How much does it cost to locate underground utilities?

STA 0+120One-call locates are free, by law or by policy

Every provincial one-call system checked for this guide provides locate requests to the requester at no charge. Ontario's is the clearest: legislation states members may not charge a fee for providing locates in response to a request¹. Info-Excavation, which covers Quebec and the Atlantic provinces, describes free locate requests, with a typical delay of about 3 business days before work can start². Alberta's Utility Safety Partners asks for 3 to 5 full working days' notice³, BC 1 Call asks for at least 3 business days⁴, Sask 1st Call asks for a minimum of 3 full business days on a routine request⁵, and Click Before You Dig Manitoba asks for a minimum of 3 full working days⁶ — none of these one-call centres charge the requester for the locate itself. The call before you dig guide has the full province-by-province contact and process detail.

What a locate request buys is not instant: the value is in the notice period. Rushing a dig before locates come back, or before the requested window has passed, is how a marked line gets missed entirely, not how a free service gets sped up.

STA 0+240Private property lines: the part that is not free

A one-call locate request notifies the utilities and infrastructure owners who are members of that system — typically the gas, power, telecom and municipal water/sewer providers. It does not cover lines a property owner owns privately: a service line to a detached garage or shed, a private well or septic line, an irrigation system, or site utilities on a large private property that were never registered with the one-call system. Info-Excavation's own FAQ notes that placing a locate request is not mandatory, only strongly recommended — the actual legal duty to locate services before digging sits with the excavator under each province's occupational health and safety rules², regardless of whether a one-call request was made.

Marking a private line requires hiring a private locating company, which uses ground-penetrating radar, electromagnetic locating or line tracing depending on the utility. No government body publishes a price for this service; it is a private commercial quote that depends on the site size, how many lines need to be traced, and the technology required. Get quotes from more than one private locator for a comparable scope, since there is no public rate to check them against.

STA 0+360What the paint means

Once locates come back, markings follow a national colour code, whether they came from a one-call member or a private locator: red for electrical power and lighting⁷, yellow for gas, oil or steam⁷, orange for communication and signal lines⁷, blue for potable water⁷, green for sewer and drain lines⁷, purple for reclaimed water and irrigation⁷, and white for the proposed excavation area itself, painted before locates are even requested⁷. Pink is reserved for temporary survey markings, not utilities⁷. Knowing the code does not cost anything, and misreading it is a common, avoidable cause of a struck line.

STA 0+480Federally regulated pipelines

Ground disturbance within the prescribed area of a federally regulated pipeline — a strip of land 30 m on each side of the pipeline centreline⁸ — needs a locate request made through the one-call centre at least 3 working days before starting⁸. This locate is free the same way any other one-call request is; what it adds is a stricter minimum notice period and, often, direct coordination with the pipeline operator rather than only the municipal or provincial utilities.

STA 0+600What actually costs money around locates

The locate itself is free, but delay and rework around it are not:

• Waiting on the notice period. A crew and equipment standing idle for the 3 to 5 days most one-call systems ask for is a real cost, even though the locate service line item is zero.
• Locate validity expiring. Marks are only valid for a limited period — Sask 1st Call states 30 calendar days, for example — and a project that runs long has to request a re-locate, which costs nothing directly but adds another notice-period delay. Ontario's incoming rule, effective November 1, 2026, lets an eligible project continue digging for up to 180 days from the last locate document without a fresh request under specific conditions⁹, which is worth checking if a project is expected to run long in Ontario specifically.
• A missed or incorrect mark. If a locate is wrong or incomplete and a line is struck, the cost is the repair, any resulting outage, and potential liability — far more than the locate request itself would ever have cost.
• Private line locating. As covered above, this is the one genuine cost line item in the whole process, and it is priced privately.

STA 0+720Getting a private line located

For a comparable private-locator quote: the site size and what is suspected to be buried (a specific service line, or a general sweep of the property), whether any as-built drawings exist, and access for the locator's equipment. Request the locate with enough lead time that it does not become the item holding up your project schedule, the same way a one-call locate should be requested early rather than at the last minute. Where a site likely has both member-owned and private lines, request the free one-call locate first and use it to narrow down where a private locator still needs to check.