Iowa · Squirrel · 2026–27 Edition
Iowa Squirrel Season 2026–27: Dates & Bag Limits
01 — Seasons
| Season | Zone | Dates |
|---|---|---|
| Squirrel season | Statewide | Sep 5 – Jan 31 |
02 — Bag limits
| Daily | 6 fox and gray squirrels, combined |
|---|---|
| Possession | 12, combined |
03 — Shooting hours
No shooting-hours restriction — legal at any hour during the open season.
Rule: No shooting-hours restriction on squirrel. Iowa Admin. Code r. 571-96.8 states in plain words: 'There are no restrictions on shooting hours.' The DNR's own Iowa Hunting, Trapping and Migratory Game Bird Regulations prints 'No Restrictions' in the shooting-hours column for Squirrel (Fox and Gray), while the same table gives Rabbit (Cottontail) 'Sunrise to Sunset' and pheasant and quail a fixed 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. window.
04 — License
Squirrel hunters in Iowa need an Iowa hunting license — Iowa places no shooting-hours restriction on squirrel hunting — unlike cottontail rabbit (sunrise to sunset) or rooster pheasant (8 a.m.–4:30 p.m.), squirrel may legally be hunted at any hour during the open season, per Iowa Admin. Code r. 571-96.8.
Where to hunt public land in Iowa — WMAs by county & access rules →
05 — FAQ
When does squirrel season start in Iowa?
The 2026–27 opener is September 5, 2026. See the table above for the full window.
When does squirrel season end in Iowa?
The 2026–27 closing date is January 31, 2027.
Is there a difference between fox and gray squirrel rules in Iowa?
See the bag limit table above — most states run one combined limit across both species, but this is worth confirming against Iowa Department of Natural Resources before you hunt.
How many squirrels can you shoot in Iowa per day?
2026–27 bag limits: Daily — 6 fox and gray squirrels, combined. Possession — 12, combined. Limits are set per zone and per permit — check the agency's own regulations before you hunt.
What time can you start shooting squirrel in Iowa?
There is no shooting-hours restriction — squirrel may legally be hunted at any hour during the open season in Iowa. The rule is: No shooting-hours restriction on squirrel. Iowa Admin. Code r. 571-96.8 states in plain words: 'There are no restrictions on shooting hours.' The DNR's own Iowa Hunting, Trapping and Migratory Game Bird Regulations prints 'No Restrictions' in the shooting-hours column for Squirrel (Fox and Gray), while the same table gives Rabbit (Cottontail) 'Sunrise to Sunset' and pheasant and quail a fixed 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. window.
Can I hunt squirrels on my own land in Iowa without a license?
Iowa owners or tenants, and their minor children, may hunt, fish, or trap their own land without a license. Deer and turkey still need their own special license, though a free one is available to a registered owner or tenant for their certified farm unit.
Verified · Iowa Department of Natural Resources · Last verified 2026-08-14
Publisher's note. Iowa DNR's own hunting-seasons page (iowadnr.gov) lists the squirrel (fox & gray) row as 'Sept. 5 – Jan. 31, 2027,' daily limit 6, possession limit 12, with shooting hours explicitly given as 'No restrictions' — set apart from the same table's cottontail rabbit row ('Sunrise to Sunset') and rooster pheasant row ('8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.'). This was verified against the codified rule itself, Iowa Admin. Code r. 571-96.8 (Squirrel season), read via Cornell LII's mirror of the Iowa Administrative Code: 'Open season for hunting squirrels (fox and gray) is the Saturday before Labor Day through January 31 of the succeeding year. Daily bag limit 6; possession limit 12. There are no restrictions on shooting hours. Entire state open.' (Effective June 18, 2025.) Labor Day 2026 is Monday Sept. 7, so the Saturday before is Sept. 5, matching the DNR table exactly. TRAP CONFIRMED: squirrel genuinely has NO shooting-hours restriction in Iowa, unlike most small game — this is stated in plain language in the current codified rule, not just inferred. Note that one intermediate fetch (a text-extraction proxy of a scanned IDNR small-game PDF) misread the table and returned 'Sunrise to Sunset' for squirrel; that reading is contradicted by both the live DNR page and the codified administrative rule text quoted above and was discarded as unreliable OCR/extraction noise. RECONFIRMED 2026-08-16 against the official Iowa Hunting, Trapping & Migratory Game Bird Regulations PDF, whose small-game table prints 'No Restrictions' in the shooting-hours column for Squirrel (Fox and Gray) — while the very same table gives Rabbit (Cottontail) 'Sunrise to Sunset' and pheasant and quail a fixed 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. window. EXPLICIT shootingHours MARKER (2026-08-27): this file now carries shootingHours.unrestricted = true. Simply omitting the field did NOT work and had been silently wrong on the live page: the season templates read season.shootingHours ?? meta.shootingHours, so an absent block fell through to the state-level default in states.json and the page printed a computed sunrise/sunset window plus a rule the law does not impose - while the licence section right below it said the opposite. The templates now honour the marker and print the no-restriction sentence instead. The original reasoning stands: Iowa imposes no shooting-hours limit on squirrel, so any sunrise/sunset offset — including 0/0 — would state a restriction the law does not impose. The absence of the field is the correct answer, not a gap to be filled.