Christmas Tree Farm Season Jobs in the U.S. (2026)

Around 25-30 million real Christmas trees are sold in the United States each year, and nearly all of them are cut, baled and shipped in a frantic six-week window. The Christmas tree harvest is one of America's most concentrated seasonal jobs - short, physical and surprisingly well-organized, with established farms running the same playbook and often the same crews every November.

Two capitals of the Christmas tree

Production is dominated by two regions. Oregon - especially the Willamette Valley - grows Douglas and noble firs by the million for the West Coast and export markets. North Carolina's high country around Ashe and Avery Counties grows the prized Fraser fir for the East. Behind them come Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Washington. Choose-and-cut farms exist everywhere, but the big hiring happens at wholesale plantations in those two states.

The season's shape

• Spring (March-May): planting seedlings - a smaller crew, since a tree cut this year was planted seven to ten years ago.
• Summer (June-August): shearing and shaping, the skilled mid-year job that gives trees their conical form; experienced shearers are hired specifically for these months.
• October-early December: the main event - tagging, cutting, hauling, baling and loading trucks and containers. Peak shipping runs early November through the first days of December; trees cut after mid-December are worthless, so the deadline is absolute.
• November side-market: wreath and garland workshops (big in North Carolina and Michigan) hire additional hands, often indoors - a good option for workers who prefer bench work to hillside cutting, and it frequently runs alongside the harvest under the same employer.

The work and hedged pay

Harvest is heavy labor: chainsaw crews fell trees, workers drag them to baling machines, and loaders stack trucks - often on steep, wet Appalachian or Oregon hillsides in cold rain. Pay is commonly piece-rate (per tree cut, baled or loaded) with the H-2A hourly floor guaranteed underneath; effective earnings for fast crews are typically somewhere around $16-22 per hour in 2026, hedged on weather and crew speed. Wreath-making pays closer to base rates but indoors.

The visa route: H-2A

Growing Christmas trees counts as agriculture, so plantations hire through the H-2A program - uncapped, employer-sponsored, with legally required free housing, transport and a state-set minimum wage. Many farms bring back the same crews for the harvest each year; some Oregon growers pair the tree season with summer nursery contracts for longer stays. If visas are new territory, start with how U.S. visa sponsorship works. Nobody legitimate charges workers for these jobs - H-2A recruitment fees charged to workers are illegal.

Housing notes

H-2A housing is free and inspected: typically farm bunkhouses or mobile homes near the fields. In North Carolina's mountains expect rural isolation and cold nights; in Oregon, rain gear matters more than anything else you pack. Kitchens are usually shared and crews cook together.

A day in the harvest

Crews start at first light. In Oregon, helicopter harvests are common on big plantations: cutters fell tagged trees, gatherers bundle them, and a helicopter long-lines the bundles to the loading yard in seconds - dramatic, loud and efficient, with strict safety zones everyone must respect. In North Carolina, it is more often tractors and sleds hauling Frasers off steep hillsides. At the yard, trees run through balers that wrap them in netting, then get graded by size and stacked into trailers by the hundred. Loading crews develop a rhythm that borders on sport, and the day ends when the trucks are full, not when the clock says so. Rain is constant in Oregon and does not stop the harvest; only ice does.

Why take a six-week job?

Because it stacks. Tree harvest slots neatly after autumn farm work and before winter jobs, the piece-rate weeks are lucrative for hard workers, and reliable cutters are invited back annually. It is also, workers say, oddly satisfying - the trees you load in Oregon in November stand in living rooms across America a month later.

This is general information, not legal advice. Official H-2A rules, wages and housing standards: dol.gov; visa process at uscis.gov.

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