How much do landscapers get paid in Las Vegas?

The 2025 BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey puts the median landscaping and groundskeeping worker in the Las Vegas metro at $18.23 an hour, with the 25th percentile at $17.56 and the 75th at $22.21. The metro mean is $20.51. That covers 7,220 workers. A crew supervisor, using the first-line construction supervisor figure for the same metro, earns a median $38.76 an hour. Those are wages paid to workers, not the rate billed to you.

Why is my landscaping quote three times the hourly wage?

Because the wage is only one part of what the contractor pays. On top of the $18.23 median hourly wage sit payroll taxes, workers' compensation, liability insurance, the truck and trailer, fuel, equipment purchase and repair, unbilled drive and office time, warranty reserve and profit. The common working assumption for small residential contractors is a multiplier of 2 to 3 on the raw wage, which turns $18.23 into a billed $36.46 to $54.69 per labor hour. That multiplier is an assumption, not a measured figure.

Is landscaping cheaper in Las Vegas than the national average?

On labor, slightly. The Las Vegas median landscaping wage of $18.23 an hour sits $0.59 below the national median of $18.82, a gap of 3.1 percent. At the 75th percentile the gap is $0.31, or 1.4 percent. Applied to a 40 labor-hour job at a 2.5 multiplier, that 59-cent difference is worth about $59 on the whole job. Anyone telling you Las Vegas labor is dramatically cheap or dramatically expensive is not reading the wage data.

How much have landscaping materials gone up in 2026?

The Producer Price Index for paving mixtures and blocks stood at 431.026 in July 2026 against 404.421 twelve months earlier, a rise of 6.6 percent. Concrete products went from 392.403 to 406.999, up 3.7 percent. Those are index points, not dollars, so they tell you direction and rate only. If a contractor's material allowance on a paver job is 8 percent higher than last year's, that tracks the index. If it is 25 percent higher, ask what changed.

What is a fair number of hours for a small Las Vegas landscaping job?

Ask the contractor to state it rather than guessing. Once they do, you can test it: a two-person crew working an eight-hour day is 16 labor hours. At the Las Vegas median wage of $18.23 and a 2.5 burden multiplier, that day costs about $729 in labor before materials. If the quote for a one-day job is $3,000 and the material allowance is $400, the implied labor rate is well above what the wage data supports, and the contractor should be able to say why.

Why Landscaping Costs What It Does in Las Vegas

A two-person landscaping crew in Las Vegas costs roughly $584 to $875 per eight-hour day in billed labor, built from the $18.23 median hourly wage in the 2025 BLS wage survey and a burden multiplier of 2 to 3. A small front-yard conversion at 40 labor hours lands near $1,459 to $2,188 in labor, plus materials. Everything below shows that arithmetic line by line.

Key points

The Las Vegas median landscaping wage is $18.23 an hour against a national median of $18.82, a gap of $0.59 or 3.1 percent, per the 2025 BLS OEWS survey.
A wage is not a price. Applying the usual 2x to 3x small-contractor burden assumption turns $18.23 into $36.46 to $54.69 of billed labor per hour.
Paving mixtures and blocks rose 6.6 percent in the twelve months to July 2026 in the Producer Price Index; concrete products rose 3.7 percent. Those are index points, not dollars.
A crew supervisor in the same metro earns a median $38.76 an hour, more than double the crew wage, which is why supervised hours cost more than crew hours.
The single question that exposes a padded bid is “how many labor hours is this, and how many people for how many days?” A contractor who will not answer it is not quoting labor, they are quoting a number.

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What does a landscaper actually earn in Las Vegas?

The 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey covers 7,220 landscaping and groundskeeping workers in the Las Vegas metro. These are the wages paid to those workers, not what a homeowner is billed.

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Area	25th pct	Median	75th pct	Mean	Employed
United States	$17.40	$18.82	$22.52	$20.33	952,640
Nevada statewide	$17.62	$18.66	$22.52	$20.92	9,980
Las Vegas, NV	$17.56	$18.23	$22.21	$20.51	7,220
Las Vegas crew supervisor	—	$38.76	—	—	—

The supervisor line is First-Line Supervisors of Construction Trades and Extraction Workers for the same metro. The occupation itself, its duties and entry requirements are described in the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook.

Two things stand out. First, the Las Vegas distribution is tight. The gap from the 25th to the 75th percentile is $4.65, which is 25 percent of the median. That is a narrow band by trade standards and it means crew experience moves your labor cost less than most people assume. Second, the metro mean of $20.51 sits above the metro median of $18.23. That skew tells you a minority of higher-paid workers pulls the average up while the typical worker sits at $18.23.

How does Las Vegas compare with the national figure?

Las Vegas is slightly below national on every percentile except where it ties.

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Measure	Las Vegas	United States	Gap ($)	Gap (%)
25th percentile	$17.56	$17.40	+$0.16	+0.9%
Median	$18.23	$18.82	−$0.59	−3.1%
75th percentile	$22.21	$22.52	−$0.31	−1.4%
Mean	$20.51	$20.33	+$0.18	+0.9%

The median gap of 3.1 percent is the honest headline. On a 40 labor-hour job at a 2.5 multiplier, that $0.59 an hour is worth $0.59 × 40 × 2.5 = $59 across the entire project. Nevada statewide sits between the two at $18.66, so Las Vegas is also marginally below its own state median.

If a contractor tells you Las Vegas labor commands a premium, the wage data does not support it. If a national franchise quotes you a national rate card, you are paying about 3 percent more on labor than the local wage base implies, which is small but real.

What is the burden multiplier and why does it triple the wage?

The wage is what the worker takes as gross pay. What you are billed adds payroll taxes, workers’ compensation premiums, general liability insurance, the truck, the trailer, fuel, mower and trencher purchase and repair, drive time between jobs, the hours somebody spends answering your calls and writing your estimate, a warranty reserve for the plants that die, and profit.

The usual working assumption for small residential contractors is that all of this multiplies the raw wage by 2 to 3. This is an assumption, not a measured figure, and it is not in the BLS data. It is stated here so you can argue with it. If you think a particular contractor runs leaner, use 2.0. If they carry a fleet, a yard and an office, 3.0 is more plausible.

Here is the multiplier applied across the Las Vegas wage distribution:

Crew wage tier	Wage/hr	×2.0 billed	×2.5 billed	×3.0 billed
25th percentile	$17.56	$35.12	$43.90	$52.68
Median	$18.23	$36.46	$45.58	$54.69
Mean	$20.51	$41.02	$51.28	$61.53
75th percentile	$22.21	$44.42	$55.53	$66.63
Supervisor	$38.76	$77.52	$96.90	$116.28

The supervisor row is why an owner-operator who works alongside the crew bills differently from a company that sends two workers and checks in twice. Supervised hours are not free. A job where the supervisor is on site for four of sixteen crew hours carries roughly $388 to $465 of supervisor labor at a 2.5 multiplier, on top of the crew.

What does a full range of Las Vegas landscaping jobs cost?

This is the table to find your own row in. Every figure is computed from the $18.23 Las Vegas median wage at a 2.5 burden multiplier, which gives $45.58 of billed labor per hour. Materials are shown as a separate allowance so you can substitute your own.

The arithmetic for every row is the same four lines:

Crew size × days × 8 hours = labor hours
Labor hours × $18.23 wage = raw wage cost
Raw wage × 2.5 burden = billed labor
Billed labor + material allowance = job total

Job scope	Crew × days	Labor hrs	Raw wage	Billed labor @2.5	Material allowance	Total
Half-day cleanup	2 × 0.5	8	$145.84	$365	$50	$415
One-day cleanup	2 × 1	16	$291.68	$729	$150	$879
Small gravel conversion	2 × 2	32	$583.36	$1,458	$700	$2,158
Front-yard conversion	2 × 2.5	40	$729.20	$1,823	$1,200	$3,023
Front + irrigation	3 × 3	72	$1,312.56	$3,281	$2,000	$5,281
Small paver patio	3 × 4	96	$1,750.08	$4,375	$3,500	$7,875
Full back yard	3 × 6	144	$2,625.12	$6,563	$6,000	$12,563
Front + back, staged	4 × 8	256	$4,666.88	$11,667	$11,000	$22,667
Large lot rebuild	4 × 12	384	$7,000.32	$17,501	$18,000	$35,501

Material allowances are placeholders you should replace with the actual line items from your quote. They are not derived from BLS data and no dollar figure in the Producer Price Index exists to derive them from. What the PPI can tell you is how fast those allowances should be moving year over year, which is the next section.

How much does the burden assumption change the answer?

Two axes matter most: how many labor hours the job takes, and which burden multiplier the contractor’s overhead actually justifies. Vary both and the spread is wide.

Labor hrs	@2.0 ($36.46/hr)	@2.5 ($45.58/hr)	@3.0 ($54.69/hr)	Spread 2.0→3.0
8	$292	$365	$438	$146
16	$583	$729	$875	$292
32	$1,167	$1,458	$1,750	$583
40	$1,458	$1,823	$2,188	$729
72	$2,625	$3,281	$3,938	$1,313
96	$3,500	$4,375	$5,250	$1,750
144	$5,250	$6,563	$7,875	$2,625
256	$9,334	$11,667	$14,001	$4,667
384	$14,001	$17,501	$21,001	$7,000

Read the last column. On a half-day job, the entire burden question is worth $146, which is not worth arguing about. On a 384-hour rebuild it is worth $7,000, which is worth several conversations. The bigger the job, the more the contractor’s overhead structure, not the crew wage, decides your price.

Now the same sweep at the 75th percentile wage of $22.21, for a company that pays above the local median to hold experienced crews:

Labor hrs	Median wage @2.5	75th pct wage @2.5	Difference
16	$729	$888	+$159
40	$1,823	$2,221	+$398
96	$4,375	$5,330	+$955
144	$6,563	$7,996	+$1,433
384	$17,501	$21,322	+$3,821

Paying the 75th percentile crew costs about 22 percent more in labor. Whether a faster, more experienced crew finishes in fewer hours and closes that gap is not something the wage data can answer.

What are materials doing year over year?

The Producer Price Index tracks what producers charge, in index points against a 1982 base of 100. These are not dollars and cannot be converted into dollars. They tell you direction and rate.

PPI series	July 2025	July 2026	Change
Paving mixtures and blocks (WPU1394)	404.421	431.026	+6.6%
Concrete products (WPU133)	392.403	406.999	+3.7%

Applied as a reverse check on last year’s quote: if you were quoted $3,500 for paver material in mid-2025 and the same scope quotes at $3,731 now, that is a 6.6 percent increase and it matches the index exactly. If it quotes at $4,400, that is 25.7 percent, which the index does not explain and the contractor should.

The same reverse calculation on the labor side. To justify a $10,000 total on a job with a $3,000 material allowance, the labor portion is $7,000. At $45.58 billed per hour, that is 154 labor hours, or a three-person crew for six and a half full days. If the contractor is describing a three-day job, the arithmetic does not close and one of the inputs is wrong.

What can this calculation not see?

Plenty. Every figure above is wage arithmetic. It knows nothing about the following, and none of these are in the BLS data.

Permits and inspections. Grading, retaining walls above a certain height, and irrigation tie-ins can require permits. Fees vary by jurisdiction and are not a wage input.
Disposal. Hauling out old turf, decorative rock, concrete or a dead tree carries dump fees and truck trips. On a turf removal this can be a serious line item and it does not scale with crew hours.
Water authority rules and rebates. Southern Nevada has had turf conversion programs. Any rebate changes your net cost substantially and none of it appears in wage data. Check the current terms with the water authority directly rather than trusting a contractor’s summary.
Access. A back yard reachable only through a 30-inch gate means wheelbarrows instead of a skid steer. That can double the hours on the same scope, which moves you several rows down the range table.
Soil and caliche. Hard caliche layers can turn planting holes and trenching into machine work. This is the desert equivalent of roof pitch: an invisible difficulty factor that the scope description does not reveal.
Season. Summer heat in this metro forces early starts, shortened days and more crew rotation. The same 40-hour job can span more calendar days in July than in March, and mobilization repeats.
Emergency call-out. Irrigation main breaks and storm damage get priced at premium rates. Nothing in the median wage predicts an after-hours rate.
Plant material and warranty. A one-year plant warranty is a real cost the contractor reserves for. Two quotes with different warranty terms are not comparable on price alone.

Which two things do homeowners get wrong?

Misconception one: “the crew is making most of the money.” On the 40-hour front-yard conversion above, the crew’s gross wages are $729.20. The billed labor is $1,823 and the total is $3,023. The workers’ pay is 24 percent of what you hand over. The other 76 percent is materials, insurance, equipment, overhead and profit. Squeezing a contractor on price does not come out of the overhead; it comes out of scope, materials or the warranty.

Misconception two: “Las Vegas is a cheap labor market, so my quote should be low.” The metro median of $18.23 is 3.1 percent below the national $18.82. On the 96-hour paver patio, that entire gap is worth $18.23 vs $18.82 across 96 hours at 2.5, which is $0.59 × 96 × 2.5 = $142 on a $7,875 job. That is 1.8 percent of the total. Local wage levels are close to a rounding error compared with hours, materials and burden. If your quote is 40 percent above another, geography is not the reason.

How do you read a real quote against these numbers?

A quote you can check has these line items separated:

Labor stated as crew size, number of days, and hours per day
Material list with quantities, not a single lump “materials” figure
Disposal and hauling as its own line
Permits and fees as their own line, or explicitly stated as excluded
Equipment or machine rental, if any, separately
Warranty terms in writing, with a duration

The single question that exposes a padded bid: “How many people, for how many days, and how many hours a day?” Multiply the answer out, divide it into the labor portion of the quote, and you get their implied billed rate per labor hour. Compare it against the $36.46 to $54.69 range in the table above. If it comes out at $90 an hour for unsupervised crew work, either they are including something they have not itemized, or the number was set by what they think you will pay rather than by what the job costs.

A contractor who cannot state crew size and days is not estimating. They are quoting a feel. That is not automatically dishonest, but it is not checkable, and an uncheckable number is one you cannot negotiate on any basis except walking away.

When is this estimate wrong?

Very small jobs. Below about four labor hours, minimum call-out charges dominate and the arithmetic breaks. A $415 half-day cleanup may quote at $500 flat because nobody rolls a truck for less.
Design-build work. If a designer draws plans, that is professional time at a rate the groundskeeping wage does not describe.
Heavy hardscape. Once masonry, structural walls or concrete pours enter the scope, you are pricing different trades with different wages, and this landscaping wage no longer describes the crew.
Owner-operator with no overhead. A one-person operation running a paid-off truck may genuinely operate near a 2.0 multiplier or below. The tradeoff is usually insurance coverage and warranty backing.
Subcontracted crews. If the company you signed with subcontracts the labor, there are two margins stacked, and the effective multiplier exceeds 3.0.

What to check before you sign

Get the crew size, days and hours in writing, then run the multiplication yourself against the $36.46 to $54.69 billed-labor band. Confirm whether disposal, permits and irrigation tie-ins are in or out. Ask for material quantities, not a lump sum, and compare any year-over-year price increase against the 6.6 percent paving and 3.7 percent concrete index moves. Confirm the warranty duration and what voids it. Confirm the company carries workers’ compensation and liability, because both are inside the burden multiplier you are already paying for. Finally, ask what happens if the crew hits caliche, and get that answer as a stated rate rather than a shrug.

Nothing on this page comes from inspecting a property, surveying contractors or collecting quotes. It is arithmetic on federal wage and price data, shown so you can redo it with your own assumptions.