How much does a hunting lease cost in Kentucky?

A 300-acre hunting lease in Kentucky typically asks about $5,403 per year, with most comparable properties falling between $3,289 and $8,463. Smaller parcels cost more per acre and larger ones less.

What is the average price per acre for hunting land in Kentucky?

About $18.01 per acre per year for a 300-acre property, which is 4% above the national median of $17.32. Per-acre rates fall as properties get larger, so this figure is quoted at a fixed 300 acres to stay comparable between states.

Are these Kentucky lease prices what hunters actually pay?

No. Every figure here is an asking price — what landowners list at, not what a lease finally closes for. The model is fit on listing data, so it reflects what a property is likely to be advertised at.

How reliable is the Kentucky estimate?

This rate comes mostly from listings in this state. It rests on 31 filtered lease listings from Kentucky. Across all states, roughly half of real listings fall inside the range shown, and state and acreage together explain about a quarter of the variation in asking price.

Hunting Lease Prices in Kentucky

$5,403

per year · 300 acres · Kentucky

Comparable properties list $3,289–$8,463, or about $18.01 per acre.

That is 4% above the national median of $17.32 per acre, ranking Kentucky 19 of 48 states by price.

What this rests on

Well supported

31 Kentucky listings

This rate comes mostly from listings in this state.

By property size

Typical Kentucky lease prices

Yearly asking prices for a property with no amenities or premium habitat specified. Adding food plots, a cabin or a trophy species raises the estimate; the calculator below accounts for those.
Property size	Typical asking price	Usual range	Per acre
40 acres	$2,972	$1,902–$4,577	$74.31
100 acres	$3,901	$2,496–$6,007	$39.01
250 acres	$5,119	$3,276–$7,883	$20.47
500 acres	$6,287	$3,326–$10,329	$12.57
1,000 acres	$7,722	$3,377–$13,534	$7.72
2,500 acres	$10,133	$3,445–$19,346	$4.05

The market

Hunting Kentucky

Kentucky combines a well-regarded deer herd with a restored elk population in the eastern coalfields, where reclaimed mine ground leases on quite different terms from farm country. Public hunting land is 3.2% of the state. Most listings are western and central Kentucky farm and timber tracts.

Nationally, Kentucky has among the least public hunting ground in the country — ranking 41 of 50 states at 3.2% public, and a solid whitetail herd by national standards at 1.8 bucks taken per square mile. Neither figure feeds the estimate above; both are the ground truth a lease is negotiated against.

Whitetail deer
Turkey
Elk

Context, not price drivers — see the methodology note below.
Public hunting land	3.2% of the state 804,000 acres · 41 of 50
Bucks harvested	71,144 1.8 per square mile · 2022 season
Leased for	Whitetail deer, Turkey, Elk

Within the state

Where Kentucky prices differ

The $18.01 per-acre figure above is a Kentucky average. These are the sub-markets it averages over, and they do not trade alike:

Directional, not measured — the estimate is fitted at state level and has no sub-state resolution.
Bluegrass and western farm country	The productive deer ground and most of the lease market.
Eastern coalfields	Reclaimed mine land leased for elk as well as deer, on quite different terms.
Land Between the Lakes region	Competes directly with a large public recreation area, which holds prices down.

Your property

Price your own Kentucky land

The table above assumes nothing about your land beyond its size. Add your game species, habitat, forage and amenities for an estimate that reflects the property you actually have.

Calculate a Kentucky lease price

Nearby markets

How Kentucky compares

States whose hunting lease markets are priced closest to Kentucky.
State	Per acre	vs. Kentucky
South Carolina	$17.71	lower
Wyoming	$18.10	higher
Oklahoma	$18.14	higher
Iowa	$18.30	higher

Kentucky hunting guides

Kentucky Hunting Leases: The Complete Guide for Landowners and Hunters 2026

Methodology

How we estimate Kentucky lease prices

The estimate comes from a model fit on 979 filtered hunting lease listings across 48 states. A state's rate and the way price scales with acreage are both measured from that data. 31 of those listings were in Kentucky, so the Kentucky rate is drawn largely from that state's own market.

Three things are worth knowing before you quote these numbers:

These are asking prices. They are what landowners list at, not what a lease closes for.
State and size explain about a quarter of the variation. Roughly half of real listings fall inside the range shown, which is what two features can support — it is the honest width of the answer, not a rough edge waiting to be tuned out.
The land and deer figures above are context, not inputs. They come from Backcountry Chronicles (public hunting acreage) and the National Deer Association's 2024 Deer Report (2022 buck harvest). Neither feeds the estimate, and both correlate only weakly with what states actually charge.
Habitat, game and amenity adjustments are expert judgement, not fit from data — the listing feed does not carry those fields. They are set to be neutral on an average property, so they nudge the estimate rather than drive it.