Cost to run an LED bulb in Iowa (July 2026 rates)
At 15.99¢ per kilowatt-hour — Iowa's average residential price in July 2026 — running an LED bulb costs $2.63 a year. That is 13% less than the national average of $3.01. Iowa's residential rate is up 4.4% from July 2025, which moves this appliance from $2.51 to $2.63 a year.
- Per hour
- 0.1¢
- Per day of use
- 0.7¢
- Per month
- 21.9¢
- Per year
- $2.63
Assumption: 9 W, 5 hours a day, 365 days a year — 16 kWh a year. A 9 W LED producing about 800 lumens, the equivalent of an old 60 W incandescent. Use the calculator to swap in the numbers from your own model.
How Iowa compares
Iowa pays 15.99¢/kWh, the 24th cheapest residential electricity of the 51 U.S. jurisdictions EIA reports. For this appliance that works out to 38.1¢ less a year than the typical U.S. household pays for the same use. Running the same LED bulb costs $2.09 a year in Louisiana and $7.88 in Hawaii, so where you live changes this bill by $5.79 a year.
| State | Rate | Per month | Per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | 15.88¢ | 21.7¢ | $2.61 |
| Oregon | 15.97¢ | 21.9¢ | $2.62 |
| Iowa | 15.99¢ | 21.9¢ | $2.63 |
| Missouri | 16.09¢ | 22.0¢ | $2.64 |
| New Mexico | 16.09¢ | 22.0¢ | $2.64 |
States ranked by average residential price, cheapest first. See all 51 states for an LED bulb.
What else costs about the same in Iowa
Cutting the number down
- Per bulb the cost is trivial; a house has 40 of them, and that is the number that matters.
- Dimming an LED does cut power draw, though not perfectly in proportion to the light output.
Questions
- How much does an LED bulb cost per month in Iowa?
- About 21.9¢ a month, assuming 9 W, 5 hours a day, 365 days a year at 15.99¢/kWh.
- How many kilowatt-hours does an LED bulb use?
- Roughly 16 kWh a year under these assumptions, or 0.01 kWh for every hour it runs.
- Is that expensive compared with other states?
- Iowa has the 24th cheapest average residential rate in the country, so this appliance costs less here than the U.S. average of $3.01 a year.