Cost in Richmond?
How Much Does Junk Removal
Cost in Richmond?
Updated for 2026, with no "we'll quote on arrival." Here are real Richmond prices — flat, photo-quoted before the truck rolls, disposal included, and with no Virginia sales tax on the service. Below the tables you'll find what actually drives the cost here, the free City program worth knowing about, and how the national franchises' rates compare.
The short answer
In Richmond, a single item runs from the $75 minimum up to a few hundred dollars for the heavy stuff, and a cleanout is priced by how much of the truck it fills — $241 for a quarter truck up to $732 for a full 16-yard load. Every price is flat and quoted from a photo before anyone shows up, disposal is already in the number, and Virginia doesn't tax the service, so there's no sales-tax line on top. No hourly meter, no trip fee, no day-of re-quote.
Single-item prices in Richmond (2026)
The pieces people ask about most, at the flat rate we'd quote from a photo:
| Item | Flat price |
|---|---|
| Sofa / couch | $126 |
| Loveseat | $119 |
| Sleeper sofa | $149 |
| Sectional (3-piece) | $185 |
| Queen mattress | $103 |
| King mattress | $114 |
| Dresser | $126 |
| Refrigerator | $164 |
| Washer / dryer | $133 / $128 |
| Treadmill | $115 |
| TV (small to large) | $62–$98 |
| Hot tub | $390 |
$75 minimum. A single small item is priced up to the minimum; pair it with anything else and it's covered. Multiple items add up per piece.
Cleanout / truck-fill prices
Garage, basement, apartment, estate and debris jobs price by how much of the 16-yard truck you fill.
| Volume | Flat price |
|---|---|
| 1/4 truck | $241 |
| 1/2 truck | $431 |
| 3/4 truck | $587 |
| Full truck | $732 |
$75 minimum. Disposal included. No Virginia sales tax on the service.
What it costs by job, roughly
To put those numbers in context, here's how a typical Richmond job tends to land:
- One or two items (a couch, or a mattress and box spring) — usually $103–$185, at or above the $75 minimum.
- A single room cleared (bedroom or living-room furniture) — often a quarter truck, around $241.
- A garage or basement full of years of stuff — commonly a quarter to half truck, $241–$431.
- A whole apartment or English-basement unit at move-out — a half to three-quarter truck, $431–$587.
- A whole-home downsize or estate cleanout — often a full truck at $732, sometimes more than one load.
These are guides, not quotes — the exact flat number always comes from your photos, so you see it before you book.
Why Richmond prices work the way they do
Two local facts keep the numbers fair here. First, disposal is cheap in Central Virginia. The regional landfills and transfer stations serving the Richmond metro tip well below the coastal and West Coast metros — a fraction of what a hauler pays per ton in Seattle or New York — so we can price cleanouts and truck-fill on the value of the volume instead of padding every load for dump fees.
Second, Virginia doesn't tax the service. The Commonwealth generally doesn't apply sales tax to services, and a junk-removal service provided independently of any sale of goods is nontaxable — the Virginia Tax Ruling 14-153 line is that a disposal fee is only taxable when it's bundled with the sale of an item. Full-service haul-away sells nothing and leaves nothing behind, so it falls on the untaxed side. That's genuinely different from Dallas (where Texas taxes junk removal at 8.25%) or Seattle (which adds a refuse tax) — in Richmond, the flat price is the whole price, with no add-on. On top of those two, Richmond's mostly low-rise, easy-access suburbs mean far fewer walk-ups, COIs and access surcharges than a dense coastal city — another reason the number can stay flat.
The free option: City of Richmond Bulk & Brush
Before you pay anyone, it's worth knowing what the City already offers — and where it stops. The Department of Public Works runs a free Bulk & Brush program: biweekly curbside collection tied to your recycling week, with items placed by the trash cans the night before. Brush has to be cut and bundled, appliances have their own handling rules, and everything has to be at the curb — you do all the lifting, and you wait for your collection day (up to about two weeks out). Schedule it through DPW at 804-646-6430 or 3-1-1 (804-646-7000). The City also runs free seasonal Neighborhood Cleanup sweeps on select Saturdays that rotate through 15 zones between mid-March and early November, and city residents can self-haul to a CVWMA convenience center (with a roughly $15 handling fee on freon appliances).
Those are real, and if the item's already at your curb and you can wait, they're free. The gap our flat price fills is everything the City won't do: the same-day timing, the carry out of the house — up from a basement, down from a Fan walk-up, out of a no-driveway rowhouse — and the loads that are simply too big or too soon for a biweekly curbside route.
What the franchises charge (and why we quote flat)
For an honest comparison, here's what independent cost research shows the big names running in the Richmond metro. Third-party guide HomeGuide puts 1-800-GOT-JUNK's job average around $240, with loads ranging roughly $129 to $799+ depending on volume; College HUNKS Hauling Junk in Richmond quotes commonly land near $370 for a half truck and $590 for a full one, with a typical single sofa around $160. Those are volume-based prices given on arrival, often before mattress fees, stair fees or trip charges get added.
Our numbers sit in the same range — the difference is how you get the price. We quote a flat number from a photo before we roll, with the disposal, the drive and the carry already in it, no on-site re-quote, and no Virginia sales tax on top. You know the total before you commit, and it doesn't move when the crew arrives.
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