Iowa

Iowa Exports and Foreign Investment

In 2024, Iowa exported $17.0 billion of goods to the world. In 2022, exports from Iowa supported an estimated 116 thousand jobs (latest data available).

Exports from Iowa and Jobs

• Iowa was the 29th largest state exporter of goods in 2024.
• In 2024, Iowa goods exports were $17.0 billion, an increase of 12 percent ($1.9 billion) from its export level in 2014.
• Goods exports accounted for 7.4 percent of Iowa GDP in 2023 (latest data available).
• Iowa goods exports in 2022 supported an estimated 116 thousand jobs (latest data available). Nationally, jobs supported by goods exports pay up to an estimated 18 percent above the national average.

Manufacturing Exports from Iowa and Jobs

• In 2024, Iowa exported $14.8 billion of manufactured products.
• Iowa exports of manufactured products supported an estimated 62 thousand jobs in 2022 (latest data available).
• The state's largest manufacturing export category is food & kindred products, which accounted for $3.9 billion of Iowa's total goods exports in 2024.
• Other top manufacturing exports are machinery, except electrical ($3.4 billion), chemicals ($2.9 billion), transportation equipment ($1.1 billion), and computer & electronic products ($684 million).

Exports Sustain Thousands of Iowa Businesses many of which are SMEs

• A total of 3,303 companies exported from Iowa locations in 2022 (latest data available). Of those, 2,677 (81 percent) were small and medium sized enterprises with fewer than 500 employees.
• Small and medium-sized firms generated 14.9 percent of Iowa's total exports of goods in 2022.

Iowa Depends on World Markets

• The state’s largest market was Canada. Iowa exported $5.0 billion in goods to Canada in 2024, representing 30 percent of the state’s total goods exports.
• Canada was followed by Mexico ($3.2 billion), Japan ($971 million), China ($925 million), and Brazil ($786 million).
• Iowa’s exports to major world areas included:

 

• 59 percent of Iowa’s goods exports ($10.1 billion) in 2024 went to current FTA partners.  

Agriculture in Iowa depends on Exports

• Iowa is the country’s 2nd largest agricultural exporting state, shipping $16.5 billion in domestic agricultural exports abroad in 2022 (latest data available according to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture).
• Top Agricultural exports were:

	2022 Value	2022 State Rank
soybeans	$4.8 billion	2
corn	$3.3 billion	1
pork	$2.7 billion	1
feeds and other feed grains	$2.0 billion	1
soybean meal	$859 million	2

International Investment Creates Jobs in Iowa

• In 2022 (latest data available), foreign-controlled companies employed 67,500 Iowa workers. Major sources of foreign investment in Iowa included the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan.
• Foreign investment in Iowa was responsible for 5.1 percent of the state's total private-industry employment in 2022.

Iowa’s Major Metropolitan Areas Benefit from Exporting
In 2023 (latest data available), the following metropolitan areas in Iowa recorded goods exports: Omaha ($3.4 billion), Ames ($611.1 million), Cedar Rapids ($1.2 billion), Davenport-Moline-Rock Island ($6 billion), Des Moines-West Des Moines ($2.2 billion), Dubuque ($196.6 million), Iowa City ($349.2 million), Sioux City ($1.5 billion), and Waterloo-Cedar Falls ($2 billion).