In a single year coniferous pulpwood rose by almost half while birch veneer logs dropped 18%. The 'price of timber' is not one number — it is a basket of assortments. Here is what is rising in 2026, what is falling, and how to tell whether it is a good moment for your stand.
Why the "price of timber" is not one number
When the news says timber prices have risen or fallen, it tells a forest owner very little. A forest is not one product. A growing stand splits into several assortments — large, medium and small sawlogs, pulpwood, firewood, birch veneer logs and packaging wood — and each has its own price and its own market.
Your stand's value is the sum of those assortments: how many cubic metres come out of each, and what buyers pay for them. That is why a single average "timber price" says nothing until you know what your forest actually yields.
2026 is a textbook example. Some assortments rose more than 40% in the first half of the year; others fell by almost a third in the same period. The average hides more than it reveals.
What is rising fastest in 2026: pulpwood and firewood
The sharpest gains this year are in the lower-grade assortments. According to the e-Silva market review (12 June 2026), coniferous pulpwood rose over the first five months of the year from about €42 to €61.5 per m³ — up 46%. Pine pulpwood rose similarly, from €42 to €61. Coniferous firewood climbed from €33 to €42 per m³ (+27%), and aspen and grey-alder firewood from €35.5 to €43.5 (+22.5%).
The driver is demand from the cellulose industry and bioenergy — woodchips and fuel wood. These buyers compete precisely for lower-grade wood, and that pulls up the price of pulpwood and firewood.
The auction side shows the same. Mežabirža (8 June 2026) reports that by the end of May coniferous pulpwood reached at least €60 per m³ in practically every port, and €65 in places, while firewood purchase prices climbed to €50 in some areas — a level not seen for a long time.
In practice this means a stand with a large share of lower-grade wood — thinnings, mixed broadleaves, alder and aspen, a lot of pulpwood — is worth more this year than it would have been a year ago.
What is holding up: coniferous sawlogs
High-grade wood has not fallen — if anything the opposite. The price of large pine sawlogs held steady at around €94.5 per m³ in the first half of the year (e-Silva). The state-run monitoring confirms it: data from the Forest Advisory and Service Centre (MKPC) and MEKA (6 March 2026) put large pine sawlogs near €95.8 per m³.
Large spruce sawlogs actually rose — by 4.9%, reaching about €99 per m³. Part of the reason lies in Scandinavia, where the supply of spruce roundwood tightened and some of the demand shifted to Baltic sawlogs.
This means the high-value core of a mature pine or spruce stand — the large sawlogs — is firm or even rising. The auctions show it clearly: in May, quality coniferous cutting areas on Mežabirža exceeded €80 per m³, and the top one in Kurzeme reached €82.40 per m³, with the auction opening at €96,000 and closing at €132,000.
What is falling: birch veneer logs and packaging wood
At the same time, part of the birch range has lost value this year. According to e-Silva, the average price of birch veneer logs fell from €107 to €87.5 per m³ — down 18%. Birch packaging wood fell further, from €103 to €71 (−31%). The cause is weaker demand in the plywood, veneer and packaging markets across Europe.
But not all birch dropped. Birch pulpwood rose by about 13% over the same period, from €53 to almost €60. So how hard the decline hits a particular birch stand depends on how much of the wood grades into veneer logs versus pulpwood.
The point is simple: the assumption that "birch is always strong" does not hold this year. A stand whose value rested on premium birch veneer logs has, for now, lost part of that premium.
What it means if you are thinking of selling
The right question is not "have timber prices risen?" It is "what does my stand mainly yield, and where is that assortment right now?"
Two groups are in the favourable position today. First, stands with a large share of lower-grade wood: pulpwood, firewood, mixed broadleaves. Second, mature coniferous — especially spruce — sawlog stands. In the weaker position are stands whose value rests heavily on birch veneer logs.
There is one more layer to this backdrop. In 2025, felling volumes in Latvia fell by 14% (State Forest Service data, compiled by Mežabirža). Thinner supply tends to keep buyer competition alive at auction. Even so, no single port price should be treated as your sale price — the final figure depends on the assortment mix, haul distance, season and the competition among actual buyers.
How to find your stand's assortment mix
It starts with the forest inventory data. The dominant species, age, height and diameter let you roughly estimate how much wood will go into sawlogs, how much into pulpwood and how much into firewood.
Simply put: a young or thin stand yields mostly pulpwood and firewood — exactly what rose in 2026. A mature pine or spruce stand is a sawlog stand, and its value holds. For a birch stand, the deciding factor is how much reaches veneer-log quality.
MezaData shows the dominant species, age and wood volume for each compartment, so you can roughly estimate the assortment split before setting a price or entering an auction — and decide which stands to sell now and which to hold. Just remember these are mid-2026 figures and prices move month to month; check the current numbers before a deal.
Sources
- e-Silva — Roundwood prices in Latvia 2026: price changes for pine, spruce and birch assortments (12.06.2026) — assortment prices and their change over the first five months of the year.
- LLKC / Forest Advisory and Service Centre — Roundwood product price trends (06.03.2026) — state-run price monitoring in cooperation with MEKA.
- Mežabirža — High activity in mixed broadleaf cutting areas | May auction summary (08.06.2026) — auction volumes, pulpwood and firewood prices, the highest coniferous cutting area in Kurzeme.