Iowa gas tax
State fuel excise · tax year 2026 · federal tax excluded
On a 20-gallon fill
$6
Over 500 gallons
$150
Per gallon
30.0¢
state only
Rate rank
19
1 is the highest
What Iowa charges at the pump
- Fuel tax in Iowa is invisible and constant. Fill a twenty-gallon tank and $6 of what you hand over is state tax. Do that all year and it reaches $150. The state sits 19 in the country on the underlying rate.
- Iowa charges more on diesel than on regular gasoline. The same twenty-gallon fill costs $6.50 in tax rather than $6 — a difference of $0.50 every time. Over a year of the same driving that gap is $163 against the gasoline figure.
- Iowa keeps it simple. There are no separate inspection or environmental charges reported on top of the fuel tax here, so the main rate is the whole of what the state adds to a gallon.
- A twenty-gallon fill in Iowa carries $6 of state motor fuel tax, or $150 over five hundred gallons — rate rank 19 nationally. ⚠️ Federal excise is excluded throughout. Because the levy is fixed per gallon, a vehicle's efficiency changes the annual figure directly, which is the mechanism behind the road-funding shortfalls states cite when proposing mileage-based replacements.
- Diesel is taxed above gasoline in Iowa: $6.50 per twenty gallons against $6, a differential of $0.50 per fill and $163 across five hundred gallons. ⚠️ The differential is deliberate policy rather than an accident of drafting — heavier vehicles impose disproportionate road wear, and a higher diesel rate is the standard instrument for recovering it.
- Iowa reports no additional motor fuel levies apart from its principal excise, so the headline rate represents the state's full per-gallon charge. ⚠️ That makes its position in a national rate table more directly comparable than that of states which levy separately-reported inspection or environmental charges alongside the main rate.
Your year of fuel tax
A $75,000 salary
| State fuel taxper gallon | 30¢ |
|---|---|
| Fuel tax, year | $187 |
| You must earn | $281 |
| Hours of work | 7.8 hr |
State excise only. Federal fuel tax and any local levy are not included.
Tax in a tank
A $75,000 salary
| State rate | 30¢ a gallon |
|---|---|
| Tank costs | $44.80 |
| Fifty tanks a year | $210.00 |
State excise only. The federal fuel tax and any local levy are on top of this.
Gasoline, diesel, and the charges reported separately
Per-gallon rates are shown as Iowa publishes them, to a tenth of a cent. The money columns are what those rates come to on a 20-gallon fill and across 500 gallons. Federal tax is charged on top of all of it and is not included.
| Fuel | Per gallon | On a fill | Over a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gasoline | 30.0¢ | $6 | $150 |
| Diesel | 32.5¢ | $6.50 | $163 |
What this page cannot tell you
- ⚠️ Federal fuel tax is charged on top of all this and is not included above. It is the same everywhere in the country.
- The tank and the year here are round reference amounts, not a guess at your driving. Your own total scales directly with the gallons you actually buy in Iowa.
- And some places add local fuel taxes of their own on top of the state's. Those are not counted here.
- ⚠️ Federal motor fuel excise applies in addition to every figure on this page and is deliberately excluded, being uniform nationally. Including it would raise each state's figure by the same amount and compress the differences this page exists to show.
- Quantities are reference points rather than estimates of consumption: liability is strictly proportional to gallons purchased, so any household's figure is this one scaled by its own volume. ⚠️ Fuel purchased outside Iowa is taxed by the state where it is bought, which is why the figures describe purchases rather than mileage.
- Local option fuel taxes exist in a number of states and are excluded from these figures, which cover the state levy only. Where a county or city in Iowa imposes its own charge, the true per-gallon burden at that address exceeds what this page reports.
Questions people ask
Why is there no tax line on my fuel receipt?
The tax is collected upstream and per gallon, not at the register. That is why the sign price is the final price, and why a cheaper week does not mean a smaller tax.
How does this compare with other states?
19 of 51 puts it mid-table, where most states sit and where border effects are weakest.
Is diesel taxed the same as gasoline?
Different rate entirely — higher than gasoline here. The split is deliberate and rests on which vehicles do most damage to the road surface.
Why does motor fuel excise not appear as a separate charge?
Motor fuel excise is levied per gallon at the distributor or terminal, not at retail, so it is embedded in the pump price and not separately stated. Because it is volumetric rather than ad valorem, liability per gallon is invariant to the retail price and its real value erodes with inflation absent legislative change.
Where does this state sit in the national distribution?
This state ranks 19 of 51, within the middle third. Cross-border substitution effects are weakest at this position because adjacent-state differentials are typically small relative to travel cost.
How does the diesel rate relate to the gasoline rate here?
Diesel is taxed at a rate set independently of gasoline and is higher in this state. The differential is generally justified by road-wear attribution to heavy vehicles rather than by fuel characteristics, and several states index the two grades differently.