How much does a new roof cost?
Most full asphalt-shingle roof replacements in the United States land somewhere between about $7,500 and $16,000, with published national averages clustering around $10,000 to $12,000. The spread is wide because the price is driven by roof area rather than house size, by how many old layers have to come off, and by what is found under them once they do.
What an average can't tell you
A national average compresses very different roofs into one number, and most of what sets your price is invisible to it. It cannot tell you how many square feet of roof you actually have — which is not your floor area, and is the single biggest driver of the total — or what covering is going back on, and those two choices alone move the figure more than anything else on the page.
It also cannot see how many layers have to come off before anything new goes on, how steep the roof is, how many storeys the crew is working above, or whether the decking underneath has rotted — which nobody knows, including the contractor, until the old roofing is off. Even within one metro, labor pricing and disposal fees shift in ways a single average flattens out.
Those are answerable questions, and they are exactly the estimator’s inputs. It starts from sourced national cost data and recomputes the range for your area, covering, pitch, height, and tear-off — the factually correct next step after any national average.
What the published national figures actually say
Two independent cost guides bracket the same job differently, and the honest answer is the union of the two rather than a single tidy average. Fixr's roof-replacement guide puts a full replacement at $7,500 - $14,000 with an average around $10,000, measured against roughly 2,000 square feet of roofing on a 1,700 square foot home. Its separate asphalt-shingle guide puts the same work at $8,000 - $16,000 with an average nearer $12,000. Neither is wrong; they are measuring slightly different jobs.
Homewyse, working from a different method entirely, states that in May 2026 the estimated national average cost to install an asphalt shingle roof starts at $5.09 - $6.66 per square foot. Applied to a 2,000 square foot roof that lands between roughly $10,200 and $13,300 - inside both ranges above, which is about as much corroboration as national figures can give each other.
Using the sourced national baseline with no local adjustment applied, the planning range for a full asphalt replacement is $6,750 to $18,400.
ESTIMATESourced national baseline line item full_replacement_asphalt, widened because no local cost index is applied on a national page.
Fixr's roof-replacement guide states a national range of $7,500 - $14,000 for a full roof replacement.
SOURCEDWhy the number moves so much between two similar houses
The single biggest driver is the one people most often get wrong: roof area is not floor area. A roof is typically ten to thirty per cent larger than the home's footprint once pitch and overhang are accounted for, so a 1,700 square foot house can easily carry 2,000 or more square feet of roof. Every per-square-foot figure you read is multiplied by that larger number, not the one on your deed.
After area comes tear-off. Removing and disposing of the existing roofing is charged separately, and it scales with how many layers are up there. Then comes the part nobody can quote in advance: once the old roofing is off, contractors may uncover hidden damage from long-term leaks, and replacing rotten decking is billed on top of the headline price. A bid that does not say what happens if decking is found is not a complete bid.
Finally, local labour and disposal pricing move the total in ways a national average flattens entirely. That is what our metro cost pages are for - each one recomputes this same range against that area's sourced regional price level.
Related questions
- How much does it cost to replace a roof on a 1,500 square foot house?
- A 1,500 square foot house does not have a 1,500 square foot roof - expect roughly 1,700 to 1,950 square feet of roof once pitch and overhang are counted. At the sourced national per-square-foot rates for architectural shingles that puts the covering alone in the region of $6,800 to $15,600 before tear-off, decking, or local pricing, which is why the estimator asks for roof area rather than house size.
- Is the quoted price per square foot of roof or of house?
- Of roof. Roofers price by the 'square', which is 100 square feet of roof surface, and every published per-square-foot figure refers to roof area. Applying one to your home's floor area will understate the job by ten to thirty per cent, and it is the most common way homeowners end up shocked by a bid.
Get a local answer
National ranges only go so far — labor rates, tear-off rules, weather, and insurance practice move the numbers in every metro. See the local guides, each with a cost estimator:
- Roof Replacement Cost in Akron, OH
- Roof Replacement Cost in Albuquerque, NM
- Roof Replacement Cost in Allentown, PA
- Roof Replacement Cost in Hartford, CT
- Roof Replacement Cost in Knoxville, TN
- Roof Replacement Cost in Milwaukee, WI
- Roof Replacement Cost in Providence, RI
- Roof Replacement Cost in Raleigh, NC
- Roof Replacement Cost in Richmond, VA
- Roof Replacement Cost in Winston-Salem, NC