How much does a hunting lease cost in South Dakota?

A 300-acre hunting lease in South Dakota typically asks about $3,951 per year, with most comparable properties falling between $2,405 and $6,189. Smaller parcels cost more per acre and larger ones less.

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

About $13.17 per acre per year for a 300-acre property, which is 24% 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 South Dakota 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 South Dakota estimate?

This rate blends listings in this state with the national median. It rests on 23 filtered lease listings from South Dakota. 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 South Dakota

$3,951

per year · 300 acres · South Dakota

Comparable properties list $2,405–$6,189, or about $13.17 per acre.

That is 24% below the national median of $17.32 per acre, ranking South Dakota 41 of 48 states by price.

What this rests on

Moderately supported

23 South Dakota listings

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

By property size

Typical South Dakota 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	$2,174	$1,391–$3,347	$54.34
100 acres	$2,852	$1,825–$4,393	$28.52
250 acres	$3,743	$2,396–$5,764	$14.97
500 acres	$4,597	$2,432–$7,553	$9.19
1,000 acres	$5,647	$2,469–$9,897	$5.65
2,500 acres	$7,410	$2,520–$14,147	$2.96

The market

Hunting South Dakota

South Dakota's private-land value is driven as much by pheasants as by deer — commercial bird hunting operations bid for the same grassland and food-plot ground a deer lease would want, on a different calendar. Public hunting land is 4.9% of the state, supplemented by a walk-in access program. Deer rates land below the national median.

Nationally, South Dakota has a middling amount of public hunting ground — ranking 32 of 50 states at 4.9% public, and very few whitetails per square mile at 0.4 bucks taken per square mile. Neither figure feeds the estimate above; both are the ground truth a lease is negotiated against.

Whitetail deer
Mule deer
Pheasant
Turkey

Context, not price drivers — see the methodology note below.
Public hunting land	4.9% of the state 2,376,000 acres · 32 of 50
Bucks harvested	34,065 0.4 per square mile · 2022 season
Leased for	Whitetail deer, Mule deer, Pheasant, Turkey

Within the state

Where South Dakota prices differ

The $13.17 per-acre figure above is a South Dakota 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.
James River Valley	Pheasant country first and foremost; bird operations bid up ground a deer lease would want.
Black Hills and west river	Mule deer and whitetail on ranch country, leased cheaply per acre in big blocks.
Missouri River breaks	The state's better deer ground and its higher rates.

Your property

Price your own South Dakota 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 South Dakota lease price

Nearby markets

How South Dakota compares

States whose hunting lease markets are priced closest to South Dakota.
State	Per acre	vs. South Dakota
Pennsylvania	$12.48	lower
Oregon	$12.96	lower
New Mexico	$13.62	higher
Colorado	$13.91	higher

Methodology

How we estimate South Dakota 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. 23 of those listings were in South Dakota, so the South Dakota 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.