Concrete pricing on Long Island runs higher than the national figures you will find online, and it is worth knowing why before comparing quotes. Material, disposal, labor and permitting all cost more in Suffolk County, and tear-out of an existing surface is a real line item rather than a rounding error. Current Long Island market ranges put a standard broom-finished concrete driveway at roughly $12 to $20 per square foot and decorative finishes at $18 to $30. A well-built concrete driveway here has a service life in the range of 30 to 40 years, which is the number that makes the arithmetic work. Here is how the individual line items generally fall.
| Service | Typical Smithtown Range |
|---|---|
| Concrete driveway, broom finish (500 - 700 sq ft, two cars) | $6,000 - $14,000 |
| Concrete driveway, per square foot (4 in slab, standard finish) | $12 - $20 per sq ft |
| Stamped, colored or exposed-aggregate concrete | $18 - $30 per sq ft |
| Concrete patio, broom to stamped finish (300 - 400 sq ft) | $4,200 - $10,000 |
| Concrete walkway, 4 ft wide, 4 in slab | $14 - $22 per sq ft |
| Poured steps or stoop on new footings | $1,500 - $6,000 |
| Shed, hot tub, generator or equipment pad | $1,200 - $4,500 |
| Tear-out and disposal of existing driveway | $1,500 - $4,000 |
| Driveway apron at the street, including Town permit | $1,500 - $3,500 |
| Belgian block border | $30 - $50 per linear ft |
| Wire mesh or rebar reinforcement | $1 - $2 per sq ft |
| Drainage correction, channel drain or dry well tie-in | $800 - $3,000 |
| Concrete sidewalk, 4 ft wide, installed (national guide range) | $28 - $68 per linear ft |
| Concrete retaining wall, per sq ft of wall face, poured (national guide range) | $20 - $45 per sq ft |
| Block (CMU) retaining or garden wall, per sq ft (national guide range) | $15 - $30 per sq ft |
| Concrete pool deck, broom finish (national guide range) | $6 - $10 per sq ft |
| Pool deck resurfacing overlay (national guide range) | $3 - $12 per sq ft |
| Concrete leveling, polyurethane foam injection (national guide range) | $5 - $25 per sq ft |
| Mudjacking with cement grout (national guide range) | $4 - $9 per sq ft |
| Brick front steps, rebuilt (national guide range) | $600 - $900 per step |
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What Changes the Price?
Square footage and thickness set the base number. Four inches carries cars; five or six inches under a truck, trailer or RV adds material and labor across the loaded area, and the edge gets thickened as well.
Tear-out and access move the price more than most people expect. Reinforced concrete over old fill costs more to remove and dispose of than asphalt over clean sand, and a backyard patio reached only through a five-foot gate is a wheelbarrow job rather than a truck job.
Finish is a genuine multiplier. Broom finish is the baseline, exposed aggregate and integral color step up, and full stamping with color hardener and release is the top of the range because it adds crew time in a short working window.
Site work is the wildcard line. Regrading so water leaves the property, tying a channel drain into a dry well, removing organic fill nobody knew was there, or rebuilding a base that has washed out under an old slab all get priced separately and honestly.
Every estimate is free, measured on site and written down with the lines broken out, so you can see what the concrete, the base, the reinforcement and the finish each cost. If a cheaper bid is on the table, put the two side by side and compare the base preparation and the slab thickness first. That is nearly always where the difference lives, and it is the part nobody sees once the concrete is down.
Ranges for sidewalks, walls, pool decks, leveling and masonry
The table above now carries the services added in September 2026, and the new rows are labelled national guide ranges because that is what exists in print for them. Published cost guides put a concrete sidewalk at $28 to $68 per linear foot for a four-foot walk, a concrete retaining wall at $20 to $45 per square foot of wall face for poured concrete and $20 to $35 for block, a broom-finished concrete pool deck at $6 to $10 per square foot with a stamped finish at $15 to $30, and a resurfacing overlay on an existing deck at $3 to $12 per square foot. Those are national figures, and the Suffolk County markup described below applies to every one of them.
Lifting a settled slab is priced by the square foot and by the method. Polyurethane foam injection runs $5 to $25 per square foot in the published guides and cement-grout mudjacking $4 to $9, with most contractors carrying a minimum job charge of $300 to $700, so a single sunken walk flag can cost as much as three of them. Masonry rows follow the same pattern: rebuilding brick front steps is quoted at $600 to $900 per step, and a block (CMU) wall at $15 to $30 per square foot before any stone veneer or stucco finish. The concrete leveling and masonry steps and walls pages explain what moves each number.
Belgian block stays on its existing row, at $30 to $50 per linear foot for a border set in concrete, because that is the Long Island figure this page has carried since it was written. For a full Belgian block apron there is no published survey figure; the Belgian block page explains how the job is priced by the piece, the setting bed and the width of the curb cut. Driveway aprons and sidewalks in the Town right-of-way carry their own permit line, covered next.
Permit fees that ride along with a Smithtown concrete estimate
Work in the Town right-of-way is permitted by the Superintendent of Highways under Chapter 245 of the Town Code, and the fee schedule in Section 245-18A prices a residential driveway apron permit at $150 and a commercial apron at $200, with curb cut, sidewalk and curb excavation at $150 for the first 100 feet plus $1 per foot beyond that. A security deposit of at least $300 plus 10% of the cost over $300 is held against the restoration, and roads resurfaced within the last three years cannot be opened at all. Those figures come from the code as amended in 2019 and should be confirmed with the Highway Department when the permit is filed.
On private property the Building Department fee schedule in Section 112-11, amended in February 2026, charges $345 plus $1.45 per four square feet of wall area for a retaining wall permit, $200 for a fence, and $275 or $340 for a pool permit depending on its construction, with the fence included. Work built before a permit is issued pays three times the regular fee. The retaining wall page and the pool deck page go through which jobs need the permit and which do not.
The two incorporated villages issue their own permits at their own prices. In the Village of the Branch a driveway permit is $500, a fence permit is $500, and a road excavation is $500 with a $5,000 bond; in Head of the Harbor a driveway pays a $100 application fee plus a $150 permit fee and a patio is charged at $0.30 per square foot with a $100 minimum. Both schedules are summarized on the Village of the Branch and Head of the Harbor pages, and in either village a quote is not complete until the village fee is on it.
Why a Suffolk County quote runs above the national cost guides
The national ranges on this page are a floor, not a forecast. The only New York pages the large cost guides publish are for New York City, and they run consistently above the same guides' national pages: a concrete driveway at $10 to $28 per square foot against $8 to $20 nationally, stamped concrete at $12 to $35 against $9 to $22, and a slab at $125 per cubic yard against $110. The guides attribute the gap to dense neighborhoods, difficult access and a cost of living the slab page puts at nearly 13% above the national average. Smithtown is not the city, but its material, disposal and labor costs sit on the same side of that line.
Ready-mix is one input that can be checked directly. A Long Island cost index dated March 2025 lists 3,000 psi concrete at $166 to $175 per cubic yard, 4,000 psi at $178 to $187 and 5,000 psi at $190 to $200, with delivery alone at $150 to $330 per truckload. Exterior flatwork in this climate is specified at the air-entrained end of that table, for the reasons the data page lays out: about 98 nights a year at or below freezing, and salt on every surface a car or a boot reaches. The mix is a small share of a finished price, but it is the one line a homeowner can price independently, and a quote whose concrete line sits below the yard price is a quote that is thin somewhere else.
Concrete Contractor Pricing Questions
Why do the new rows say national guide ranges when the rest of the table is Long Island pricing?
The original rows were written from Long Island market figures. No survey publishes Suffolk County numbers for sidewalks, retaining walls, pool decks, slab lifting or masonry, so those rows carry the national ranges the guides do publish, with the label on them. Read them as the low end. The same guides' New York City pages run above their national pages on every service they cover, and a Smithtown quote lands above the national figure for the same reasons: disposal, access and labor.
Does a Smithtown estimate include the permit fees?
It should list them as their own lines. The Town's apron permit is $150 for a residential driveway, a curb cut or sidewalk excavation is $150 for the first 100 feet plus $1 per foot, a retaining wall permit is $345 plus $1.45 per four square feet of wall, and the two villages have their own schedules. A quote that folds fees into the concrete price cannot be compared with one that breaks them out, so ask for the permit line before comparing totals.
Is a Belgian block apron more expensive than a poured concrete apron?
Usually, because it is set by the piece. National guides put a concrete apron at $8 to $18 per square foot, while granite block is quoted by the linear foot for curbing, at $20 to $33 installed in one guide, and by the pallet for the block itself. A full apron multiplies that by the width of the curb cut and the depth from the curb to the property line. The Belgian block page walks through the pieces of that number.
When is lifting a slab cheaper than replacing it?
When the slab is in one piece and the problem is the ground under it. Foam injection at $5 to $25 per square foot or mudjacking at $4 to $9 costs a fraction of a tear-out and a new pour, and it is done in a day. Once a panel has broken into pieces, heaved rather than settled, or lost its base to a washout, lifting only postpones the replacement. The leveling page lists the conditions that decide it.
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