The Mount Pleasant address families already know is the one for visitor applications, and sending a money order there does not work. Send photos and letters too.
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Nothing about money happens at Mount Pleasant. Iowa banks every prison’s commissary money at Fort Dodge, administers phone credit and restitution at Iowa State Penitentiary, and leaves this facility handling visitor applications instead. The risk here is a specific one: families visiting somebody at Mount Pleasant already have a Mount Pleasant address written down, because that is where the visitor application goes, and a money order posted there is not a deposit. It is a letter to the wrong office.
Iowa centralised offender banking. Deposits for all nine prisons are received and handled at Fort Dodge Correctional Facility, and the department states that incoming money will not be accepted at or by any other location.
IDOC Offender Fiduciary Account
1550 L Street, Suite B
Fort Dodge, IA 50501
Fort Dodge is about four hours northwest of Mount Pleasant, and none of that matters. It is a postal address rather than a place to go.
Money orders are no longer accepted at any institution. Bringing one to a Saturday visit achieves nothing here or anywhere else in Iowa.
Every Iowa family who has applied to visit anybody has written down 1200 E Washington Street, Mount Pleasant, because that is where the Centralized Visiting Authority receives visitor applications.
If your person is held here, that address is doubly familiar: it is where you send the form and where you go on a Saturday.
It is not where money goes. A money order posted to 1200 E Washington Street reaches an office that processes visitor applications and does not bank funds. Iowa’s rule that money will not be accepted at any location other than Fort Dodge applies to this address exactly as it does to the other eight prisons.
The deposit must be a cashier’s check or money order. Nothing else goes by post.
Make it payable to: IDOC Offender Fiduciary Account.
Write all four of these on it:
Iowa’s funds policy adds the rule that returns most failed deposits: money orders and cashier’s checks may not be sent with any other correspondence. A money order inside a birthday card comes back. So does anything illegible or missing a detail. Deposits over $1,000 are copied to institutional security staff for approval before they post.
If you are sending funds electronically to a brand new account, Iowa says to expect the banking system to take about a week to set it up.
Access Corrections publishes Iowa’s lowest rates. Online at accesscorrections.com from $3.49 on a Visa or Mastercard, by phone on 1-866-345-1884 from $4.49, and at the same rates from inside a CorrLinks account. Cash without a card: CashPayToday at a flat $6.95, in shops including Dollar General, Family Dollar and Kum & Go, or ACE Cash Express at a flat $5.95. Cash caps at $900, and money sent before midnight is generally available the next business day.
JPay costs more. Online at JPay.com, $3.95 to $10.95 by amount, or by phone on 1-800-574-5729, $4.95 to $11.95. Cash at a MoneyGram agent, including Walmart, CVS, 7-Eleven and Albertsons, is a flat $8.95, taking up to $5,000 in one transaction. Money sent before 11:45 PM is generally available the next business day.
Western Union Quick Collect uses exact entries Iowa publishes and that fail quietly if you improvise. Pay to Iowa Department of Corrections, code city IOWADOC, state IA, and for the sender’s account number use the ID number followed by the last name, so 1234567Jones. Funds post three times a day, the last around 3:30 PM central time.
Iowa spreads this across three prisons and Mount Pleasant is not any of them.
Commissary money goes to Fort Dodge. Phone credit goes to Iowa State Penitentiary. Restitution, court filing fees and child support go to Iowa State Penitentiary.
Iowa State Penitentiary
PO Box 316
Fort Madison, IA 52627-0316
Fort Madison is about an hour south of Mount Pleasant, which makes this the one Iowa prison where both the restitution office and the visiting authority sit within an easy drive, and where neither of them is the place your commissary deposit goes.
A family deposit into a phone account has 7 percent sales tax taken off, so Iowa’s worked example is that $10 becomes $9.35. When the person inside transfers his own money across, 7 percent is added, making $10 cost $10.70. The minimum is $1, the transfer is one way, and unused phone money is credited back on release.
Money you send is not the money that lands. These rates sit in Iowa’s funds policy rather than on the department’s money page.
| Deduction | Rate on outside money |
|---|---|
| State restitution | 20% |
| Federal restitution | 20% |
| State court filing fees | 10% of the balance owed |
| Federal filing fees | 20% |
| Mandatory savings | 10% |
| Department sanctions | 20% |
The savings deduction stops once the savings balance reaches $100. The others depend on what is owed.
A 6 percent pretax surcharge, which Iowa calls pay for stay, is added to every commissary order. It is not charged on stamped envelopes, postcards, money sent home, legal copies and fees, a driver’s licence, postage, treatment or educational purchases, religious donations, the flower fund, or a medical co-pay.
Exempt from the deductions: money the warden designates for medical costs and funeral trip costs, transportation fees, vendor refunds, property tort claims, VA benefits, and anything directed into the telephone fund.
Mount Pleasant was reclassified as minimum security in 2016 with a focus on preparing people for release, which changes what a savings deduction and a release payment actually mean here.
Iowa’s mandatory savings takes 10 percent of allowances and outside money until the savings balance reaches $100, and that balance is what somebody walks out with alongside gate money.
Gate money is $50 for work release and $100 for all other qualifying releases, available once in any 12-month period, paid onto a MasterCard release card that costs $5 to issue. Iowa provides bus fare to any destination inside the state, and anything beyond the Iowa border is at the person’s own cost.
At a prison whose stated purpose is reentry, those are the figures a family is planning around.
Iowa’s funds policy states that weekly spending limits and possession limits are established and posted throughout the institution. They are real and enforced, and Mount Pleasant publishes no figure online.
If money has not been used, a weekly cap is a likelier explanation than a lost payment. The person inside can read the number even though you cannot.
Two smaller limits: a vending card holds at most $75, takes one load a day, carries the 6 percent surcharge and costs $2.25 to replace, and Iowa says any balance left on it is generally not refunded at release. An overdraft attempt costs a minor report and a $5 fee.
Care packages run through Iowa Prison Industries. Orders open November 1 to November 30, delivery runs December 19 to December 23, and institutions may limit how many a person receives.
Cash deposits are limited to $900 through Access Corrections and $5,000 through JPay.
6 of 8 questions
To the IDOC Offender Fiduciary Account, 1550 L Street, Suite B, Fort Dodge, IA 50501, payable to IDOC Offender Fiduciary Account. Iowa banks every prison's money in one place and states funds will not be accepted at or by any other location.
Send MoneyNo, and it is an easy mistake here because that address is where every Iowa visitor application goes. It handles applications, not funds. Iowa's rule that money is accepted only at Fort Dodge applies to Mount Pleasant like every other facility.
Send MoneyNo, and it is the most common reason a deposit is returned. Iowa's funds policy states money orders and cashier's checks may not be sent with any other correspondence. The money order also has to carry the offender name and number plus your own name and complete address, written legibly.
Send MoneyIowa deducts before money posts: 20 percent for state restitution, 20 percent for federal restitution, 10 percent of the balance owed for state court filing fees, 20 percent for federal filing fees, 10 percent into mandatory savings until that reaches $100, and 20 percent for department sanctions. A 6 percent surcharge is then added to commissary orders.
Send MoneyAccess Corrections publishes Iowa's lowest rates, from $3.49 online at accesscorrections.com on a Visa or Mastercard. Cash costs more, at a flat $5.95 through ACE Cash Express or $6.95 through CashPayToday, both capped at $900. JPay starts at $3.95 online and $8.95 in cash through MoneyGram.
Send MoneyNo. Commissary money goes to Fort Dodge and phone credit is administered separately by Iowa State Penitentiary at Fort Madison, PO Box 316, funded by money order with the printed Offender Telephone Service form. A family phone deposit has 7 percent sales tax deducted, so $10 becomes a $9.35 credit.
Send MoneyIowa publishes this. Gate money is $50 for work release and $100 for other qualifying releases, once in any 12-month period, paid onto a MasterCard release card. Mandatory savings of 10 percent, capped once the savings balance reaches $100, comes out too. Iowa provides bus fare anywhere inside the state, with travel beyond the border at his own cost.
Send MoneyIowa gives the exact entries and a wrong one loses the payment. Pay to Iowa Department of Corrections, code city IOWADOC, state IA, and for the sender's account number use his ID number followed by his last name, for example 1234567Jones. Funds post three times a day, the last around 3:30 PM central time.
Send MoneyThe offender number a deposit is matched by.
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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.