Iowa publishes an international rate card as well as a domestic one, which almost no state does, and the cheapest overseas rates start at 12 cents. Create your phone account in minutes.
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Iowa is one of the cheapest states in the country to take a prison call from, and unusually it publishes the numbers rather than hiding them behind a vendor signup: seven cents a minute across the lower 48, with a country-by-country card for everywhere else. Calls come out only and your number has to be approved from inside before anything connects. What Iowa does not publish is who runs the system, how long a call can last, or a flat statement about recording, and we would rather say so than fill the gaps.
Iowa charges a flat seven cents per minute for all calls within the lower 48 states. A twenty-minute call is $1.40.
The department is unusually forthcoming about why. Its rate sheet says the costs of providing the service are reflected in the rates, “which are lower than for most other states,” and Iowa Code chapter 904.508A puts the money into a fund the Board of Corrections has directed to legal services, religious accommodations, education, and victim services.
Most prison systems tell families that international calls cost more and stop there. Iowa prints a rate card, from the sheet effective May 1, 2026:
| Destination | Per minute |
|---|---|
| Lower 48 states | $0.07 |
| Alaska | $0.12 |
| Hawaii | $0.14 |
| Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico | $0.12 |
| Vietnam | $0.15 |
| Honduras, Philippines | $0.23 |
| Guatemala | $0.28 |
| El Salvador | $0.30 |
| United Kingdom | $0.66 |
The mechanism behind those figures: Iowa charges its seven cents plus the average amount the provider paid to send the call abroad. So a Vietnamese number costs eight cents more than a domestic one, while a UK mobile costs far more than a UK landline.
If your family is spread across a border, that table is worth reading before anyone commits to a routine.
Nobody rings in. Every call is outgoing, and it connects only if the person inside has added your number to their approved calling list.
Iowa requires them to give the legal first and last name of whoever owns each number, and a number added without one can be restricted.
Nothing is required from you at that stage. It happens from inside.
The forwarding rule is the quiet one. A landline that forwards to a mobile looks like a working number and will never take a call.
Iowa also bars calls to particular people: department staff, victims and victims’ households, minors where the offence involved a minor, anyone under a no-contact order, people currently under correctional supervision with limited family exceptions, and anyone released from prison in the last six months.
Clarinda’s commissary money goes to Fort Dodge. Phone money goes to Iowa State Penitentiary, in Fort Madison, at the other end of the state.
Funding from outside means posting a money order with the printed Offender Telephone Service form, and 7 percent sales tax comes off. Iowa’s own worked example: a $10 family deposit becomes a $9.35 credit. When the person inside moves their own money across instead, 7 percent is added, so $10 costs them $10.70.
The minimum is $1, the transfer cannot be reversed, and unused phone money is credited back on release.
Blocking is straightforward: contact the institution and ask, or take the option offered when a call comes through.
Unblocking is deliberately harder. Iowa requires a written request to the Iowa State Penitentiary Business Office, and it must come from the owner of the telephone number. Not from the person inside, not over the phone, and not through Clarinda.
Worth knowing if a number was blocked in the middle of an argument, or blocked by whoever held it before you.
An incoming call from an attorney needs five days advance notice, runs Monday to Friday between 8:00 AM and 4:00 PM, and is scheduled in 25-minute intervals in a private phone room. Iowa’s policy states these calls are not monitored.
Outgoing calls to attorney numbers registered with the Iowa Supreme Court are likewise not monitored or recorded.
Iowa refuses refunds and says so directly: the department does not issue refunds for any dropped, lost or disconnected calls placed to cellular devices, and the same applies to VoIP and digital landline services.
You pay for the minutes regardless. A genuine landline is the only thing treated differently.
Iowa runs offender email through CorrLinks at $0.25 per message, which undercuts four minutes of talking. Register at corrlinks.com.
The person inside funds their side the same way as phone credit, with 7 percent added. Iowa’s family-facing page caps a message at 13,000 characters or 100 lines, roughly two pages, while two of the department’s own policies say 14,000. That contradiction is Iowa’s and remains unresolved.
6 of 8 questions
Seven cents a minute to anywhere in the lower 48, so twenty minutes is $1.40. Alaska is 12 cents and Hawaii 14 cents. Iowa states its rates are lower than most states because the revenue goes into a fund the Board of Corrections directs to legal services, religious accommodations, education and victim services.
Phone CallsIowa publishes a country-by-country rate card, which almost no state does. Canada and Mexico are 12 cents a minute, Vietnam 15 cents, Honduras and the Philippines 23 cents, Guatemala 28 cents, El Salvador 30 cents and the United Kingdom 66 cents. The formula is Iowa's seven cents plus the average amount the provider paid to route the call abroad.
Phone CallsEither it is not on their approved list yet, or Iowa blocks that type. Blocked types include toll-free numbers starting 800, 888, 877, 866, 855 and 844, 900 numbers, forwarded numbers, credit card calls and three-way calls. A landline that forwards to a mobile is the one families miss, because it looks like it should work.
Phone CallsPost a money order with the printed Offender Telephone Service form to Iowa State Penitentiary, which banks phone money for the whole state. Commissary money goes to Fort Dodge instead, so the two are separate. A family deposit also loses 7 percent to sales tax, so Iowa's example is that $10 becomes a $9.35 credit.
Phone CallsIowa never names one. No Iowa DOC page and no policy identifies a telephone vendor, and the policy refers only to the contractor managing the offender phone system. We would rather tell you that than print a company name we cannot verify from an official Iowa source.
Phone CallsNot published. Iowa's telephone policy leaves call length and frequency to each institution, and Clarinda publishes neither. Ask on 712-695-7140, because that answer is what turns a seven-cent rate into a monthly figure you can plan around.
Phone CallsIowa does not say outright, so neither will we. What the policy does state is that attorney calls are explicitly not monitored, and that institutional procedures cover security monitoring, which implies ordinary calls are. Treat anything said on a prison phone as potentially recorded while a case is open.
Phone CallsYes. CorrLinks messages cost 25 cents each, less than four minutes of talking. Register at corrlinks.com. Iowa's family page caps a message at 13,000 characters or about two pages, though two of the department's own policies say 14,000 characters, a discrepancy Iowa has not resolved.
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All information on this page comes directly from official government and facility sources. How we verify information › Last verified September 9, 2026.