How timber pricing works in Europe

One tree, four prices

A tree is sold several times on its way from a forest to a workshop, and each sale is a different product. The wood does not change; what changes is how much work has been done to it and who is carrying the risk of the next step.

1. Standing tree. Sold where it grows. The buyer takes on felling, extraction and haulage, plus the risk that the log inside is not the log the bark suggests. This is the cheapest number anyone will ever quote you, and the least comparable to anything else.
2. Roadside log. Felled, cut to length, stacked at a forest road where a lorry can reach it. Felling and extraction are now in the price; haulage is not.
3. Sawlog. Graded and sorted for sawing, usually at a mill or a yard. The buyer now knows what they are getting, and the price reflects that certainty as much as the transport.
4. Sawn board. Cut, and often dried. A different trade, with kilning, yield loss and months of capital tied up in the price.

Between the standing tree and the sawn board, a large share of the final figure is work and logistics rather than wood. A quoted price means very little until you know which of these four things is being quoted — which is why every figure in this index carries its product stage, and why the index never averages across stages.

The transport term is part of the price

Two quotes for the same sawlog can differ by a fifth purely on where the wood changes hands.

• Standing — you fell it, extract it and haul it.
• Roadside — it is at a forest road; you haul it.
• Ex works — it is at the seller’s yard; you collect.
• Delivered — it arrives at yours.

A delivered price is not a markup on a roadside price; it is a different deal with different costs and different risk. Comparing a standing price from one seller with a delivered price from another and concluding the first is cheaper is the most common mistake in timber buying. This index converts every row to a delivered-equivalent basis before comparing anything, and shows the exact factor it used.

Cubic metres are not all the same size

A cubic metre of stacked roundwood is not a cubic metre of wood — it is roughly nine tenths wood and one tenth air. A ster of split firewood is closer to two thirds. Sellers quote in whichever unit suits their trade: solid cubic metres, festmeter, raummeter, ster, or per piece.

This is where a price comparison silently goes wrong, because both numbers are labelled “per cubic metre” and only one of them is per cubic metre of wood. A price that looks 10% cheaper may simply be measured in a bigger box. The conversion table is here.

Grade and diameter beat everything above

Within a single species, stage and region, the spread between an ordinary log and an exceptional one is larger than every effect on this page combined. Diameter, straightness, branch-free length, colour, and the absence of defect decide whether a log is sliced for veneer or sawn for pallets.

This is why the index publishes a band — a tenth percentile, a median and a ninetieth — rather than a single figure. The band is the honest answer to “what does oak cost”: a range, with the understanding that where in it your particular log lands is decided by the log.

It is also why no index can price your specific timber. A reference tells you whether a quote is ordinary. It cannot tell you whether a quote is right.

Who is selling changes what the number means

A state forestry enterprise publishing a tariff and a growers’ association running a submission auction are not competitors quoting the same market. One is an administered price for volume; the other is a competitive sale of selected timber to buyers who came specifically for it. Prices from the second are routinely several times the first for the same species — not because anyone is overcharging, but because they are different goods sold to different buyers.

The index calls this the market tier and keeps the tiers in separate cells rather than averaging them into a number that describes neither. The tiers, and how to tell which one you are looking at.

Prices are old, and how old matters

There is no ticker for timber. Auctions run on a season, state price lists change a few times a year, and national statistics arrive quarterly or annually. A number described as “current” usually means “the most recent one published”, which can be a year ago.

A related trap: many sources publish a price without ever saying when the wood sold. A price list is a price list — it carries no transaction date, because it is not describing a transaction. The only honest thing an index can do with those rows is date them from the day it observed them, and say so. Every figure on this site is labelled with its age and with whether that age comes from a stated sale date or from our own observation. Where no source states a sale date, we do not put one there.

The five questions

Before comparing any two timber prices, including two of ours:

1. Same product stage? Standing, roadside, sawlog or sawn.
2. Same transport term? Where does the wood change hands.
3. Same unit? Solid, stacked, ster or piece.
4. Same VAT treatment? Inclusive and exclusive differ by a fifth.
5. Same market tier? Administered volume or competitive selection.

If all five match, a difference is a real difference. If any one of them does not, you are looking at an artefact of the comparison, and the honest conclusion is that you cannot tell.

What this index does with all of it

Every published figure is normalized to euro per solid cubic metre, excluding VAT, on a delivered-equivalent basis, and kept separate by species, region, product stage and market tier. The conversions are written out in full, the sources behind each cell are named and linked, and the rows are free through a public API.

What it will not do is give you one number for “European oak”. That number does not exist, and the sites publishing it are not measuring anything.