By Adam Hicks, CooperBuild AI · November 9, 2026

General conditions in construction are the project-specific costs of running a job that don't belong to any one trade: the superintendent and PM time, the trailer, temp power and toilets, dumpsters, cleanup, site safety and the permits and insurance tied to that project. They're different from home-office overhead, which supports every job and gets covered by your markup. The safest way to price general conditions is from the schedule, as a cost per week or month times the duration, not as a flat percentage.

This guide covers what goes in general conditions, how they differ from overhead, how to build them line by line, and how to keep from losing them when a job runs long. If you're still setting your markup, start with markup vs margin in construction.

#What are general conditions in construction?

General conditions are the cost of being on site and managing the work from mobilization to closeout. Contractors also call them "job overhead," "general requirements" or "GCs."

The term has a second meaning too. Many prime contracts include a "general conditions of the contract" document that sets the rules for the job: payment, changes, claims, insurance, closeout. That's a contract document, not a cost line. This post is about the cost line in your estimate, but read the contract version before you bid, because it often decides which of these costs you can bill and how.

#What is included in general conditions?

There's no single official list, and every GC draws the line a little differently. A typical general conditions budget includes:

• Project staff: superintendent, project manager's share, project engineer or assistant PM, with payroll burden.
• Temporary facilities: field office or trailer, storage containers, portable toilets, fencing, signage.
• Temporary utilities: power, water, heat, internet and phones for the site.
• Site services: dumpsters and hauling, daily and final cleaning, snow removal, security.
• Safety: PPE, first aid, fall protection and site safety supplies used across trades.
• Small tools and shared equipment: items used by more than one scope, like a forklift or hoist on a multi-trade job.
• Project-specific fees and insurance: permits the GC carries, builder's risk if it's yours to buy, and project-specific bonds or insurance.
• Project administration: submittals, scheduling, pay applications, photos, as-builts and closeout documents.

If a cost exists only because this project exists, and it isn't part of one trade's scope, it probably belongs here.

#What is the difference between general conditions and overhead?

General conditions are tied to one job. Overhead (also called G&A or home-office overhead) is the cost of running the company whether you have one job or twenty: office rent, accounting and admin staff, the estimator, marketing, software, company vehicles not charged to jobs, and the owner's salary when the owner isn't running a site.

The two get handled differently in a bid:

• General conditions are a cost line in the estimate, built from the schedule.
• Overhead and profit are recovered through your markup or fee on top of all costs.

Where you draw the line matters less than drawing it the same way every time. Building Advisor makes the point that contractors classify the same costs differently, which makes their markups hard to compare. Mix the two and you either count a cost twice (and lose bids) or count it nowhere (and lose margin). Write your definition down and match your cost codes to it.

#How do you estimate general conditions?

Build them bottom-up from a realistic schedule. A practical method:

1. Start with the duration. Lay out mobilization, major phases, inspections, long-lead items and closeout. General conditions are only as good as the duration behind them.
2. Split every item into time-based, fixed or quantity-based.
   • Time-based: staff, trailer, toilets, temp utilities, fence rental, security. Price per week or month.
   • Fixed: mobilization and demobilization, trailer setup, permits, closeout documents.
   • Quantity-based: dumpsters by expected volume, cleaning by area, testing by count.
3. Load staff by phase, not full-time for the whole job. A super may be full-time start to finish while a project engineer is heavy during submittals and light in the middle.
4. Price the risky stuff on its own line. Winter work, occupied buildings, phased turnovers and tight urban sites all add time and cost.
5. Sanity-check against your past jobs. Only after the bottom-up build, compare the total to similar jobs you've closed. A big gap is a question to answer, not a number to force.

Here's a simple example with illustrative numbers. Say a 6-month tenant fit-out needs a full-time super at $14,000 a month burdened, a quarter of a PM at $4,000 a month, and $3,500 a month in trailer, toilets, temp power and dumpsters. That's $21,500 a month, or $129,000 over six months. Add $6,000 for mobilization, permits and closeout and the general conditions line is $135,000. If the job slips two months, the time-based part alone grows by $43,000, which is why the schedule drives the number.

One contractor on r/GeneralContractor put the same method plainly: work out what the job costs to run for a month, multiply by the months, add that to your sub and self-perform totals, then add overhead and profit once at the end.

#Why is pricing general conditions as a percentage risky?

Because two jobs with the same contract value can need very different general conditions. A short, simple job and a long, phased renovation of an occupied building might both be $2 million, but the second one needs far more supervision time, temp protection and site services.

A flat percentage also hides the thing that actually drives the cost: time. When the job runs long, your super, trailer and temp utilities keep billing, and a percentage line has no way to show that. Building from duration keeps the link visible, so you can spot the overrun early and support a time extension request with real numbers.

#How do small GCs lose money on general conditions?

The most common leak on small jobs is shared supervision. When one super covers three jobs, nobody allocates their time, so the estimate shows none. A $150,000 job that needs three site visits a week and a month of submittals isn't free to supervise just because the super is shared.

Other common leaks:

• Leaving out closeout time. Punch walks, O&M manuals, warranties and as-builts take real hours. Our punch list guide and substantial vs final completion guide cover what's left at the end.
• Not tracking general conditions against budget. If they sit in one lump in your books, you can't see the burn rate. Give them their own cost codes, as covered in our construction job costing guide.
• Not pricing time into change orders. If a change adds two weeks, it adds two weeks of general conditions. Price that in the change order, not after the fact. See our change order process guide.

#How are general conditions billed?

It depends on the contract. On lump-sum work, general conditions are usually a line or a few lines on the schedule of values, billed as the job progresses. On cost-plus and GMP contracts, the contract often defines which general conditions are reimbursable, whether they're billed at actual cost or as a fixed amount, and what falls under the fee instead. Read that language before you bid, because a cost the contract treats as fee is a cost you won't be reimbursed for separately.

For the billing side, see our guide to building a schedule of values.

#Where CooperBuild AI fits

General conditions go wrong at the handoffs. The duration lives in the schedule, the GC line lives in the estimate, the actual super time lives in payroll, and nobody compares them until the job's over. CooperBuild AI keeps estimates, schedules, budgets, change orders, billing and built-in accounting (GL, AP and AR) in one system, and connects to QuickBooks Online if that's where your books live. Its assistants help you price general conditions from the schedule and track the burn against budget while the job is still running.

If you want your next general conditions line built from the schedule instead of a guess, get started with free credits, no credit card needed.

#FAQ

#What are general conditions in construction?

General conditions are the project-specific costs of running a job that aren't part of any one trade's scope, such as supervision, the field office, temporary utilities, dumpsters, cleanup, site safety and project permits and insurance.

#What is the difference between general conditions and overhead?

General conditions exist because a specific project exists and are priced as a cost line in that job's estimate. Overhead is the cost of running the company across all jobs, like office rent, accounting and the estimator, and it is recovered through markup or fee.

#How do you calculate general conditions on a construction bid?

Estimate the monthly cost of time-based items like staff, trailer and temp utilities, multiply by the project duration, then add fixed items like mobilization and permits and quantity-based items like dumpsters and cleaning.

#Are general conditions a percentage of the contract?

They can be expressed as one after the fact, but there's no reliable universal percentage. Duration, complexity, phasing and site logistics drive the cost, so it's safer to build general conditions from the schedule than to apply a flat rate.

#Do change orders include general conditions?

They should when the change adds time or supervision. If a change extends the schedule, the added weeks of staff, facilities and site services belong in the change order price, subject to your contract's change and markup terms.

This article is general information for contractors, not accounting, tax or legal advice. Confirm billing and reimbursement rules in your contracts and with your CPA.