Load-Bearing Wall Removal Cost (2026): Beam by Span, Dropped or Flush, LVL or Steel, With Labor Hours

Walls priced through Clamp's catalog on November 4, 2026, with labor hours. Every price in this guide is job cost before markup: what the labor and materials cost you, before your markup, overhead and profit. Ballpark price ranges add your markup to that. Every bearing wall here includes temporary shoring on both sides, the beam, two posts, an engineer's letter ($850) and a permit allowance ($750), demo, haul-off and the ceiling and floor patch. New footings, rerouted ducts or pipes, moved outlets, hardwood lace-in and paint are their own lines.

The 12 ft bearing wall under one floor, $7,769 job cost before markup and 45 person-hours. The structure (shoring, beam, setting it and the posts) is about half. The engineer and permit are $1,600 at any span: about a fifth of this job, a smaller share of longer walls.

A dropped beam hangs below the ceiling and the joists keep bearing on top of it. A flush beam sits up in the joist space: every joist is cut back and hung on the beam, and the IRC wants framing anchors or ledger strips where joists frame into the side of a wood girder (R502.6.2), and the ceiling opens wider on both sides. Clamp prices flush at twice the setting labor of dropped, plus the hangers and a second ceiling strip: $2,291 more on a 12 ft wall.

Dropped and flush

Drawn for this guide in the style of Quick Clamp's sketch pad: a dropped beam under the joists and a flush beam with the joists hung on it. Demo data.

The beam is sized by the load on it, not by the story count. Clamp scales the beam by what's above: a roof alone, one floor, or a floor plus the roof. The bigger cost is under the posts: the load has to reach the foundation (R301.1), and a footing that carried a spread-out wall load isn't automatically good for a post.

The load path

Drawn for this guide in the style of Quick Clamp's sketch pad: the load path from the floor above through the beam and posts to an existing footing and a new pad. Demo data.

LVL is sold by the ply, so a per-foot price means little until you know the depth and the ply count. Steel costs more per foot and needs fabrication and lifts, but it's shallower for the load, which is why it shows up on flush beams and long spans. There's no universal span where steel becomes mandatory; it depends on the load and the depth you have.

Taking out a bearing wall needs a permit: the 2024 IRC's ordinary-repair exemption excludes removing or cutting any structural beam or load-bearing support (R105.2.2). An engineer's stamp isn't required by the model code for every header, but the prescriptive tables only cover sawn-lumber headers and girders within set building widths (R602.7), so an LVL or steel beam has to be designed to accepted engineering practice (R301.1.3): in practice, from the maker's tables, the supplier's sizing software or an engineer.

Joists that end or lap on a wall are the strongest sign it's bearing. A wall stacked above it, or a beam, girder or posts below it, means trace the load. A wall parallel to the joists or under the ridge proves nothing either way: a girder truss, a stair header or a point load can land anywhere. Then open it up, because what's in the wall is priced on top.

Is it bearing

Drawn for this guide in the style of Quick Clamp's sketch pad: joists lapping over a wall against joists running beside it. Demo data.

The 14 ft bearing wall between a kitchen and living room, first floor of a 1960s two-story, with the second floor and roof above. A 3-ply LVL dropped beam, two posts (one on the existing footing, one on a new pad in the crawlspace), engineer and permit, two outlets and a switch moved, one heat run rerouted, the ceiling patched and the oak floor laced in. Clamp priced it at $13,830 job cost before markup, 81 person-hours.

The job

Every line priced

The job in Clamp, and the estimate it prices: $13,830 at job cost, by trade. Illustration of the Clamp app.