,700 to $26,600 for a full 1,000 sq ft house.
Carpet removal is the cheap step at $0.70 to $1.60 per square foot; solid hardwood installation at $11 to $25 per square foot is what drives the total. The wildcard is the subfloor: damage found after tear-out can add $500 to $3,000. Ask for removal, wood, and a subfloor contingency as separate line items so competing quotes stay comparable.
Sources: HomeGuide: Carpet vs. Laminate Cost (2026), HomeAdvisor: How Much Does Hardwood Floor Installation Cost? [2025 Data], HomeGuide: How Much Does Engineered Hardwood Vs. Hardwood Cost? (2026)
Should I choose solid or engineered hardwood for a carpet replacement?
Solid hardwood installs at $11 to $25 per square foot nationally, with $18 as the number to budget around (HomeGuide, corroborated by HomeAdvisor's $10 to $25 band). Materials run $6 to $15 per square foot and labor $5 to $10, roughly half and half. Paired with carpet removal at $0.70 to $1.60 per square foot, the all-in carpet-to-solid-hardwood project lands at $12 to $30 per square foot.
Engineered hardwood installs at $9 to $20 per square foot, and its labor runs $3 to $8 because the boards go down faster than solid. The combined carpet-to-engineered project runs about $10 to $25 per square foot all in, which is why it is the middle path for budget-driven swaps.
Your finish choice moves you inside the band. Prefinished solid boards at $5 to $15 per square foot installed (HomeAdvisor) are the budget route: durable factory finish, fast installation, fixed colors. Unfinished wood, sanded and finished on site, sits at the high end with custom colors. For a carpet-to-hardwood swap, most homeowners land near the middle, because the job is one clean surface with no existing wood to match.
Side by side, from the figures cited above:
| Solid hardwood | Engineered hardwood | |
|---|---|---|
| Installed cost per sq ft | $11 to $25 | $9 to $20 |
| All-in with carpet removal, per sq ft | $12 to $30 | $10 to $25 |
| Installation labor per sq ft | $5 to $10 | $3 to $8 |
Sources: HomeAdvisor: How Much Does Hardwood Floor Installation Cost? [2025 Data], HomeGuide: How Much Does Engineered Hardwood Vs. Hardwood Cost? (2026), HomeGuide: How Much Does Flooring Installation Cost? (2026)
Step one: getting the carpet out
This is the cheapest step, and the one most people overthink. HomeGuide puts carpet removal at $0.70 to $1.60 per square foot, or $140 to $320 per room. Fixr reports $0.50 to $3.10 per square foot and a national average of $186 to remove and dispose of carpet with padding from a 200 square foot room plus stairs. For a straightforward stretch-in carpet, removal is a few hundred dollars, not a few thousand.
Two things can push it up. Glued-down carpet runs $0.75 to $1.80 per square foot per HomeGuide, because the glue fights back. And disposal is sometimes a separate line item: HomeGuide reports hauling and dump fees at $0.45 to $0.60 per square foot, or $50 to $100 on average. Before you compare quotes, confirm whether disposal is included. The cheapest removal quote is not cheap if it leaves you with a curb full of carpet rolls.
Sources: HomeGuide: Carpet Removal Cost | HomeGuide, Fixr: Carpet Removal Cost | Fixr, HomeGuide: Carpet vs. Laminate Cost (2026)
Step two: the subfloor check
Between removal and installation sits the wildcard: what the crew finds under the carpet. A plywood subfloor in good condition adds nothing. Damage adds a lot. Targeted repair of a bad section runs $500 to $700 for a single room per Fixr, and HomeAdvisor prices subfloor repairs at $900 to $3,000 per project. Full subfloor replacement runs $3 to $10 per square foot per HomeAdvisor, $2.20 to $4.75 per HomeGuide, and $3.50 to $12 per Fixr.
You cannot price this sight unseen, which is why smart contractors assess the subfloor before quoting the wood. If your quote has no subfloor contingency and the subfloor condition is unknown, treat that as a warning sign, not a bargain. Mid-project subfloor repairs are the most common reason flooring quotes overrun, and they are discovered exactly when you have no leverage left. Our flooring removal and subfloor repair cost guide prices subfloor fixes on their own.
Sources: Fixr: Subfloor Replacement Cost | Fixr, HomeAdvisor: How Much Does Flooring Installation Cost in 2025? | HomeAdvisor, HomeGuide: Carpet Removal Cost | HomeGuide, HomeAdvisor: How Much Does Hardwood Floor Installation Cost? [2025 Data]
Step three: hardwood goes in
This is the project. Solid hardwood installs at $11 to $25 per square foot nationally, with $18 as the planning midpoint per HomeGuide. Labor is roughly half the installed cost: materials $6 to $15 per square foot, labor $5 to $10, for solid. Engineered hardwood at $9 to $20 installed is the middle path, with cheaper labor at $3 to $8 per square foot because the boards go down faster. Our hardwood floor installation cost guide breaks new-floor pricing down by species and finish.
Your species and finish choices decide where you land in that band. Prefinished solid boards at $5 to $15 per square foot installed are the budget route: durable factory finish, fast installation, fixed colors. Unfinished wood, sanded and finished on site, sits at the high end. For a carpet-to-hardwood swap, most homeowners land near the middle, because the job is one clean surface with no existing wood to match.
Sources: HomeAdvisor: How Much Does Hardwood Floor Installation Cost? [2025 Data], HomeGuide: How Much Does Engineered Hardwood Vs. Hardwood Cost? (2026), HomeGuide: How Much Does Flooring Installation Cost? (2026)
Real room math: bedroom, living room, whole house
A 12x12 bedroom is 144 square feet. Carpet removal plans at $100 to $230 (HomeGuide's $0.70 to $1.60), hardwood installation at $1,584 low to $3,600 high (HomeGuide's $11 to $25), so the combined project runs about $1,700 to $4,100 with a sound subfloor. These are simple arithmetic on the published per-square-foot rates, not separate datasets.
A 15x20 living room is 300 square feet. Removal runs $210 to $480 on HomeGuide's band, hardwood $3,300 to $7,500, for a combined $3,500 to $8,000. This lands inside HomeAdvisor's typical hardwood project band of $2,469 to $7,034 at the low end, which is the sanity check you want: a real room quote should sit near the project-level bands, not far outside them.
A whole house at 1,000 square feet: removal $700 to $1,600, hardwood $11,000 to $25,000, combined $11,700 to $26,600. Larger jobs often get a lower per-square-foot rate, so the low end is where most whole-house quotes land. Small rooms carry minimum charges, so a single tiny bedroom can price above the per-square-foot math.
Working with a different floor plan? Run your own room dimensions through our flooring cost calculator to see where your project lands in the band.
Sources: HomeGuide: Carpet Removal Cost | HomeGuide, HomeAdvisor: How Much Does Hardwood Floor Installation Cost? [2025 Data], HomeGuide: How Much Does Engineered Hardwood Vs. Hardwood Cost? (2026), HomeGuide: Carpet vs. Laminate Cost (2026)
Carpet to hardwood cost by room size
Per-square-foot bands hide what a real room actually costs, so here are the totals. Each figure is this guide's combined all-in band multiplied by the room area, carpet removal included, which makes them planning totals rather than quotes.
| Room size | Solid hardwood total (derived) | Engineered hardwood total (derived) |
|---|---|---|
| 150 sq ft | $1,800 to $4,500 | $1,500 to $3,750 |
| 200 sq ft | $2,400 to $6,000 | $2,000 to $5,000 |
| 300 sq ft | $3,600 to $9,000 | $3,000 to $7,500 |
| 500 sq ft | $6,000 to $15,000 | $5,000 to $12,500 |
The worked examples above price removal and installation as separate line items and round as they go, so a specific room can land slightly inside these bands. What sits outside them is subfloor damage: if the floor under the carpet is suspect, add the contingency from the subfloor step on top.
Sources: Angi: How Much Does Replacing a Carpet Cost? [2026 Data], HomeGuide: Carpet Removal Cost | HomeGuide, HomeAdvisor: How Much Does Hardwood Floor Installation Cost? [2025 Data], HomeGuide: How Much Does Engineered Hardwood Vs. Hardwood Cost? (2026)
Stairs: priced per step, not per square foot
A staircase is not floor area, and no installer prices it by the square foot. Hardwood on stairs adds $75 to $200 per stair (HomeAdvisor), on top of the room math rather than inside it. Carpet removal on stairs runs $7 to $10 per stair (HomeGuide). A quote that folds the staircase into the square footage is hiding one of the steepest lines in the job.
If your swap includes a staircase, get it itemized as its own line: the number of steps, the removal per step, and the install per step. It is the easiest place for an attractive quote to grow later, and the hardest to argue about once the carpet is already up.
Sources: HomeAdvisor: How Much Does Hardwood Floor Installation Cost? [2025 Data], HomeAdvisor: How Much Does Flooring Installation Cost in 2025? | HomeAdvisor, HomeGuide: Carpet Removal Cost | HomeGuide
Doing it yourself: where DIY saves, and where it backfires
Removal is the step where doing it yourself realistically saves money. Professional removal runs $0.70 to $1.60 per square foot (HomeGuide), and pulling up a straightforward stretch-in carpet is the simplest work in the whole project. Two catches come straight from the removal pricing. Glued-down carpet fights back, which is why pros charge $0.75 to $1.80 per square foot for it. And disposal is not free either way: hauling and dump fees run $0.45 to $0.60 per square foot, or $50 to $100 on average (HomeGuide), and if you haul the carpet yourself, the dump fee is yours.
The subfloor check is where DIY gets risky. Damage is hard to price even for pros, targeted repair runs $500 to $700 per room (Fixr), and a homeowner who lays new wood over a bad subfloor owns the squeaks, the sag, and the rework. Whatever else you hand off, do the inspection in the subfloor step before any new wood goes down.
Installation is the step most homeowners should leave to a crew. Labor is roughly half the installed cost of solid hardwood, with materials at $6 to $15 and labor at $5 to $10 per square foot, so the theoretical saving is the biggest of the three steps. It is also the least forgiving: where a project lands in the $11 to $25 band turns on finish quality and on surprises under the floor, and neither rewards a first attempt. None of our cited sources publish tool rental pricing for this job, so any rental figure a retailer quotes you is their number, not a published one.
Sources: HomeGuide: Carpet Removal Cost | HomeGuide, Fixr: Carpet Removal Cost | Fixr, HomeAdvisor: How Much Does Hardwood Floor Installation Cost? [2025 Data]
What surprises cost extra
Subfloor damage is the big one, covered above: $500 to $700 per room for targeted repair, up to $3 to $10 per square foot for full replacement. It is found after tear-out, when the room is already empty and the crew is standing around, so build a contingency instead of hoping for the best.
Stairs price separately and steeply. Hardwood on stairs adds $75 to $200 per stair per HomeAdvisor, against carpet removal on stairs at $7 to $10 per stair per HomeGuide. If your swap includes a staircase, get it itemized. Furniture moving is the other common extra: none of our published sources price it as a flooring line item, so expect the installer to charge for it or require the rooms cleared before arrival. Ask which it is before the crew shows up, not after.
Sources: HomeAdvisor: How Much Does Hardwood Floor Installation Cost? [2025 Data], HomeGuide: Carpet Removal Cost | HomeGuide, HomeAdvisor: How Much Does Flooring Installation Cost in 2025? | HomeAdvisor, Fixr: Subfloor Replacement Cost | Fixr
What these numbers can and can't tell you
Confidence is medium. The removal figures rest on HomeGuide, Fixr, and HomeAdvisor publisher data, and the hardwood figures on HomeAdvisor's 10,000-customer survey corroborated by HomeGuide's 2026 member-reported costs. No government or manufacturer dataset publishes national carpet-to-hardwood project figures, so the combined bands here are arithmetic on the two project types, not a single published dataset.
These are 2025 to 2026 nominal US dollars and national planning figures. They exclude furniture moving charges, regional labor premiums, and premium species or finish upgrades. Get the subfloor assessed, confirm disposal is in the quote, and get at least three itemized quotes before you sign.
Sources: HomeAdvisor: How Much Does Hardwood Floor Installation Cost? [2025 Data], HomeGuide: Carpet Removal Cost | HomeGuide, Fixr: Carpet Removal Cost | Fixr
Sources
- Fixr: Subfloor Replacement Cost | Fixr (accessed 2026-10-01)
- HomeAdvisor: How Much Does Hardwood Floor Installation Cost? [2025 Data] (accessed 2026-09-29)
- HomeGuide: How Much Does Engineered Hardwood Vs. Hardwood Cost? (2026) (accessed 2026-09-29)
- HomeGuide: How Much Does Flooring Installation Cost? (2026) (accessed 2026-10-04)
- Fixr: Carpet Removal Cost | Fixr (accessed 2026-10-01)
- Angi: How Much Does Replacing a Carpet Cost? [2026 Data] (accessed 2026-10-04)
- HomeGuide: Carpet Removal Cost | HomeGuide (accessed 2026-10-01)
- HomeAdvisor: How Much Does Flooring Installation Cost in 2025? | HomeAdvisor (accessed 2026-10-01)
- HomeGuide: Carpet vs. Laminate Cost (2026) (accessed 2026-10-04)
Frequently asked questions
How much does a flooring project cost?
Replacing carpet with hardwood typically runs $2,400 to $6,000 for a 200 sq ft bedroom in solid hardwood, or $2,000 to $5,000 in engineered. A 500 sq ft living area plans at $6,000 to $15,000 in solid and $5,000 to $12,500 in engineered. These totals are derived from the combined all-in bands of $12 to $30 per square foot for solid and $10 to $25 for engineered, carpet removal included. Removal is the cheap step; the wood and the condition of the subfloor set the final quote.
Why is there a cost range instead of a single price?
Project costs move with scope, finish level, and local labor rates. This guide splits the national planning range into low, typical, and high levels, and the scope sections explain what pushes a project toward each end. Use the range to budget, then collect itemized contractor quotes for your exact project.
Are these figures contractor quotes?
No. They are national planning ranges compiled from published, cited sources, shown with their assumptions and limitations. Treat them as a budgeting starting point, not a bid. Our methodology page explains how every figure is sourced and reviewed.
