How long does concrete take to cure?
When can you walk on it, drive on it, and call it fully cured? A plain-English timeline for residential concrete in South-East Queensland.
Concrete sets in hours and cures for years, but for practical decisions there are three numbers that matter: 24–48 hours, 7 days, and 28 days. Mix them up and you'll either trash a slab or wait weeks longer than you need to.
24–48 hours: foot traffic
The slab is hard enough to walk on carefully after 24 hours in Brisbane summer, 48 in cooler months. No bikes, no dragging furniture, no pets digging at the edges. The surface is still soft enough to scuff — that's why we tape off the job and you should keep it taped off.
7 days: light vehicle traffic
A correctly cured residential driveway reaches around 70% of its design strength in 7 days. That's enough for a family car, but not for a loaded ute, a removalist truck, or a concrete pump parked overnight. Caravans and boats on dual-axle trailers should wait the full 28 days.
28 days: design strength
Concrete is specified at 28-day strength — 25, 32 or 40MPa — and that's when it has officially reached the number on the docket. In reality, concrete keeps gaining strength for years; the 28-day mark is just the engineering reference point. It's also when sealers and coatings should be applied — earlier and they trap moisture in the slab.
What slows curing down
Heat speeds it up, cold slows it down. Wind dries the surface too fast and causes shrinkage cracks — which is why we wet-cure or apply a curing compound in Brisbane's dry westerlies. Heavy rain in the first 4 hours can wash the surface; after that, it actually helps. If your slab gets a freak storm at 2 hours old, call your concreter before doing anything.