Looking for a forest for sale in Doubs? The department is best read by altitude. Up high, the Haut-Doubs, from Mouthe to Pontarlier and on to the Morteau valley, carries fir and spruce forests where silver fir and Norway spruce supply sought-after construction timber. On the intermediate plateaus around Ornans and Valdahon, beech mixes with the conifers, while the lowlands, from Besançon to the Montbéliard area, are still dominated by oak, beech and hornbeam. Most sales involve small areas: wooded plots of a few hectares, bought by a neighbour, a farmer or a household that wants to cut its own firewood.
This page brings together the listings of woods and forests in Doubs posted by private sellers, estate agents and notaires, along with the prices recorded in recent sales. It also sets out what to check before buying in a department where municipal forests take up a large share of the land and where the bark beetle crisis has profoundly changed the value of spruce stands.
According to the ma-propriete.fr forest price observatory, built from sales recorded in the French DVF land registry database, the median price of a hectare of forest in Doubs was €6,360/ha in 2025, across 111 sales, with an average of €7,268/ha. That puts the department above the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté median (€4,715/ha) and above the national median (€4,936/ha). Compared with 2024, the median changed by +8.9%. Over the more robust 2020-2025 period, 455 sales give a median of €6,638/ha for a median plot size of 2.4 ha.
| Indicator | Doubs (25) | Bourgogne-Franche-Comté | France |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median price 2025 | €6,360/ha | €4,715/ha | €4,936/ha |
| Average price 2025 | €7,268/ha | €6,151/ha | €6,214/ha |
| Number of sales 2025 | 111 | 650 | 6,329 |
| Change in median 2024 → 2025 | +8.9% | −3.0% | +1.9% |
| Median price 2020-2025 | €6,638/ha | €4,775/ha | €4,778/ha |
| Number of sales 2020-2025 | 455 | 3,408 | 35,100 |
Prices vary widely: in 2025, one forest in ten sold for less than €3,019/ha in Doubs and one in ten for more than €12,441/ha. The gap reflects the type of stand, access and intended use: a firewood coppice and a quality high forest of the same size do not sell at the same price.
On the listings side, 5 forests and wooded properties are offered on ma-propriete.fr in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté as of 2 October 2026, none in Doubs at that date. Their median asking price is €331,700 for a median size of about 23 ha. These are asking prices for complete properties: they describe the supply on offer more than the average price of a wooded hectare. Conveyancing fees come on top of the price: our notary fee calculator lets you estimate them before making an offer.
Source: DVF (French tax authority), processed by ma-propriete.fr; forests of 1 ha or more, cadastral type woodland; July 2020 to December 2025; Moselle, Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin are not covered by DVF. Listings recorded on ma-propriete.fr on 2 October 2026.
Above the first plateaus the Doubs forest turns coniferous, and the fir woods of the Haut-Doubs are first and foremost a production forest. Silver fir and spruce are often managed as selection forest (futaie jardinée): trees of every age and diameter grow side by side in the same stand, which allows regular harvests without ever leaving the ground bare. The Levier state forest, west of Pontarlier, continues the Joux forest of neighbouring Jura across the departmental boundary. For a buyer, a well-kept selection fir wood provides an income spread over time, provided the share of large timber and the renewal of young stems stay in balance.
Higher still, wooded pastures, where scattered spruce, copses and grassland alternate, show that forestry and the dairy farming behind Comté cheese have shared the land for centuries. In the deep Loue and Dessoubre valleys, the limestone slopes are covered with beech woods mixed with maple and ash. Further north, between Besançon, Baume-les-Dames and the Montbéliard area, lowland and hill oak-beech woods form more conventional forests, such as the Chailluz forest, owned by the city of Besançon.
The private market in Doubs is made up of small units. A large part of the forest belongs to the communes and falls under the public forest regime, applied by the ONF (the state forestry office); private woods, often split up through successive inheritances, are sold in lots of a few hectares, sometimes less than one. A wooded plot on the edge of a pasture appeals to the neighbouring farmer, a stand of harvestable fir attracts sawmills and logging contractors, and a hardwood coppice near a village finds buyers among residents who heat with wood. Single blocks of several dozen hectares remain rare.
Game matters too: roe deer, wild boar and, on the high ground and in the gorges, chamois use these forests. Properties where hunting is the main interest are listed on our page of hunting grounds in Doubs, and the few private waters on our page of ponds in Doubs. If you are after larger areas of fir forest, compare with the woods and forests for sale in Jura, where the same range continues southwards.
The first issue is the health of the spruce. After a run of drought years, the spruce bark beetle has devastated many low- and mid-altitude spruce stands, and across the Jura range attacks are now reaching high-altitude forests. A spruce plot may therefore hide dead trees that must be felled urgently and sold at a discount, followed by replanting that you will have to pay for. Have the standing volume and its condition assessed by a forestry expert or an adviser from the CRPF (the regional private forestry centre), separating green timber from beetle-killed wood; look at the fir as well, more resilient but weakened by dry summers on shallow soils.
On the legal side, two rules matter. For a wood in Doubs of less than 4 ha, owners of adjoining wooded plots and the commune have a right of first refusal; and where the commune owns an adjoining forest under the public forest regime, which is common in the villages of the Haut-Doubs and the plateaus, it holds a pre-emption right that takes priority over the neighbours. Our article on forest pre-emption and first refusal rights explains the procedure. Finally, check access: on valley slopes, a wood with no track usable by timber lorries can only be extracted at high cost, by cable or with specialist machinery. Any Doubs forest of 20 ha or more needs a management plan approved by the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté CRPF (plan simple de gestion), which also opens the way to the favourable tax regimes.
Woods and forests in Doubs listed on ma-propriete.fr are posted by private owners, estate agents and notaires’ offices. Sort them by size or price, switch on an email alert to hear about new plots as soon as they come up, or post a listing for your own wood. To compare with Haute-Saône, Côte-d’Or or the Territoire de Belfort, browse our forests for sale in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté.
