Asphalt driveway cost in Seattle, WA

Add-ons priced for Seattle

Add-ons start from national price ranges and are scaled by 1.31 for Seattle, which is the average of the area's wage index (1.58) and goods price index (1.04). The estimator above can add them to your total.

What nearby projects cost in Seattle

Jobs that often go together with asphalt driveway are priced below at their usual sizes, using the same Seattle wage and price inputs. Compared with national midpoints, concrete driveway comes out highest (+27%) and concrete slab lowest (+18%); the gap comes from the trades each job uses.

Seattle: what basic, standard and premium work costs

The cited range is split into basic, standard and premium bands, then scaled to Seattle. Bands overlap, because plenty of standard jobs cost as much as a light premium one. Sizes run from 1-car (12x20), 240 sq ft to long rural (10x100), 1,000 sq ft.

Who does the work: Seattle trade wages

The labor line is built from BLS wage data, one trade at a time. This job draws on 3 trades. We compare each trade's local median with the US median, weight the ratios by how much of the job each trade does, and apply the blend to the national labor cost. For Seattle the blend is 1.58.

Paving, surfacing and tamping equipment operators (47-2071), 40% of the weighting: a median of $46.44 an hour, 81% above the US median of $25.64. The middle half of them earn between $37.28 and $49.05 an hour. About 270 work in the metro. That is 1.3 per 10,000 jobs, compared with 2.7 nationally, so expect fewer local crews to bid.

For construction laborers (47-2061, weighted 30%) the local median is $28.72 an hour, which is 27% above the national $22.66. The middle half of them earn between $23.67 and $37.03 an hour. BLS counts 13,040 of them working in the area, 62.5 for every 10,000 jobs (US: 70.5), so the local bench is about average.

Operating engineers and other construction equipment operators (47-2073), 30% of the weighting: a median of $46.04 an hour, 60% above the US median of $28.78. The middle half of them earn between $36.13 and $58.78 an hour. About 4,860 work in the metro. That is 23.3 per 10,000 jobs, compared with 30.7 nationally, so expect fewer local crews to bid.

A quick sensitivity check: moving the lead trade (paving, surfacing and tamping equipment operators) from the median to the 75th percentile wage adds about $85 to the midpoint estimate; the 25th percentile takes off about $300. That is a swing of roughly 4.6% to 1.3% of the total, which is useful for judging whether a bid reflects wages or something else, such as scope or margin.

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue has 2,086,210 jobs in total (BLS, May 2025), ranking 13th by size among the 300 metros on this site.

Specs and site conditions that change a Seattle bid

• Base work

  Four to eight inches of compacted aggregate under the asphalt is where cheap quotes cut corners. Base typically runs $1-$3 per sq ft.

• Small jobs cost more per foot

  Paving crews move a paver, roller and trucks to your address, so a 400 sq ft driveway carries more mobilization per square foot than a 1,000 sq ft one.

• Hot-mix price

  Hot-mix asphalt is $100-$200 per ton delivered and moves with oil prices (PaveGauge).

How Seattle compares

Same job, same size (600 sq ft), priced for the nearest metros. Seattle is the priciest of the group. Yakima is the cheapest at $5,700.

Out of the 300 metros we cover, Seattle ranks #6 for the cost of this job (#1 is the most expensive). Statewide, Seattle is 4% above the Washington figure.

Elsewhere in Washington

Metros of a similar size

Big cities and small ones price differently, so here is Seattle against the 4 metros with the closest total employment.

The best months for asphalt driveway in Seattle

Climate numbers on this page come from NOAA's 1991-2020 U.S. Climate Normals at the nearest suitable station, Seattle Sand Pt Wsfo (5 miles from the city center). They are 30-year averages, so any one year can run hotter, colder or wetter.

Weather is not a serious constraint for digging, grading and setting material in the ground in Seattle: no month in the averages is cold enough (an average overnight low at or below freezing (32°F)) or hot enough (an average daytime high of 90°F or more) to rule it out, so the workable window is all year.

Seattle gets about 38 inches of precipitation in a normal year, including roughly 4 inches of snow. The wettest months are January, November and December (5.8 inches in November). The station averages about 2 days a year at 90°F or above.

We do not adjust the estimate by month, because we have no reliable published data on seasonal pricing. It is still worth asking contractors whether an off-peak start date changes their bid.