Concrete driveway cost in Arkansas (2026)

Concrete driveway cost in Arkansas runs $6.96 to $16.43 a square foot, installed. A 20 by 20 two-car driveway (400 square feet) comes to $3,000 to $7,050 before the drive cost. That’s our trip out to your place, figured from your address. The low end is a plain 4-inch broom finish. Stamping or a sealer moves you up the range. Tearing out an old driveway is its own line. Every price covers the forms, the pour, the finish, and saw-cut control joints.

Ready-mix plants in Arkansas compete hard for work, and labor rates are moderate across the state. Where you live still matters. Fancy finishes are common in NW Arkansas, so driveways there land near the top of the range. Eastern Arkansas and the SW corner mostly pour plain broom, so they land closer to the middle. This page covers size, finish, thickness, steel, soil, and weather for driveways from Bentonville to Texarkana to West Memphis.

How does driveway size affect the price?

The low end of each row is a 4-inch broom finish on 4 inches of packed #57 crushed stone. The high end adds extras like stamping or a sealer. Small driveways pay more per foot, because the setup and forms cost about the same on any job. A bigger pour spreads them thinner. So a 1,000-square-foot rural approach lands near the low end per foot, while a 240-square-foot single-car pad lands near the top.

We pour a lot of rural driveways for barndominiums and farms. A long approach from a county road to a shop or a homesite uses the same per-foot math. We watch the drainage and the crown, the slight hump down the middle that sheds water. We also place the control joints so the slab won’t crack across the wheel paths.

What does each finish type cost?

Broom finish is the workhorse. The light grooves shed water and grip wet or dry. No special tools needed. Stamped concrete copies brick, slate, or flagstone. The crew presses rubber mats into the wet slab with a color hardener and a release agent. We seal it after it cures. It costs more because it takes more material, and the crew has to stamp it before the concrete sets. A stamped driveway with rebar starts at $12.57 a square foot, before the drive cost.

Exposed aggregate shows off the stone in the mix. We spray a retarder on top, a chemical that keeps the surface soft for a few hours. Then we wash the top layer away. The pebbly surface grips well, so it’s popular on sloped driveways. We price mixed-in color per job, once you pick the color.

For more on color, see our concrete staining cost breakdown. For the same services priced across the line, see the Oklahoma concrete driveway cost page.

What affects concrete driveway cost in Arkansas?

Square footage. It’s the biggest factor. A bigger driveway costs more in total but less per foot.

Slab thickness. Four inches is the home standard. Pickups with trailers, RVs, boat trailers, and farm equipment push it to 5 or 6 inches. Each extra inch adds concrete and a little labor, and our quote tool prices that thickness for you. In Central Arkansas and the Delta, expansive clay lifts the edges of a slab. There, 5 inches is often the right minimum, no matter what you park on it.

Reinforcement. Steel or fiber in the concrete keeps cracks tight. You pick one. The per-foot range already counts one choice, so these don’t stack on top. Each price is per square foot:

• Welded wire mesh (6x6 W1.4/W1.4, set on chairs at mid-depth): $0.63. It’s the standard pick for cars and light loads.
• Rebar (#4 bars on 18-inch centers): $2.12. It handles heavy loads.
• Fiber mesh: $0.32. The fibers cut down on shrinkage cracks, but they don’t replace steel on a driveway that carries real weight.

We size the steel to the vehicles you’ll actually park, not to a one-size default.

Ground and site prep. Flat, stable ground that drains well needs little prep. Slopes, expansive clay, or more than 6 inches of fill add cost. We price that work per job, after we see your ground.

Tear-out and haul-off. Replacing an old driveway adds $2.30 a square foot for breaking it up, loading it, and hauling it off. If the old slab is sound but worn, an overlay may cost less than starting over.

Site access and pump truck. If the concrete truck can back right up to the forms, you don’t need a pump. On a narrow lot, a rear driveway, or a steep grade, the truck may not reach. Then a line pump adds a flat $1,780. Long rural approaches almost never need one, because the truck drives straight in on the base rock.

Arkansas driveway prices split along soil lines more than city lines. NW Arkansas pours on Ozark rock or shallow residuum, a thin soil made of broken-down rock. Ground prep there is cheap, though we sometimes have to saw through stone. The Delta and Central Arkansas sit on expansive clay that swells and shrinks with every wet and dry spell. A driveway poured there without moisture control or the right thickness cracks along the wheel paths within three seasons. SW Arkansas near Texarkana has both, and Central Arkansas can have both inside a single county. Labor rates hold steady statewide. The ground work that makes a slab last can vary by a factor of three.

How does pricing vary by Arkansas sub-region?

Our per-foot rates are the same across the state. What changes from one region to the next is the drive, the ground, and the kind of work people ask for. For more on steel and mix design, see the Arkansas concrete flatwork service page.

NW Arkansas runs at the top because new homes there lean toward fancy finishes, and mixed-in color is common. Central Arkansas sits in the middle, since the work is more varied. On Delta clay, a slab over 800 square feet may need thickened edges or post-tension, which means steel cables pulled tight after the pour.

Is concrete worth more than asphalt or gravel in Arkansas climate?

Arkansas weather is hard on a driveway. Summers hit 95 degrees, the northern half freezes and thaws all winter, and the state gets 48 to 55 inches of rain a year.

Asphalt wins on day one. Over 25 years, the sealing and one full redo add up. A plain broom concrete driveway that gets daily use usually costs less. Gravel only makes sense for a temporary or rural approach, where the upfront price matters more than the surface.

Steel, joints, and thickness for Arkansas ground

Make these calls when the ground is being prepped, not on pour day. They decide how your driveway holds up for the next 25 years.

• Cars and light trucks on stable ground: 4 inches with welded wire mesh.
• A daily driver plus an occasional trailer: 5 inches.
• An RV, a boat, or farm equipment parked on it: 6 inches with rebar on 18-inch centers. A 6-inch slab carries about twice the load of a 4-inch slab with the same steel.
• Clay in Eastern or Central Arkansas: #4 rebar, even on a 4-inch slab. That ground moves enough to pull a slab apart in ways wire mesh can’t hold.

Fiber mixed into the concrete helps with shrinkage cracks, but it’s never a stand-in for steel.

Joints. We saw-cut control joints every 10 to 12 feet, within 12 hours of the pour, per ACI 224R. Each cut goes one-quarter of the way through the slab, so 1 inch deep on a 4-inch slab. That makes a weak line where the concrete can crack neatly as it shrinks. A driveway without good joints cracks wherever it wants, usually right across the middle where everyone sees it. On most home jobs, we walk the driveway with you before the pour and mark where each joint will go.

Pour-4-Polish note for garage approaches

If your driveway leads to a garage floor that will be polished or coated, the two pours should share one spec. A driveway poured at a different thickness, mix, or finish makes a seam that moves differently as it heats and cools. That seam can crack the garage slab right at the door. When we pour both, we match the mix, the steel, and the finish across the threshold. See our Pour-4-Polish specification process, and Arkansas barndominium slab work for rural sites where the approach, garage, and shop slab tie together.

What is included in a Bel Covo driveway quote?

A typical Arkansas driveway bid from Bel Covo includes:

• A site walk and a look at the ground before we give a final number
• Forms, pouring, screeding (leveling the wet concrete), and the finish you picked
• Control joints, saw-cut within about 12 hours of the pour
• The welded wire mesh or rebar you picked
• A 7-day water cure, per ACI 308R
• Base rock (#57 stone or AB-3, per AR DOT specs) and packing it down
• The drive cost, figured from your address
• Cleanup, and hauling off the forms and debris

Most bids don’t include tearing out an old driveway, or grading and fill beyond 6 inches. A concrete pump, permits, and decorative upgrades are extra too. Permits are rare in Arkansas, but some cities ask for one.

Does where you live in Arkansas change the price?

Our NW Arkansas crew works out of the Fayetteville area. Our Eastern Arkansas crew in Forrest City covers the Delta. Hot Springs, Texarkana, and Arkadelphia sit inside our Texarkana-area coverage. Little Rock, Conway, and North Little Rock are paired jobs, so a small stand-alone driveway there costs more per foot to reach. The online quote tool works out the drive cost from your project address.

Why do bids vary so much?

Two bids on the same driveway differ because the specs differ. A bid far below the rest usually cuts one of four things. It may skimp on the ground prep or the joint timing. It may use a 3,000 PSI mix instead of 3,500 to 4,000 PSI. Or it may swap our 7-day water cure (per ACI 308R) for a spray-on compound. Each shortcut shows up later as cracks or spalling, where the top flakes off in Arkansas freeze-thaw weather. Before you sign, ask the bidder to put the spec on the truck ticket, the delivery slip from the concrete plant.

Related Arkansas pages and service links

• Arkansas state hub for every service we run across the state
• Arkansas concrete flatwork for shop slabs, patios, commercial pads, and other flatwork
• Arkansas barndominium slab for rural pours where the driveway, approach, and shop slab tie together
• Pour-4-Polish specification process for planning the pour and finish as one job
• Oklahoma concrete driveway cost to compare across the state line
• Get an instant price estimate with the online calculator