Iowa registers construction contractors rather than licensing them for skill. Anyone earning $2,000 or more a year from construction has to register, and an out-of-state contractor has to file a $25,000 surety bond with the state on top of that. The distinction matters more than it sounds: registration confirms a business exists and has met its filing obligations, and says nothing at all about whether the work will be any good.
| Service | Typical |
|---|---|
| Auto repair shop labor rateIowa average | $123 per hour |
Ranges last checked September 2026. They come down automatically when they are due to be rechecked.
Every figure above comes from a named source we can link to, with the date we last checked it. We publish ranges rather than single prices because a range is what a provider will actually give you: the same job moves with what is being worked on, the materials, how hard it is to get at and how busy the trade is locally. Treat these as the order of magnitude to expect before you call, not as a quote.
Where a source publishes figures state by state, this page shows the figure for this state rather than a national average. Where no state-level source exists, it shows the national range and the local factors that move a job within it. We do not scale a national number by a multiplier of our own invention.
Every range carries a review date. When that date passes the number comes down until it is rechecked, rather than sitting here undated.
Iowa Code chapter 91C requires construction contractors to register with the Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing, and excludes a person who earns less than two thousand dollars annually from construction. The agency puts it as reaching anyone earning at least two thousand dollars a year from construction work.
What registration is not is a test of skill. Iowa does not license general residential contractors for competency, so a registration number confirms the business is on the state list and has met its filing obligations. It is worth checking, and it is worth knowing what it does not tell you.
Iowa Code section 91C.2(3) requires an out-of-state contractor to file a twenty-five thousand dollar surety bond with the department, or to show it is prequalified to bid on Department of Transportation projects. That is a real and collectable pot when an out-of-state operation takes money and leaves.
One caution about how this gets described. The agency's own page mentions the bond alongside workers' compensation without limiting it to out-of-state firms, while the statute ties that bond specifically to them. The statute is narrower than the page reads, so do not assume an Iowa-based contractor is bonded because a website says contractors are.
The table above carries the Iowa figure for auto repair labor, the one cross-trade rate with a per-state source, and it sits below the national average. Shop type and technician certification move a repair bill further than geography does.
Check the registration first, through the state's public contractor search. It is a quick confirmation that the business exists as it says it does.
Then ask where the contractor is based, because that changes what stands behind the job. An out-of-state firm should be able to point at its bond. An Iowa firm generally has none, and its liability insurance is the thing to verify instead.
Because registration is not a skill check, references and previous work carry more weight here than in a state running a competency exam. Ask for addresses of recent jobs of a similar size rather than a list of names.
Registered, not licensed for skill. Iowa Code chapter 91C requires construction contractors to register with the Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing, and excludes anyone earning less than $2,000 annually from construction. Iowa does not license general residential contractors for competency.
That the business is on the state's list and has met its filing obligations. It is not a statement that the work will be competent, which is why references matter more here than in a state running an exam.
Out-of-state ones. Iowa Code section 91C.2(3) requires an out-of-state contractor to file a $25,000 surety bond with the department, or to show it is prequalified to bid on Department of Transportation projects.
Generally not, and this is worth care. The agency's own page mentions the $25,000 bond without limiting it to out-of-state firms, while the statute ties it specifically to them. The statute is the narrower and more reliable reading.
Through the state's public contractor search, published by the Iowa Division of Labor.