Swapping out a front door near Portland lands anywhere from $724 to $5,098, new door counted in, and the typical job sits at $2,890 (market data, November 2026) . Roughly half of it buys the door. The rest is labor, and it climbs when the sill or jamb turns out soft. How we do the work itself is on our entry door replacement page.
I'm Slava. This page sticks to money: what each line on a door quote pays for, and which of those lines you get to control.
What's the price of a new front door, installed, near Portland?
Every figure in this table is a local market range from November 2026, not our quote. The top line includes the door. The lines under it are labour only, so lumber, epoxy and paint come on top.
| Line on the bill | Typical | Spread | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Door replaced: unit, pan, flashing, seals | $2,890 | $724 up to $5,098 | each door, materials in |
| Rotted jamb or sill fixed (cut out, epoxy or a Dutchman patch) | $800 | $400 up to $1,600 | labour |
| Cracked jamb or new casing | $450 | $250 up to $900 | labour |
| New door painted or stained | $300 | $150 up to $600 | each door, labour |
| Sweep, threshold or drip cap | $250 | $150 up to $450 | labour |
Jamb, sill and paint lines in a pre-1978 house can mean disturbing old paint; the Oregon section further down covers that.
Here's some plain arithmetic from those middle figures, which are not quotes. A door going into a healthy opening sits near $2,890. Add a rot fix at the sill and jamb and you're near $3,690, with a full spread of $1,124 to $6,698. Paint it as well and the middle lands around $3,990.
One thing national calculators get wrong for us: Oregon charges no general sales tax. You pay the shelf tag for the door, so a total from another state can look higher or lower for that reason alone.
Why do some doors cost so much more than others?
Our price sheet doesn't break doors out by material, so I won't print a steel or fiberglass number I can't back up . What I can tell you is which choices push it.
Material is the first. Steel, fiberglass and solid wood sit at different price points, and glass set into the slab adds to any of them. Sidelights or a transom up top turn one unit into a bigger assembly with more seams to seal.
Size and swing come next. The usual single door measures 36 by 80 inches, and that's what stores keep in stock. Older houses sometimes have a 32 or 34 inch opening, and those units often get ordered in. The jamb also has to suit your wall: roughly 4-9/16 deep for 2x4 studs, 6-9/16 for 2x6.
Weather counts too. An entry that faces the October-to-spring rain wears through a wood finish faster, so plan on refinishing it more often. Double entry doors and patio sliders are separate jobs, priced on our French and sliding doors page.
Prehung or slab: which one costs less?
At the register, the slab wins. It's just the door, hung on the frame you already have. But someone has to cut the hinge pockets, bore the lock holes and plane the edges to fit an old opening, all by hand. That only pays off when the old frame is square, solid, free of rot and exactly the right size.
A prehung unit costs more at the store because it ships with its own jamb, sill and seals. When the frame is racked or the sill is soft, it's the cheaper road overall, since nobody bills you for hand-fitting a new door to bad wood.
There's a third kind, the retrofit or insert unit, which slips inside the old frame. It shrinks the opening a little and sits right on top of any rot.
Our sheet has no price for hanging an exterior slab by itself .
What do a new frame and a rotted sill add?
The frame comes with a prehung door, so you don't pay for it twice. The extra money goes into whatever that frame rests on. Mending a cracked jamb is $250-$900 labour only, and cutting out soft jamb or sill wood is $400-$1,600 labour only (local market ranges, November 2026) .
Most of that damage hides until the old door is pulled. Look for it low on each jamb leg, beneath the threshold and in the floor sheathing just inside. When it shows up, the fair move is to stop, take pictures and hand the owner a written figure for the extra before going further . Bigger rebuilds are on our rotted door frame repair page.
Why it happens on this side of town: many houses from the 60s, 70s and 80s stand over crawl spaces, and plenty of older entries went in with no pan under the sill. Each wet winter of sideways rain soaks that wood a little more .
What are you paying for in the labor?
In a $2,890 job, the sheet splits it down the middle: about $1,445 for labor and about $1,445 for the door and materials. That's arithmetic from its 50 % materials share . It figures on roughly 8 hours for one door, so plan on a working day .
Those hours pay for pulling the old unit, checking the floor under it, laying a pan, setting the new unit plumb on shims, sealing the gap with foam, capping the head, then trim, casing, the lockset, seals and caulk. Every step is spelled out on our entry door page.
Plenty of people buy the door at a big-box store and want install labor only . Either way, the new lock goes in with the keys it shipped with, since rekeying is something we don't do.
Which extras show up on a door quote?
Hardware and a storm door are the common ones. These figures are local market ranges from November 2026, labour only, so the lock or storm door itself is extra .
| Extra | Typical | Spread |
|---|---|---|
| New deadbolt, lever or handleset | $175 | $100 up to $300 |
| Battery smart lock or keypad deadbolt | $200 | $120 up to $300 |
| Storm door hung over the new entry | $450 | $300 up to $700 |
| Reinforced strike, door armor, peephole | $350 | $150 up to $700 |
Paint and a fresh sweep or threshold sit in the first table. Old paint in a pre-1978 house falls under the Oregon rules below.
Two costs have no row on our sheet. Hauling the old door: junk removal isn't a service we offer, so ask whether the old door and scraps leave with the crew . Permit fees: they only appear when the opening changes, which the next section explains.
Can Oregon's rules raise the price?
Permit. A same-size swap normally carries no permit fee. The 2026 Oregon residential code exempts door replacement from permits (section R105.2, building item 14), except where a structural member gets changed or the door has to be fire-resistance rated. The state's homeowner permit page adds that a brand-new opening, or one made bigger or smaller, does need a permit. So going wider, adding sidelights or putting in a new header brings a permit fee . Your local building department has the last word.
Houses from before 1978. A good share of houses out here went up before that year. In them, Oregon's lead-safe renovation rule kicks in once a job scrapes or cuts more than six square feet of painted surface in any one room indoors, or more than twenty square feet outdoors. The rule never mentions doors, so the measure is how much old casing and trim the swap touches. We don't take on work that disturbs lead paint .
Written contract. Oregon's contractor board wants any construction deal above $2,000 put on paper. A $2,890 door clears that bar, so expect a signed contract listing the scope and the price; this guide explains what an Oregon contract must include.
Tax credit. Per the IRS, the federal energy credit, capped at $250 a door, only covered doors installed before December 31, 2025. Plan a 2027 door without it. That's not tax advice; ask your preparer.
Would fixing the old door cost less?
Often, yes. Local market ranges, November 2026, labour only :
| Problem | Typical | Spread |
|---|---|---|
| Sticks, rubs or sags | $250 | $150 up to $400 |
| Latch won't catch | $200 | $120 up to $300 |
| Worn hinges, stripped screw holes | $200 | $120 up to $300 |
| Drafts around the edges | $250 | $150 up to $400 |
A drafty bottom edge may only need a sweep or threshold, priced in the first table. A new door earns its cost when the slab is cracked or coming apart in layers, the bottom rail has rotted, or the frame can't hold a hinge screw. If it's none of those, start with door repair.
Wood takes on moisture through the wet season. A door that drags in January may swing free again come August .
Does a new entry door pay off at resale?
The 2025 Cost vs Value survey from a remodeling trade publication says a steel entry door swap gets back 216 percent of what it cost when the house sells. That's a nationwide average, not a Portland number, and nobody can promise it on your house. Read it as a sign the door is a sensible spend, not as a return.
What should two door quotes both show?
Lay them next to each other and see whether both name these things on paper:
- the maker and model of the door, and prehung or slab;
- a pan under the sill and flashing at the head;
- trim inside and out, and who paints or stains;
- the lockset and deadbolt;
- pulling out the old unit;
- how hidden rot gets priced: a set allowance, a rate per foot of jamb, or a fresh written figure once it's found.
When one bid comes in far below the other, one of those lines is usually missing. One more Oregon detail: on a first home-repair contract, you can back out in writing until the end of the next business day, midnight being the cutoff.