State prices
Above normalIowa propane prices
Current residential price: $1.746/gal, wholesale $1.224/gal. EIA weekly survey (October-March).
Data through Oct 26, 2026 · source last checked Oct 31, 2026 · page revised Oct 29, 2026
Cite
- Residential
- Wholesale
About this data
- Source
- EIA State Heating Oil and Propane Program survey
- Series
- Residential retail propane price
- Basis
- Residential, retail
- Geography
- Iowa
- Unit
- $/gal
- Calculation
- Weekly survey, Oct-Mar heating season
- Last observation
- Oct 26, 2026
- Update frequency
- Weekly, Oct-Mar
Now $1.746/gal, 11.1% above the 5-yr median.
Iowa residential propane reached $1.746/gal for the week through October 26, up 4 cents on the week and 14.7% above the year-ago price. Wholesale stands at $1.224/gal. Current residential prices sit 11.1% above the 5-year median.
| Period | Current | Prior | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week over week | $1.746/gal | $1.706/gal | +2.3% |
| Year over year | $1.746/gal | $1.522/gal | +14.7% |
| vs 5-yr median | $1.746/gal | $1.572/gal | +11.1% |
| Heating season | Weeks | Average | Low (week) | High (week) | Wholesale average | vs Midwest average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-27 (so far) | 4 | $1.688/gal | $1.633/gal (Oct 5) | $1.746/gal (Oct 26) | $1.128/gal | -44.3 cents |
| 2025-26 | 26 | $1.591/gal | $1.519/gal (Oct 13) | $1.660/gal (Mar 30) | $0.780/gal | -47.7 cents |
| 2024-25 | 25 | $1.614/gal | $1.523/gal (Oct 7) | $1.719/gal (Jan 27) | $0.957/gal | -47.3 cents |
| 2023-24 | 26 | $1.585/gal | $1.548/gal (Oct 9) | $1.617/gal (Feb 19) | $0.863/gal | -43.2 cents |
| 2022-23 | 26 | $1.939/gal | $1.923/gal (Mar 20) | $1.953/gal (Dec 5) | $0.941/gal | -33.5 cents |
| 2021-22 | 26 | $1.996/gal | $1.886/gal (Jan 10) | $2.186/gal (Mar 14) | $1.406/gal | -41.2 cents |
Each season runs October through March. The average is the simple mean of that season's weekly readings, and the low and high name their survey week. The last column is Iowa's residential price minus the Midwest residential average over the same weeks, per gallon.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Homes heating with propane | 165,991 |
| Share of occupied homes | 12.6% |
| Occupied homes (all fuels) | 1,315,707 |
| National rank by propane share | #7 of 51 |
Previous weeks
Week of Oct 12, 2026
Iowa residential propane rose to $1.667/gal on Oct 12, up 2.1% on the week. The price is 9.7% higher year over year and 7.7% above the 5-year median.
Week of Oct 5, 2026
Iowa residential propane stands at $1.633/gal, 5.2% above the 5-yr median. Year over year the price is up 7.4% from $1.521/gal. Wholesale reads $1.000/gal.
Week of Mar 30, 2026
Iowa residential propane stood at $1.660/gal in the Mar 30 EIA survey, up 0.8 cents on the week and 7.4% below the 4-yr median. Wholesale propane tracked at $0.963/gal the same week.
About Iowa propane prices
Iowa runs on grain drying. In a wet fall, dryers across the corn belt pull propane at a rate residential heating never matches, and that draw lands in October and November, ahead of the heating season proper. Both loads refill by pipeline from the Gulf Coast and from the Conway hub in Kansas. When a wet harvest and an early cold snap stack in the same autumn, Iowa is usually where the strain shows first.
The price above comes from EIA's State Heating Oil and Propane Program, which surveys a sample of retail dealers in Iowa once a week and publishes the state average on Wednesday afternoon. It runs October through March only, so nothing new prints between April and September. The second line on the chart is the wholesale price Iowa dealers pay at the rack. What separates the two lines is the cost of getting a gallon into a tank behind a house, which is delivery, tank service and dealer margin together, not margin alone. The Census Bureau's American Community Survey, on five-year estimates, puts propane as the main heating fuel in 12.6% of occupied Iowa homes, well above the national middle. That is a large block of homes to keep supplied through a cold January.
Iowa reports into EIA's Midwest district, so the wider read is Midwest propane prices and the Midwest inventory behind them. Estimate your fill cost with the propane usage calculator, which works from tank size, gauge reading and what the household burns.
Common questions
What is the current propane price in Iowa?
Iowa's residential propane price is $1.746/gal as of Oct 26, 2026, the latest reading in EIA's weekly heating-season survey, with the wholesale (rack) price at $1.224/gal on Oct 26, 2026. The chart above carries the full history and the table shows the week-over-week move.
When is propane most expensive in Iowa?
In EIA's weekly survey, which runs October through March, Iowa's residential price set its season high in March in two of the last five heating seasons, December in one, January in one and February in one. The season low came in October in three of the last five heating seasons, January in one and March in one. From low to high the price moved an average of 14.7 cents a season, and the table above lists each season's high and low week. The regional wrinkle is that the Midwest season starts before the thermostat does: propane fires grain dryers across the Corn Belt in October and November, and a wet harvest can pull volume hard weeks ahead of heating demand. Why propane prices rise in winter has the mechanics.
How does the Iowa propane price compare with the Midwest average?
Iowa's residential propane price averaged below the Midwest average in each of the last five heating seasons, by between 33.5 cents and 47.7 cents a gallon. In the Oct 26, 2026 survey Iowa was at $1.746/gal against $2.199/gal for the Midwest average. The seasons table above gives the gap season by season, and Midwest propane prices carries the district's own chart.
What is the difference between the residential and wholesale price on this page?
The residential price is what an Iowa household pays for a delivered gallon: the dealer's own cost plus trucking, tank service and margin. The wholesale price is that dealer cost at the rack, before any of it. The gap between the two is the delivered-service stack, and how propane is priced walks through each layer of it.