Georgia Timber Prices 2026: Pulpwood Fell in All 159 Counties

Georgia timber prices for pine pulpwood fell in all 159 counties in the Department of Revenue’s 2026 timber value table, by 29.3% in Bulloch County’s row. Pine sawtimber there slipped 5.7% to $27.88 a ton, and hardwood sawtimber rose 13.4% to $39.31. That gap puts the mix of products in a stand at the top of any 2026 timber or land sale.

The Department of Revenue publishes the table each winter under O.C.G.A. § 48-5-7.5(g), as the weighted average price paid per ton for each timber product in each county or region. County assessors use it to value every owner harvest in the state. For 2026 the department also folded the 2025 table’s 18 price rows into two: a 107-county south row that includes Bulloch, and a 52-county north row.

Perspective Properties buys rural land for cash in Georgia and eight other states, and much of the Coastal Plain acreage we look at is farm or timber ground. Here is what the two 2026 rows say, per ton, against 2025.

What happened to Georgia timber prices between the 2025 and 2026 tables?

Georgia timber prices split by product in the 2026 table. Pine pulpwood fell in every one of the 159 counties, hardwood sawtimber rose in every one, and pine sawtimber fell in 116 counties while rising in 38. Bulloch’s south row lost 29.3% on pulpwood and 5.7% on sawtimber, and hardwood pulpwood fell in all 159 counties too.

The 2025 table of owner harvest values had 31 counties in blended rows between the main south and north prices. Sixteen of them joined the 2026 south row and fifteen joined the north row, and the move decided their result. McDuffie County went from $11.67 a ton of pulpwood to $6.67, a 42.8% cut, the largest in the state. Elbert lost 34.2%. Madison joined the south row and lost only 6.1%.

In the 2025 south row, a ton of pine sawtimber was worth 1.91 tons of pulpwood. In the 2026 table it is worth 2.54. A young plantation that is still mostly pulpwood lost far more on paper this year than a mature stand ready for a sawtimber cut, even on the same soil in the same county.

Why did pine pulpwood fall so hard in South Georgia?

University of Georgia Extension traces the slide to two forces in its January 2026 outlook: salvage wood from Hurricane Helene, and the closure of three containerboard mills. The Georgia-Pacific mill in Cedar Springs and International Paper’s Savannah and Riceboro sites had bought about 8.3 million tons of timber a year, roughly half from Georgia counties.

UGA’s Timber Situation and 2026 Outlook, written by forest economics and taxation specialist Yanshu Li and citing TimberMart-South, put South Georgia pine pulpwood stumpage at about $9.50 a ton in the third quarter of 2025. That was 40% below a year earlier. Pine sawtimber rose 5% to about $28 a ton and chip-n-saw rose 16% to $23.50, while mixed hardwood sawtimber fell 17% to about $26. North Georgia prices fell for all five products.

Mills kept taking salvaged Helene wood as pulpwood, which pushed that price down further, according to the same report. Georgia lost about 3 million tons of pulping capacity to the closures, and pulpwood is the market that thinnings and young pine stands sell into.

For 2026, UGA Extension expects sawtimber to hold steady across most of Georgia, with modest gains possible in parts of South Georgia where Helene thinned the inventory. It expects pulpwood to keep falling at a slower rate. The next state table arrives within 60 days after the year ends, so 2026 prices will show up in the 2027 edition.

How does the state table compare with what timber actually sells for?

The Department of Revenue’s 2026 south row sits close to the market for pine sawtimber and well above it for hardwood sawtimber. Against UGA’s third-quarter 2025 South Georgia averages, the table runs 0.4% under on pine sawtimber, 11.5% under on chip-n-saw, 15.4% over on pine pulpwood and 51.2% over on hardwood sawtimber.

O.C.G.A. § 48-5-7.5 uses those two numbers for different jobs. A timber sale is taxed on its own price, but an owner harvest is taxed on the table, so an owner cutting mixed hardwood on their own account in 2026 pays tax on a value about half again above UGA’s market average. The comparison is not exact. TimberMart-South reports mixed hardwood, and a stand heavy in white oak can beat that average.

Georgia’s Rule 560-11-5-.05 lets you appeal the assessors’ valuation the same way as any other property assessment, under O.C.G.A. § 48-5-311. The rule also says the table is built from prices reported to the Department of Revenue plus advice from the Georgia Forestry Commission.

The Department of Revenue’s Form PT-283T converts timber quotes into tons at 7.5 tons per thousand board feet (Scribner) and 2.675 tons per cord for pine. At those factors, the 2026 south-row sawtimber value is $209.10 per MBF and pulpwood is $29.32 per cord. That helps when a timber buyer quotes in board feet and the county taxes in tons.

How does Georgia tax timber when it is sold or cut?

O.C.G.A. § 48-5-7.5 taxes standing timber once, when it is harvested or sold, at 100% of fair market value times the previous year’s millage. The Department of Revenue assesses ordinary property at 40% of market value, so at the same millage the one-time timber tax equals two and a half years of regular property tax on the same dollar of value.

The statute and Rule 560-11-5-.03 set three reporting routes. On a lump-sum sale, you pay the tax on the full price at the sale; you hand the purchaser a check, the purchaser remits it within five days, and the clerk of superior court will not record the timber deed without the tax collector’s paid certificate. On a pay-as-cut sale, the purchaser reports dollars and volumes within 45 days after each quarter, you file your copy within 60, and the tax commissioner bills you quarterly, payable within 30 days.

Cutting your own timber is what the Department of Revenue calls an owner harvest, the third route. You report the volumes within 45 days after the quarter and pay within the same 45 days, and the assessors price those volumes from the state table rather than from what the mill paid you. Miss a report and the penalty is 50% of the tax, cut to 1% a month if the lapse was unintentional and you file within 12 months.

Georgia taxes timber even when the land under it is exempt. Alabama’s current use program values timberland through the land’s own assessment, and that valuation does not transfer with the deed. A Georgia seller deals with a tax on the timber itself, charged once, when the trees are sold or cut.

Does selling your land with the trees standing trigger Georgia’s timber tax?

Selling Georgia land together with its timber does not trigger the timber tax. Section 48-5-7.5(b) defines a taxable timber sale as one made “separate and apart from the underlying land” and excludes “the simultaneous sale of a tract of land and the timber thereon.” The tax waits until someone actually cuts.

When the new owner later harvests, Georgia law treats it as an owner harvest under subsection (e). The new owner reports the volumes to the county board of tax assessors, the 2026 or later table sets the value, and the landowner at that time pays. Your sale price for the land and timber never becomes a timber-tax base.

A timber deed on record with the Superior Court clerk changes the picture. If you sold the timber separately in the last few years and the buyer has not cut it, the trees belong to the deed holder, and a land buyer takes the tract subject to that deed. Under Rule 560-11-5-.03, timber sold on a lump-sum deed but not cut within three years is taxed later, when it is finally harvested.

What does the timber tax cost on a Bulloch County harvest?

Bulloch County’s 2025 millage, which applies to 2026 harvests, is 11.350 mills for the unincorporated county and 10.400 for schools, 21.75 mills together, plus a 3.000-mill fire district where it applies. That works out to $21.75 to $24.75 of timber tax per $1,000 of timber value on a one-time basis.

The 2025 millage table lists those Bulloch rates, and the PT-283T tells you to confirm the applicable millage with the tax commissioner. The table above uses owner-harvest values. On a lump-sum or pay-as-cut sale the same millage applies to your actual price, so a $40,000 timber sale in unincorporated Bulloch carries $870 to $990 of timber tax.

In Bulloch the tax adds up. The Department of Revenue’s timber tax revenue table shows Bulloch’s taxing districts collected an average of $230,794 a year from 2021 through 2023, with $85,958 going to the school district and $118,530 to the unincorporated county.

Should you cut the timber first or sell the land with it standing?

Georgia law gives a timber owner four routes, and they differ more in who sets the taxed value, who files the paperwork and who carries the price risk than in the tax rate, which is the previous year’s millage in every case. Pick the route before you call a logger or a land buyer.

In 2026, a lump-sum sale locks your price and your tax on the day you sign, which matters in a falling pulpwood market. A pay-as-cut sale pays by the ton as wood leaves, so a pulpwood stand cut over several quarters of 2026 is exposed to the decline UGA Extension expects. Cutting it yourself puts you on the state table, which in 2026 runs above UGA’s market figures on pulpwood and hardwood sawtimber.

One Georgia closing that sells the land with its trees standing moves the timber, the tax and the price risk to the buyer. A harvest followed by a land sale leaves cutover acreage, and if the tract is under a conservation-use covenant, read our post on what Georgia land sellers keep after the CUVA covenant before you change the land’s use. The covenant question is separate from the timber tax.

What federal tax applies to a Georgia timber sale?

IRS Publication 544 treats standing timber held as an investment as a capital asset, reported on Form 8949 and Schedule D, and the USDA Forest Service’s 2025 tax tips note that timber held over a year gets long-term capital gains rates. Pay-as-cut contracts on such timber fall under section 631(b), reported on Form 4797.

The IRS’s Publication 544 also lets an owner who cuts their own timber elect under section 631(a) to treat the cutting as a sale, with gain measured from the timber’s depletion basis to its fair market value at the start of that tax year. The Forest Service’s timber tax tips for 2025, written by Li with Tamara Cushing of the University of Florida and Greg Frey of the Forest Service, put it plainly: “Most timber income is treated as capital gains.”

For the IRS, your gain is the price minus your basis, and basis is where a sale of inherited land often looks better than heirs expect. Our post on capital gains tax on selling vacant land covers the federal brackets and each of our nine states. If the tract came through an estate, our guide to selling inherited land in Georgia covers how heirs get the authority to sign.

How Perspective Properties prices a wooded Georgia tract

Perspective Properties starts a wooded Georgia offer with three checks: a search of the county deed records for any timber deed, timber lease or cutting contract; whether timber was cut in the last few years and reported on a PT-283T; and the tax bill, for a conservation-use covenant. Each one can move the value of the land.

On every Georgia tract we buy the land and the timber together, so under § 48-5-7.5(b) our purchase is not a timber sale and puts no timber tax on you at closing. In 2026 that matters more than usual in South Georgia, where a seller weighing a pulpwood cut faces a market UGA Extension still expects to soften. We make a cash offer within 24 hours, offers are valid for 7 days, and we can close in as little as 14 days. You can sell your land fast in Georgia with the trees still standing.

This post carries the byline of Christian Smith, our managing partner; his background is on our about page. The table values, millage rates, statute text and market prices above come from the linked Department of Revenue, Justia, Cornell, UGA, IRS and Forest Service sources. The percentage changes, multiples, unit conversions and tax examples are our own arithmetic from those figures.