How much do real estate agents make in Iowa?

The most recent federal figure published for an Iowa metro is $44,860 a year: the mean annual wage the Bureau of Labor Statistics published for real estate sales agents in the Cedar Rapids metro for May 2025, or $21.57 an hour. Nationally the median was $52,830. Both numbers come from a survey of employers, so they leave out the self-employed agents who make up about half of the occupation, and an agent's real income depends on how many closings they have.

The national picture comes from the Occupational Outlook Handbook, which reports a median annual wage of $52,830 for real estate sales agents in May 2025. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $32,970 and the highest 10 percent more than $123,590. The spread is wide because, in the Handbook's words, brokers and sales agents earn most of their income from commissions on sales. A sales agent usually works under a broker and receives a share of the commission on each property they help sell, so a slow year and a busy year can look like two different jobs.

Iowa-specific numbers are thinner. Of the 2026 BLS releases for Iowa metros checked for this note, Cedar Rapids is the one that lists the occupation by name, with the $44,860 mean wage above. For comparison, the all-occupation average in the same metro was $29.19 an hour. The Des Moines-West Des Moines release for May 2025 gives an all-occupation average of $31.72 an hour but does not break out real estate agents in its summary, so this note does not quote a Des Moines figure for agents.

The biggest caveat sits in how the data is collected. The wage survey behind these figures does not cover self-employed workers, and the Handbook says about 54 percent of the roughly 427,000 real estate sales agents in 2025 were self-employed. The published wages describe agents on a payroll. Treat them as a rough guide to what the job can pay, since commission-only income is not captured in them.

The Handbook also notes that schedules often include evenings and weekends to suit clients, and that while most agents work full time, some work part time. Its projection for jobs is modest: employment of sales agents is expected to grow 2 percent from 2025 to 2035, with most openings coming from people leaving the field.

Before any of that income arrives, there is the cost of getting licensed. Iowa's licensing agency requires the pre-license courses, a fingerprint background check, the PSI exam and an application, and the published fees add up to about $696 at the cheapest route: $425 for the online 60-hour course listed by Iowa REALTORS, $51 for the background check, $95 for one exam attempt and $125 for the application. That figure is arithmetic on published amounts and leaves out errors and omissions insurance, brokerage fees and the months before a first closing, so treat it as a floor.

The step-by-step guide on this site lists every step to an Iowa salesperson license in order, with the fee and the deadline on each one.

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