Construction material prices climbed 0.6% in November 2025 and are up 3.4% on a year-over-year basis, according to Associated Builders and Contractors. Prices in November 2025 were 43.4% higher than in February 2020.
Nonresidential construction material prices rose 0.6% in November 2025 and increased 3.8% compared with one year ago. Softwood lumber prices are down 6.7% year over year and up 0.1% for the month. Iron and steel prices are up 3.1% year over year and down 2.2% for the month. Natural gas rose 10.8% in November 2025 and is up 21% year over year. Crude petroleum fell 1.1% for the month and is down 11.6% year over year.
“Construction input prices surged in November and are now up 3.4% on a year-over-year basis,” said ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu. “While that’s a relatively modest annual increase, it’s also the largest since January 2023 and the trend offers plenty of cause for concern. Many tariff-affected materials, like derivative metal products and switchgear equipment, have experienced considerable price escalation in 2025. Prices for aluminum mill shapes and primary and secondary nonferrous metals are both up more than 25% over the past year.
“Unfortunately, it is impossible to know exactly how the cost of tariffs will be distributed throughout the supply chain, and that makes it exceptionally difficult to know how construction input prices will behave in 2026,” Basu continued. “Despite this uncertainty, contractors are on net optimistic that their profit margins will expand during the first half of the year, according to ABC’s Construction Confidence Index, albeit slightly less optimistic than they were at the same time last year.”
