Costs for forest roads doubled since 2019

Nyhet | Statistik - 16 June 2026

The cost for forest roads have increased rapidly the past few years according to The Swedish Forest Agence and Skogforsk latest survey. During 2025 the average road cost per cubic meter of felled timber was SEK 60, in 2019 the same cost was SEK 28.

Forestry incurs costs for the construction and maintenance of forest roads used to transport machinery and timber from the felling site to the public road network. The cost of these roads is surveyed in relation to the volume of timber harvested.

During the 2010s, the relative cost of forest roads rose from around SEK 20 per cubic metre of harvested to approximately SEK 30 per cubic metre. Since then, costs have increased sharply to SEK 60 per cubic metre in 2025. If inflation is taken into account, there remains a 70 percent increase in cost between 2019 and 2025 using fixed prices. During the same years, net fellings have increased firstly by 3 percent from 2019 to 2022 and then reduced by 8 percent to 2025.

Forest road costs have previously had periods of strong increase. From 2004 until 2012 costs increased by 160 percent, or 135 percent using fixed prices.

Other forestry costs also continued to increase during 2025. The average cost of fellings (in current prices), have increased by:

• 4 percent to SEK 144 per cubic metre for regeneration harvest.
• 3 percent to SEK 287 per cubic metre for thinning.

The pace of the cost increase is equal to the previous year of 2024.
The cost for regeneration felling increased in both northern and southern Sweden during 2025, by 1 and 5 percent. The cost for thinning increased by 3 percent in both northern and southern Sweden.

The Swedish Forest Agency and Skogforsk have produced these statistics since 1996. Since then, the cost of regeneration felling in current prices has increased by 60 percent while thinning has increased by almost 90 per cent. In fixed prices, with the reference year 1996, the cost for regeneration felling has decreased by 2 percent since 1996 and the cost for thinning has risen by 15 percent.

Costs for silvicultural measures including pre-commercial thinning

During 2025 most costs for silviculture also increased. The costs for:

• clear-cut cleaning increased by 8 percent to SEK 2 250 per hectare
• scarification has increased by 15 percent to SEK 3 770 per hectare
• planting (including plants) has increased marginally to SEK 7 520 per hectare
  sowing has increased by 1 percent to SEK 6 440 per hectare
• supplementary planting has decreased by 12 percent to SEK 4 600 per hectare
• precommercial thinning has increased by 7 percent to SEK 3 860 per hectare
• fertilization and liming have decreased by 6 percent to SEK 3 190 per hectare

Explanation

These statistics are volume weighted or area-weighted and relate to current or fixed prices. The fixed prices have the reference year 1996 and are based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to adjust for inflation. Volume in cubic metre solid volume under bark.

The survey population is large scale forestry with an ownership of more than 16 000 hectares forest land or an annual felling of more than 50 000 m³.
The survey is a collaboration between the Swedish Forest Agency and Skogforsk (The Forestry Research Institute of Sweden) and is included in Sweden’s official statistics.

For a comparison with other price developments in the economy the producer price index or home market price index is recommended, it is made available by Statistics Sweden here:

Producer and import price index (scb.se)

The estimations are also available in the web-based statistical database.