How much does a hunting lease cost in North Carolina?

A 300-acre hunting lease in North Carolina typically asks about $4,890 per year, with most comparable properties falling between $2,977 and $7,660. Smaller parcels cost more per acre and larger ones less.

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

About $16.30 per acre per year for a 300-acre property, which is 6% below 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 North Carolina 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 North Carolina estimate?

This rate comes mostly from listings in this state. It rests on 30 filtered lease listings from North Carolina. 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 North Carolina

$4,890

per year · 300 acres · North Carolina

Comparable properties list $2,977–$7,660, or about $16.30 per acre.

That is 6% below the national median of $17.32 per acre, ranking North Carolina 26 of 48 states by price.

What this rests on

Well supported

30 North Carolina listings

This rate comes mostly from listings in this state.

By property size

Typical North Carolina 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	$2,690	$1,722–$4,143	$67.25
100 acres	$3,530	$2,259–$5,436	$35.30
250 acres	$4,633	$2,965–$7,134	$18.53
500 acres	$5,690	$3,010–$9,348	$11.38
1,000 acres	$6,989	$3,056–$12,249	$6.99
2,500 acres	$9,171	$3,118–$17,509	$3.67

The market

Hunting North Carolina

North Carolina spans mountains, piedmont and coastal plain, and the three lease very differently — eastern farm and timber ground with deer and ducks is a distinct product from mountain tracts. Public hunting land is 4.4% of the state. Hunting clubs are common in the east, individual leases more so in the piedmont.

Nationally, North Carolina has among the least public hunting ground in the country — ranking 36 of 50 states at 4.4% 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
Waterfowl
Black bear

Context, not price drivers — see the methodology note below.
Public hunting land	4.4% of the state 1,380,000 acres · 36 of 50
Bucks harvested	86,232 1.8 per square mile · 2022 season
Leased for	Whitetail deer, Turkey, Waterfowl, Black bear

Within the state

Where North Carolina prices differ

The $16.30 per-acre figure above is a North Carolina 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.
Coastal plain	Farm and timber ground with deer, ducks and bear; club leasing dominates.
Piedmont	Fragmented but close to population, with strong deer and individual leases more common.
Mountains	Public-heavy and the cheapest ground in the state.

Your property

Price your own North Carolina 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 North Carolina lease price

Nearby markets

How North Carolina compares

States whose hunting lease markets are priced closest to North Carolina.
State	Per acre	vs. North Carolina
Texas	$16.24	lower
West Virginia	$16.60	higher
New Hampshire	$16.62	higher
Minnesota	$16.70	higher

North Carolina hunting guides

North Carolina Hunting Lease Prices 2026 | Complete NC Guide to Rates, Counties & Laws

Methodology

How we estimate North Carolina 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. 30 of those listings were in North Carolina, so the North Carolina 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.