Pharmacist Salary in Iowa 2026,
$138,860 Median | BLS Data by City

Iowa pharmacists earn a median $138,860 a year, or $66.76 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with a band from $117,450 at the 10th percentile to $164,520 at the 90th. That is 1.5% below the national median of $140,910. The high floor is the most informative feature — a $117,450 tenth percentile means there is no low-paid tier in this profession, because the doctoral degree and national licensure examination make one impossible.

Dubuque, at $145,390, ahead of Iowa City $142,530, Des Moines-West Des Moines $141,110, Davenport-Moline-Rock Island $140,550 and Ames $139,690. What matters more than the ordering is that all five publish above the $138,860 state median, which means Iowa's non-metropolitan community pharmacies are what pull the statewide figure down.

The Iowa Board of Pharmacy. Licensure requires a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from an ACPE-accredited programme, the North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination, the jurisprudence examination covering Iowa law, and the required internship hours. The board also administers immunisation and collaborative practice authorities, and regulates pharmacy technicians.

It is the most favourable in this unit. Pharmacy is the highest-paid occupation on this page, and Iowa's flat 3.8% individual income tax — replacing a schedule that had topped out at 5.7% — delivers its largest absolute saving at exactly this income. Add housing costs well below the national average and a wage only 1.5% under the national median, and the net position is strong. Iowa's property taxes, which run above the national norm, are the offset to build into any move.

The wage data says yes and the growth data says be deliberate. A $138,860 median with a $117,450 floor is a strong, secure income, and Iowa employs pharmacists at exactly the national rate. But BLS projects only 4.6% national employment growth for the occupation through 2034, and retail consolidation has reduced community pharmacy positions in small Iowa towns. The growth in Iowa is in hospital, ambulatory care and clinical specialty roles — which is where a new graduate should aim, and where residency training becomes worth the extra year.

Because rural community pharmacy is what sits outside the metros, and it pays less than metropolitan and hospital practice. Every one of Dubuque $145,390, Iowa City $142,530, Des Moines-West Des Moines $141,110, Davenport-Moline-Rock Island $140,550 and Ames $139,690 exceeds the statewide $138,860, and the arithmetic only works if non-metropolitan Iowa pharmacy sits meaningfully below all of them. This is the reverse of the recruitment-premium pattern seen elsewhere in this unit, and the reason is reimbursement: an independent or small-chain community pharmacy in a small Iowa town operates on prescription reimbursement margins that have been under sustained pressure, and it cannot bid against a health system.

It describes employed pharmacists. OEWS surveys establishments, so a salaried pharmacist in a hospital or chain is captured well, while an independent pharmacy owner's income — which is a business return, variable and dependent on reimbursement — is not represented in the same way. In rural Iowa, where independent ownership remains a real part of the profession, that is a meaningful gap. The figure also excludes the on-call and after-hours arrangements common in small-hospital pharmacy practice.

Setting and residency training. Hospital and health system practice pays above community retail in Iowa, and the ambulatory care and clinical specialty roles at the $157,880 seventy-fifth percentile are largely residency-gated — a PGY1, and for specialty practice a PGY2, is the entry ticket rather than an optional extra. Management is the other route, and in Iowa it is available relatively early because the state's health systems and pharmacy chains have many small sites each requiring a pharmacist in charge. Ownership sits outside the wage framework entirely.