Door Installation Cost

Door costs

Three door projects have national prices, everything else has none

Americans spent $827 billion on home improvements between 2021 and 2023. Of 140 million projects, 50 million were done by homeowners themselves, 36%, with professionals doing the other 64%¹. Doors sit inside that enormous number in exactly three places. Garage door replacement, steel entry door replacement and a fiberglass grand entrance are the only door projects in America with a national installed cost published by a study that states how it was produced².

Those three are worth having. Zonda's 2025 Cost vs Value Report puts garage door replacement at a $4,672 average job cost with 267.7% recouped at resale, first of 28 projects; steel entry door replacement at $2,435 with 216.4%, second; and a fiberglass grand entrance at $11,754 with 84.7%, tenth². Three of the ten highest-returning remodelling projects in the country are door projects. That is what the table says.

Now set that against what the work pays. Mechanical door repairers top out at $37.63 an hour at the 90th percentile, against $52.17 for electricians and $48.03 for carpenters at the same percentile³. The highest-returning remodelling project in America is carried out by one of the lower-paid trades on the list. That gap is the most interesting thing in this whole dataset, and it comes from two entirely independent sources.

Every verified door number, and the ones that do not exist

Five published figures, one honest blank, and no aggregator estimates anywhere on this page.

Garage door replacement: $4,672

A $4,672 national average job cost against $12,507 of value at resale, 267.7% recouped, ranked first of 28 remodelling projects for the second consecutive year². It is the highest return in the entire study. Note what it is: a resale-oriented national average, not a quote for the door on your house.

Steel entry door replacement: $2,435

A $2,435 average job cost, $5,270 at resale, 216.4% recouped, second of 28². Zonda's summary notes that each of the top three projects more than doubled the cost of the investment². This is the cheapest high-return move on the entire list of 28.

Fiberglass grand entrance: $11,754

An $11,754 job cost at 84.7% recouped, tenth of 28². We are deliberately not printing its value-at-resale figure: the cell on Zonda's page is malformed and we will not guess at what it was meant to say. The job cost and the percentage are clean and usable.

The federal cross-check: $2,800

The Census Bureau and HUD, using the 2023 American Housing Survey, report a $2,800 median homeowner spend on doors and windows, against $6,500 across all improvements and $4,600 on an attached garage or carport¹. Doors and windows are bundled and cannot be separated, so do not read it as a door-only figure.

Inside a new build: $15,990 and $12,920

NAHB's 2024 construction cost survey puts windows and doors, including the garage door, at $15,990 per new single-family home, 3.7% of a $428,215 total, and interior trims, doors and mirrors at $12,920, 3.0%⁴. Carry the base with the number: 4,000 builders were emailed and 41 usable responses came back⁴.

What has no published price at all

Garage door repair of any kind, springs, cables, rollers and off-track work. Openers. Sliding, patio, interior and storm doors. Any price by material or size. The premium for an impact-rated door in a coastal wind zone. Every one of those was searched for, and none is published by a source that states a method.

Door projects with a published national costThree, all from one study

Median homeowner spend, doors and windows$2,800, Census and HUD, bundled

What does door installation actually cost?

The study behind the three figures is Zonda's Cost vs Value Report, its 38th annual edition, published on 18 September 2025 and attributed on the page to Clay DeKorne of Zonda's JLC Group and Todd Tomalak². It states its method: results were determined in part through surveys of real estate professionals, along with data delivered via Zonda's collaboration with Verisk's XactRemodel estimating solution². One discrepancy belongs alongside it. Zonda's own page says the data covers 115 local US markets², while Zonda's press release for the same report on the same date says 119⁵. Both are Zonda. We could not resolve which is right, so we are telling you rather than quietly picking one.

The gaps are larger than the coverage, and they are not gaps in this guide. Home Depot and Lowe's both refused automated requests, and no manufacturer price list was readable, so no price by door type, material or size appears here. Repair pricing could not be sourced at all. Nothing isolates a sliding, patio, interior or storm door. Nothing quantifies the coastal impact-rating premium. Fees, at least, are published and they stack differently in every jurisdiction: Broward County, Florida charges the greater of a $125 minimum or 1.85% of job value⁶, while Rockville, Maryland sets a $142 minimum permit fee, adds a $142 residential filing fee, then applies a 10.25% automation fee to all permit and application fees⁷.

Every figure on this page comes from Zonda's 2025 Cost vs Value Report, the Census and HUD 2023 American Housing Survey, NAHB's 2024 construction cost survey, BLS OEWS 2025 series and named county and city fee schedules, and not one of them is a quote, a product price, or a rate any contractor has agreed to charge you.

Hiring

How to hire when there is no price to check against

1

Who does the work

California is the only state whose licensing we verified from a primary source, and it splits the job in two. D-28 doors, gates and activating devices covers overhead and sliding assemblies, glass sliding doors and power activated doors⁸. C-6 finish carpentry covers making doors, trims and nonbearing partitions, which is where interior work belongs⁹. Nationally the occupation is mechanical door repairers, median wage $55,720³.

2

What pros will ask

The questions that decide whether two bids are even comparable. Does the frame stay or go. Does the opening change size. Does the operation change, a swing becoming a slide. Who supplies the door. Who finishes or paints it. Who removes the old one. Is hardware included. And is the permit fee inside the price or billed afterwards.

3

What to check before signing

That both quotes describe an identical scope, line by line, because with no national price ladder to test them against, like-for-like comparison is the only reliable instrument you have. That fees are named rather than assumed. And in California, that nobody is stretching the $1,000 licence exemption, which applies only when the work also requires no building permit¹⁰.

Door cost questions, answered straight

What is the average cost to install a door?

It depends which door, and for most doors nobody knows. Three projects have a published national figure: garage door replacement at $4,672, steel entry door replacement at $2,435 and a fiberglass grand entrance at $11,754². Separately, Census and HUD put the median homeowner spend on doors and windows at $2,800, bundled together and not separable¹. That the two independent sources land in the same territory is a genuine cross-check. Neither is a quote for your opening, and no other door type has a comparable number.

Why will you not give me a price by door type or material?

Because no source that publishes a methodology publishes one. Retailer product pages returned HTTP 403 to every automated request made for this research, no manufacturer price list was readable, and the remodelling study we do trust covers only three door projects². The abundant per-type prices online come from lead-generation aggregators that do not say how they were produced. Printing one of those here would make this page look more useful and be less true, which is a trade we do not make.

Do the Cost vs Value figures mean my house gains that much?

No, and the report is clear about what it is. The figures were determined in part through surveys of real estate professionals plus data from Zonda's collaboration with Verisk's XactRemodel estimating solution². That is a resale-oriented estimate for a national average market, not an appraisal of your house. There is also an unresolved detail: Zonda's page says 115 local US markets while its own press release for the same report says 119²⁵. Use the figures for direction and scale, not as a promise.

What do permits and fees add to a door job?

It varies enormously, starting with whether you need one at all. Austin lists replacing doors of the same size and operation as exempt from a building permit¹¹, while Piedmont, California requires a permit to replace exterior doors and says that includes garage doors¹². On fees: Broward County charges $125 or 1.85% of job value, whichever is greater⁶; Wake County, North Carolina charges $75 plus $0.25 per square foot, with re-inspections at $100, $200, $300 and $400¹³; Hernando County's fee evaluation lists a garage door line at an existing $126.56 and a recommended $105.00, with no adoption date we could read¹⁴.

Is there any tax credit left to offset the cost?

Not for work done now. The Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit paid 30% of qualified costs on exterior doors meeting applicable ENERGY STAR requirements, capped at $250 per door and $500 total, inside a $1,200 annual limit, and it never covered garage doors¹⁵. The IRS states it applies to qualifying property placed in service before December 31, 2025¹⁵. In its final year it also required a Qualified Manufacturer Identification Number on the return¹⁵. No replacement incentive was found in this research.

Sources

Where these facts came from

Every figure on this page was read out of the page linked below. We do not cite cost aggregators.

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