Iowa Landowner Tags
Iowa's landowner/tenant (LOT) licences are the lowest-threshold program of the 21 states: two or more contiguous acres per tract, with all parcels operated as one agricultural farm unit. They are free or near-free, guaranteed, outside the county quota, and valid only on the farm unit - and they carry a privilege paid hunters do not have, exemption from the antlered-buck restrictions. Nonresident landowners get no free or reduced tags, only preference for optional antlerless licences.
Checked against Iowa Department of Natural Resources rules, October 20, 2026. Where the rule is silent or its sources disagree, the line says so.
Landowner/tenant (LOT) licences
contiguous, deeded and other tests apply
with an exemption
Hunting Your Own Land
Iowa Code 483A.24(1) and 483A.3(1)(a) waive the hunting licence and the habitat fee for a qualifying landowner or tenant, but the deer or turkey licence and transport tag are still required, with tagging within 15 minutes (source: ia_code_483a24).
Landowner/tenant (LOT) licences
Landowner and tenant deer and turkey licences, Iowa Code 483A.24(2); IAC 571-106, 571-98.6, 571-95.2
contiguous and deeded tests below
drawn with everyone else
residents only
Who Qualifies
| Species | Deer, Turkey |
|---|---|
| Acreage test | Two or more contiguous acres per tract, with all parcels operated as one farm unit for agricultural purposes, including timber production. Parcels need not adjoin each other, and no one may register on more than one farm unit.1 |
| Land test | ✓ Contiguous✓ Agricultural use within the property |
| Who may hunt it | Owner or tenant plus a spouse and juvenile child residing with them. The owner must be an active farmer - one who rents out the whole unit or employs a farm manager is excluded, with a carve-back for the parent of the tenant. Wage employees are not eligible. |
| When to apply | No window - register year-round, online, with the licence available immediately. Licences go on sale Aug 15 for deer and Dec 15 for spring turkey. |
What You Get
| The tag | Licences valid only on the farm unit, where paid licences are zone-wide. Up to four per side (one general plus three antlerless) plus a fifth January antlerless licence, at $2, $2 and $15. Guaranteed, with no draw and no quota: free LOT antlerless licences neither consume nor are capped by county quotas. LOT tags are also exempt from the antlered-buck-only restrictions that bind paid hunters. For turkey, IAC 571-95.2(2) gives one member of the landowner family and one member of the tenant family one free spring turkey licence and one free fall turkey licence each. |
|---|---|
| Transfer or sale | No. Personal attestation plus possession bans; a false attestation is a misdemeanour with a one-year bar. No price data exists. |
IAC 571-95 was read for this entry: registration is by parcel identification number from the landowner's property-tax statement (an affidavit naming the owner for a tenant), one farm unit however it is subdivided, and the free turkey counts are in 95.2(2). Statute says Owner means an owner of a farm unit who is a resident of Iowa and nonresident landowners do not qualify, but 571-106.8(2)(a) gives nonresident landowners preference for optional antlerless licences, valid only on their farm unit and outside the county quota. No parcel list or GIS exists; only statewide LOT counts are published (2025: 30,406 free general deer, 20,261 free antlerless).
General Season or Limited Draw?
Residents have over-the-counter, unquota'd licences for bow (both splits), late muzzleloader and the first and second regular gun seasons; early muzzleloader is limited to 7,500 and antlerless is county-quota-limited and first-come. Spring turkey is fully over the counter and fall turkey is zone-quota limited and residents-only. Nonresidents have no OTC deer licence at all: a statutory quota of 6,000 any-deer (no more than 35 percent bow) plus 6,000 mandatory antlerless, allocated per zone, with preference points wiped on success. Nonresident turkey is capped at 2,300.
New for 2025–26: Three incompatible geographies plus counties: nonresident deer uses 10 numbered zones (map dated Dec 2023), residents use Zone A / Zone B, new for 2026-27 (map dated Oct 2025), and turkey has its own zones 4-9. Counties are the real antlerless allocation unit, and no GIS download was found for either deer zone system.
Per-unit classification: IAC 571-106.7(1) and 571-106.10 are the legally operative quota tables; the 2026-27 regulations booklet prints per-county antlerless and any-deer quotas on the maps at p.8, and live remaining quotas are at Real Time Quotas..
Check a parcel on the map →
Click the ground or paste a listing's coordinates: the unit for every species (15 Iowa units mapped), and whether the acreage clears the floor.
Iowa draw odds →
Every species, unit and hunt code, with the odds at each point level, fees and deadlines.
Things That Trip People Up
- The farm unit is non-contiguous and can span counties and zones, so the right geometry is a multipart parcel set, not a single polygon.
- LOT tags beat the zone rules: a map saying buck-only here is wrong for a LOT holder in Zone B.
- The licence and habitat fee fall away, but the deer or turkey licence and transport tag do not.
- An owner who rents out the whole farm unit or employs a farm manager is excluded, so acreage alone produces false positives.
- No one may register on more than one farm unit.
- Do not ingest the nonresident optional antlerless quota: four conflicting primary figures exist.
Sources
- 1. Iowa Legislature · Iowa Code 483A.24, licences and landowner/tenant provisions · retrieved 2026-10-20
- 2. Iowa Legislature · Iowa Administrative Code 571-106 (deer licence quotas and LOT provisions) · retrieved 2026-10-20
- 3. Iowa Legislature · Iowa Administrative Code 571-95 (game harvest reporting and landowner-tenant registration) · retrieved 2026-10-20
- 4. Iowa Department of Natural Resources · Landowner-tenant registration · retrieved 2026-10-20
- 5. Iowa Department of Natural Resources · 2025 hunting and fishing licence sales news release (statewide LOT counts) · retrieved 2026-10-20
- 6. Iowa Department of Natural Resources · 2026-27 Iowa hunting regulations booklet (per-county quotas on the maps at p.8) · retrieved 2026-10-20
- 7. Iowa Department of Natural Resources · Iowa real-time licence quotas · retrieved 2026-10-20
This page summarizes agency rules for orientation. The statute, commission rule and the current year's application booklet govern; check them before buying land or applying.