Iowa motor fuel retailers are businesses that offer a range of fuel options, including gasoline, diesel, ethanol, and biodiesel. Iowa Code section 452A.33 requires all Iowa fuel retailers to report motor fuel and diesel gallons to the Iowa Department of Revenue and for the Department to prepare and submit an annual report of fuel gallons to the Iowa Governor and Legislature. The full annual reports related to this dataset are published on the Iowa Department of Revenue web page: https://tax.iowa.gov/report-category/retailers-annual-gallons.

Over the years, the Retailers Fuel Gallons Annual Report has been updated to reflect changes in law and trends in biofuel sales. Reported data available by year reflects these changes with the pure biofuel sales category added to the dataset in 2018.

Counties with five or less locations are reported in aggregate as “other” between 2011 and 2020 due to confidentiality requirements. Starting in 2021, these counties are reported individually, but categories within the dataset that would violate confidentiality requirements are left blank.

The State of Iowa set a goal to replace 25.0 percent of petroleum in Iowa with biofuel by 2020. The biofuel distribution percentage measures how the State is doing toward meeting that goal. The formula for determining the biofuel distribution percentage is as follows: Biofuel Distribution Percentage = (Pure Ethanol Gallons + Pure Biodiesel Gallons) / Total Gasoline Gallons.