A jigsaw is a small tool with a big voice. The blade moves up and down several thousand times a minute, the shoe slaps the work, and a thin panel can act like a drum skin. Cuts are short, but a run of cabinet cutouts or a stack of curved parts keeps the saw a foot or two from your head for a long stretch.
Fifteen top handle and barrel grip jigsaws sold in the US carry maker noise declarations we could read and match to the US model. At the operator's ear they run from 85 to 91 dB(A). Sound power runs from 93 to 99.68.
The test behind the numbers
Makers selling in Europe declare jigsaw noise under EN 62841-2-11, the standard for handheld reciprocating saws. It gives two quantities. LpA is sound pressure at the operator's position. LWA is sound power, the saw's total output. Each comes with a K value, the uncertainty, 3 dB for most makers here and 5 for Hilti.
We rank on LpA and show LwA beside it. Both come from the same test, but they measure different things and never belong in one ranking. The sound power vs sound pressure explainer covers why.
None of it is printed for US buyers
Not one of the fifteen saws has a noise figure on its US product page, and of the US manuals we opened, only the JV0600K's prints one, an older declaration covered below. Every figure here comes from the same maker's European documents: Makita's EU manuals and UK pages, Milwaukee's EU pages and Hilti's EU manuals and UK pages.
Where the model number is the same in both markets, as with the Makita 4329, 4350FCT, 4351FCT and JV0600 and the Hilti SJD 6-22 and SJT 6-22, the match is direct. Where it differs, we paired each US saw with the EU saw that has the same stroke, speed range, cutting capacity and length. The Makita XVJ04 manual and the DJV184 manual, for example, both list a 23 mm stroke, 0 to 3,000 strokes per minute, 135 mm of wood capacity and a 259 mm length. Each catalog entry states the pairing and the evidence.
One caveat applies to all of them: the declarations describe the European tools, and the corded US saws run on 120 V.
Makita, declared model by model
Makita publishes a full declaration for every jigsaw it sells in Europe, and eleven current US Makitas have a clear European twin. They take the first four places. The compact brushless XVJ04Z declares 85 dB(A) at the ear and 93 sound power. The small corded 4329K follows at 86 and 94, then the corded 4350FCT and the cordless barrel grip XVJ05Z at 87 and 95.
Four more declare 88 and 96: the corded 4351FCT and JV0600K, the 12 V VJ05Z and the 40V max GVJ02Z. The 18 V XVJ01Z and XVJ02Z declare 89 and 97, and the 40V max GVJ01Z 90 and 98.
Two footnotes. Makita's current EU manuals for the DJV181 and DJV182, the twins of the XVJ01Z and XVJ02Z, give a second pair of figures, 81 and 80 dB(A) at the ear, with a "soft no-load rotation function" enabled. That is a different condition from the standard test, the US manuals for those saws do not describe the function, and Makita's UK pages show only 89. We rank both on 89. And the manual linked from the US JV0600K page is an older edition that declares 85 under EN60745, the standard EN 62841 replaced; the current EU manual says 88, and we use 88.
Milwaukee and Hilti
Milwaukee's European pages print noise for its two M18 FUEL jigsaws: 88.68 dB(A) at the ear and 99.68 sound power for the top handle M18 FJS, and 88.65 and 99.65 for the body grip M18 FBJS, each with a K of 3. We match them to the US 2737-20 D-handle and 2737B-20 barrel grip saws by handle type, brushless motor and a 3,500 strokes per minute top speed. The pages name no standard. At the ear they sit with Makita's 88 dB(A) group; their sound power is the highest here.
Hilti's EU manuals declare 90 dB(A) at the ear and 98 sound power for the top handle SJD 6-22, and 91 and 99 for the barrel grip SJT 6-22, with a K of 5 on each. They are also the only saws here with a price on the maker's own US site, $339.00 each on hilti.com.
The silent aisle
DEWALT's US manual for its DCS334 cordless jigsaw prints no noise figure. Bosch prints none in the US manuals for its JS572 and JS470E corded saws. Festool's US pages for the Carvex PSC 420 and PSBC 420 list specifications but no noise table, and the international pages for the same Carvex article numbers now open the newer PSC 500 and PSBC 500, which Festool declares at 91 dB(A) at the ear and 99 sound power but which are different saws. With no Carvex 420 declaration to quote, Festool is not ranked. Metabo's US jigsaw pages did not load when we tried them, so its saws are not ranked either.
What the spread means
Six decibels separate the quietest saw here from the loudest at the ear, and most of the field sits between 87 and 89, within each other's uncertainty. The choice of blade and the material you cut can move real world noise as much as the choice of saw. A fine tooth blade at a lower speed, a clamped workpiece that cannot rattle, and a shoe that stays flat all help, whichever saw you own.
We did not measure any of these jigsaws. Every figure is the maker's own, quoted as published, with the standard, K value and document identified wherever the maker identified them.
