Land value guide
How much is an acre of land worth?
There is no single price for an acre of land, and any source that gives you one number is selling something. What an acre is worth depends on where it sits and what it can do. This guide gives you the honest benchmark, USDA state cropland values, explains what actually moves an acre's worth, and is clear about the line AgriTerra does not cross: we do not put a market value on your parcel.
Why there is no single answer
An acre is a fixed size, 43,560 square feet, but value is not a property of size. A road-fronting acre zoned for houses near a growing town and a poorly drained back acre in a low-value county are the same size and can differ in worth by more than ten to one. Price is set by soil, drainage, access, water, zoning, and the local market, so the only honest starting point is a benchmark and a list of what adjusts it, not a single figure.
The USDA benchmark: state cropland values
The most defensible public benchmark for farmland is the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) cropland value survey. It reports the average value of an acre of cropland by state, updated each year. The table below is the latest release. Two things to hold onto as you read it: these are state averages, so no single parcel is priced by them, and they measure cropland value, which is the crop ground itself, not whole-farm real estate value, a separate USDA series that also counts buildings and improvements.
| State | Cropland value ($/acre) | Survey year |
|---|---|---|
| Rhode Island | $34,300 | 2026 |
| Massachusetts | $26,600 | 2026 |
| Connecticut | $23,200 | 2026 |
| California | $18,430 | 2026 |
| New Jersey | $17,100 | 2026 |
| Florida | $11,100 | 2026 |
| Iowa | $10,700 | 2026 |
| Illinois | $10,200 | 2026 |
| New Hampshire | $10,100 | 2026 |
| Ohio | $10,100 | 2026 |
| Pennsylvania | $9,800 | 2026 |
| Delaware | $9,550 | 2026 |
| Maryland | $9,250 | 2026 |
| Indiana | $8,600 | 2026 |
| Arizona | $8,300 | 2026 |
| Wisconsin | $7,600 | 2026 |
| Minnesota | $7,300 | 2026 |
| Nebraska | $6,960 | 2026 |
| Kentucky | $6,630 | 2026 |
| Michigan | $6,600 | 2026 |
| Tennessee | $6,400 | 2026 |
| Virginia | $6,400 | 2026 |
| Idaho | $6,170 | 2026 |
| Utah | $6,040 | 2026 |
| North Carolina | $5,580 | 2026 |
| Missouri | $5,310 | 2026 |
| South Dakota | $4,770 | 2026 |
| Maine | $4,700 | 2026 |
| Georgia | $4,670 | 2026 |
| Alabama | $4,650 | 2026 |
| Oregon | $4,540 | 2026 |
| Vermont | $4,450 | 2026 |
| West Virginia | $4,400 | 2026 |
| New York | $4,150 | 2026 |
| South Carolina | $4,100 | 2026 |
| Mississippi | $4,060 | 2026 |
| Arkansas | $3,850 | 2026 |
| Louisiana | $3,660 | 2026 |
| Kansas | $3,540 | 2026 |
| Washington | $3,540 | 2026 |
| Nevada | $3,090 | 2026 |
| Colorado | $2,960 | 2026 |
| North Dakota | $2,800 | 2026 |
| Texas | $2,790 | 2026 |
| Oklahoma | $2,560 | 2026 |
| New Mexico | $2,090 | 2026 |
| Wyoming | $2,080 | 2026 |
| Montana | $1,350 | 2026 |
State-average cropland value from the USDA NASS Land Values 2026 summary. This is cropland value, not whole-farm real estate value (a separate NASS series that includes buildings). A state average is a benchmark, not the price of any specific parcel. Values span from $1,350 per acre (Montana) to $34,300 (Rhode Island). 48 states are reported; states NASS does not separately publish for the latest year are not shown.
Read the spread, not just a single row. The gap between the top and bottom states is enormous, and within any one state the range from the weakest to the strongest county is just as wide. A state average is the right anchor for a rough sense of scale and a starting point for a conversation. It is the wrong tool for pricing a specific parcel, which is why the next section matters more than the table.
What moves an acre's value
Once you have the benchmark, value is a set of adjustments up or down from it. The big ones are physical, and they are exactly the traits federal soil and water data can describe:
- Soil productivity: how much the ground can grow. Higher-yielding soils carry higher value, which is why a soil productivity read is the closest thing to a value driver you can measure from data.
- Drainage and wetness: well-drained ground outperforms and outvalues wet ground, and poorly drained or hydric acres can pull an average down hard.
- Access: road frontage, legal access, and distance to markets and utilities. An acre you cannot easily reach is worth less than one you can.
- Water: irrigation, water rights, and flood risk all move value, up for reliable water, down for flood exposure.
- Use and zoning: the same acre is worth one thing as cropland and another as a building lot. The highest legal use sets the ceiling.
AgriTerra reads soil productivity, drainage, water, and flood risk from federal data for any parcel, which is how you get from a state benchmark to something specific to your ground, without anyone inventing a sale price.
Farmland versus development land
The single biggest value split is farmland versus development land. Priced as cropland, an acre is worth what its production can support, the range in the table above. Priced as land a builder wants, near a growing town, with road and utility access and the right zoning, the same acre can be worth many times that. This is why a headline "price per acre" is meaningless without knowing which market the land actually sits in. A back forty in a rural county and an acre at the edge of a spreading suburb are not in the same market at all, even if they touch.
The line we do not cross
Here is the honest boundary, and it is the reason this page can be trusted where lead-gen "what's my land worth" pages cannot. AgriTerra does not produce market valuations or appraisals. We do not put a sale price on your parcel, and we will not pretend a state average is one. A real valuation is the work of a licensed appraiser who inspects the property, pulls local comparable sales, and signs an opinion of value.
What AgriTerra does instead is assemble the facts that drive value, the USDA cropland benchmark for your area, your parcel's soil productivity, drainage, water, and flood risk, into one plain-language read, so you walk into a conversation with an appraiser, a lender, or a buyer already knowing what your ground is and is not. That is a better-informed starting point, not a number pretending to be the answer.
To keep going, see how big an acre is, how to calculate acreage for your parcel, how sections and legal descriptions work, and what a plat map records. Since soil productivity is the value driver you can actually measure, see how to read a soil survey, the soil productivity index, and what farmland produces. For how every figure here is sourced and labeled, see how we get our numbers.
Land value: frequently asked questions
- How much is an acre of land worth?
- There is no single answer, because value depends on where the land is and what it can do. As a benchmark for farmland, USDA NASS reports state-average cropland values that range widely, from about $1,350 per acre in Montana to about $34,300 in Rhode Island for 2026. Those are state averages, not the price of any specific parcel.
- What is the average price of an acre of farmland?
- It varies enormously by state. In the Corn Belt, USDA NASS put 2026 average cropland value near the five-figure mark per acre in the strongest states, while cropland in parts of the Mountain West and Southern Plains averages a few thousand dollars an acre. Use the state table on this page as a benchmark, not a quote, and remember it measures cropland, not whole-farm real estate.
- Why is one acre worth so much more than another?
- Because acreage is only the size. Two acres of the same size can differ by an order of magnitude in value based on soil productivity, drainage, road and utility access, water, zoning, and whether the highest use is farming or development. A poorly drained back acre and a road-fronting building acre are the same size and nothing alike in worth.
- Is cropland value the same as farm real estate value?
- No. USDA NASS reports them as separate series. Cropland value covers the crop ground itself. Farm real estate value covers all farmland plus the buildings and improvements on it, so it is usually a different, often higher, number. The table on this page is cropland value, labeled as such.
- Can AgriTerra tell me what my land is worth?
- No. AgriTerra does not produce market valuations or appraisals, and it does not put a sale price on your parcel. What it does is pull the federal benchmarks and physical facts that drive value, soil productivity, drainage, water, flood risk, and the USDA cropland benchmark for your area, into one plain-language read, so you can have a better-informed conversation with an appraiser, lender, or buyer.
Not a valuation. A better-informed starting point.
Pull your parcel's soil productivity, drainage, water, flood risk, and the USDA cropland benchmark for your area into one plain-language read, from federal data, free. AgriTerra does not appraise land or set a sale price.