How much does a hunting lease cost in New Jersey?

A 300-acre hunting lease in New Jersey typically asks about $6,756 per year, with most comparable properties falling between $4,113 and $10,583. Smaller parcels cost more per acre and larger ones less.

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

About $22.52 per acre per year for a 300-acre property, which is 30% 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 New Jersey 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 New Jersey estimate?

This rate blends listings in this state with the national median. It rests on 24 filtered lease listings from New Jersey. 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 New Jersey

$6,756

per year · 300 acres · New Jersey

Comparable properties list $4,113–$10,583, or about $22.52 per acre.

That is 30% above the national median of $17.32 per acre, ranking New Jersey 2 of 48 states by price.

What this rests on

Moderately supported

24 New Jersey listings

This rate blends listings in this state with the national median.

By property size

Typical New Jersey 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	$3,717	$2,379–$5,724	$92.92
100 acres	$4,877	$3,121–$7,511	$48.77
250 acres	$6,400	$4,096–$9,857	$25.60
500 acres	$7,861	$4,159–$12,915	$15.72
1,000 acres	$9,656	$4,223–$16,923	$9.66
2,500 acres	$12,671	$4,308–$24,190	$5.07

The market

Hunting New Jersey

New Jersey carries the second-highest per-acre rate in this model, and the reason is simple arithmetic: it is the most densely populated state in the country, so the private ground that exists is small, close to a lot of hunters, and expensive per acre. The state's 15.7% public land is real but concentrated and heavily used. Farm parcels in the south and west are the typical lease.

Nationally, New Jersey has more public hunting ground than most states — ranking 17 of 50 states at 15.7% public, and a solid whitetail herd by national standards at 2.2 bucks taken per square mile. Neither figure feeds the estimate above; both are the ground truth a lease is negotiated against.

Whitetail deer
Turkey
Waterfowl

Context, not price drivers — see the methodology note below.
Public hunting land	15.7% of the state 740,000 acres · 17 of 50
Bucks harvested	16,110 2.2 per square mile · 2022 season
Leased for	Whitetail deer, Turkey, Waterfowl

Within the state

Where New Jersey prices differ

The $22.52 per-acre figure above is a New Jersey 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.
Northwest highlands	The larger tracts and the state's bear country.
Southern farm belt	Salem and Cumberland farm ground with strong deer and waterfowl, the core lease market.
Pine Barrens	Large but sandy and low-density; cheaper leasing than the farm counties.

Your property

Price your own New Jersey 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 New Jersey lease price

Nearby markets

How New Jersey compares

States whose hunting lease markets are priced closest to New Jersey.
State	Per acre	vs. New Jersey
Louisiana	$20.88	lower
Wisconsin	$21.85	lower
Ohio	$22.26	lower
Maryland	$24.08	higher

Methodology

How we estimate New Jersey 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. 24 of those listings were in New Jersey, so the New Jersey 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.