Iowa — Debt Collection Practices Act (Code ch. 537 art. 7) + SOL

Authority

Iowa Code chapter 537 is the Iowa Consumer Credit Code (ICCC). Article 7 of it — §§537.7101–537.7103 — is the Iowa Debt Collection Practices Act (IDCPA), Iowa's mini-FDCPA. It is administered by the Attorney General (§537.6103 defines "administrator" as the AG or the AG's designee) through the Consumer Protection Division, and it reaches original creditors collecting their own consumer debts, not just third parties.

There is no Iowa collection-agency license. The entry gate is an annual notification filing plus a $50 fee with the AG under §§537.6201–537.6203, implemented by 61 Iowa Admin. Code ch. 22.

Statute of limitations on debt claims: Iowa Code §614.1 — ten years on written contracts (§614.1(5)(a)), five years on unwritten contracts (§614.1(4)). Iowa did not enact the uniform UCC §3-118 limitations section; see the notes section below.

Verification note

All statutory text below was pulled 2026-08-11 from the Iowa Legislature's official section PDFs at https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/code/<section>.pdf (Iowa Code 2026 printing, dated Dec. 12, 2025 in the PDF footers), and the administrative rule from https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/iac/chapter/61.22.pdf. These fetch cleanly with no workaround. The Attorney General's licensing/notification page fetches cleanly. iowacourts.gov HTML pages 403 automated fetch, but its opinion PDFs retrieve normally with a browser user agent (curl -A "Mozilla/5.0 …") — that is how the Court of Appeals opinion quoted below was obtained.

Operative text

Scope — §537.7102 (the IDCPA covers original creditors)

2. "Creditor", for the purposes of this article, means the person to whom a debtor is obligated, either directly or indirectly, on a debt.
3. "Debt" means an actual or alleged obligation arising out of a consumer credit transaction, consumer rental purchase agreement, or a transaction which would have been a consumer credit transaction either if a finance charge was made, if the obligation was not payable in installments, if a lease was for a term of four months or less, or if a lease was of an interest in land. …
4. "Debt collection" means an action, conduct or practice in soliciting debts for collection or in the collection or attempted collection of a debt.
5. "Debt collector" means a person engaging, directly or indirectly, in debt collection, whether for the person, the person's employer, or others, and includes a person who sells, or offers to sell, forms represented to be a collection system, device, or scheme, intended to be used to collect debts. — Iowa Code §537.7102 (emphasis added)

The "would have been a consumer credit transaction if a finance charge was made / if the obligation was not payable in installments" clause is what pulls ordinary consumer receivables — including medical bills — into "debt." The administrator says so on its own site:

The definition of consumer debt under Iowa law is broad and includes a variety of debts other than consumer credit transactions.

• Dishonored checks
• Medical bills
• Accounts based on "90 days same-as-cash"
• Typical accounts receivable billings for consumer purposes
• Debts incurred for personal, family, or household purposes where credit was extended — Iowa Attorney General, Debt Collector Notification (official ICCC administrator page), retrieved 2026-08-11

And on first-party creditors:

Most creditors collecting their own debts are not required to file notification as debt collectors, but they must comply with the substantive requirements of the Iowa Debt Collection Practices Act. — Iowa Attorney General, Debt Collector Notification

Territorial reach — §537.1201(1)(c)

Article 7 attaches to collection conduct in Iowa regardless of where the underlying transaction was made:

1. This chapter applies to: … c. Acts, practices, or conduct in this state in the solicitation, inducement, negotiation, collection, or enforcement of a transaction, without regard to where it is entered into or modified; including but not limited to acts, practices, or conduct in violation of sections 537.3209, 537.3210, 537.3311, 537.3501, article 5, parts 1 and 3, and article 7. — Iowa Code §537.1201(1)(c)

Entry gate — notification and fees, §§537.6201–537.6203

The regulator states the license position plainly:

Iowa does not license debt collectors. However, debt collectors who meet Iowa's notification requirements must file notification with the Iowa Attorney General and pay the required annual fee. — Iowa Attorney General, Debt Collector Notification

Who must file:

This part applies to all of the following:

1. Creditors engaged in consumer credit transactions and acts, practices or conduct involving consumer credit transactions to which this chapter applies pursuant to section 537.1201, but not to those licensed, certificated, or otherwise authorized to engage in business by chapter 524, 533, 536 or 536A.
2. Debt collectors, as defined in section 537.7102, subsection 5, to whose acts, practices, or conduct this chapter applies pursuant to section 537.1201 if the total debt collected by a debt collector in the preceding calendar year exceeds the threshold amount, or if not, if the total debt collected during the current calendar year exceeds twenty-five thousand dollars, but this part does not apply to those licensed, certified, or otherwise authorized to engage in business under chapter 524, 533, 536, or 536A. — Iowa Code §537.6201 (emphasis added)

"Threshold amount" is the moving Reg Z figure:

47. "Threshold amount" means the threshold amount, as determined by 12 C.F.R. §1026.3(b), in effect during the period the consumer credit transaction was entered into. — Iowa Code §537.1301(47)

The administrator publishes the current number and reads the test as a single aggregate figure:

Debt collectors must file if they collect over $73,400 in total debts in the previous or current calendar year, based on the aggregate amount collected from all sources, not just Iowa accounts. — Iowa Attorney General, Debt Collector Notification, retrieved 2026-08-11 (the AG's stated figure for the current filing year)

Timing and contents:

1. Persons subject to this part shall file notification with the administrator within thirty days after commencing business in this state and, thereafter, on or before January 31 of each year. The notification must state all of the following: a. Name of the person. … d. Address of all offices or retail stores, if any, in this state at which consumer credit transactions are entered into … or, in the case of debt collectors, any offices in this state from or at which debt collection is engaged in. … f. Address of designated agent upon whom service of process may be made in this state. …
2. If information in a notification becomes inaccurate after filing, no further notification is required until the following January 31. — Iowa Code §537.6202

Fees:

1. A person required to file notification shall pay to the administrator an annual fee of fifty dollars. The fee shall be paid with the filing of the first notification and on or before January 31 of each succeeding year. …
2. A person required to file notification who is an assignee shall pay an additional fee … of ten dollars for each one hundred thousand dollars, or part thereof exceeding ten thousand dollars, of the average unpaid balances … of obligations arising from consumer credit transactions entered into or modified in this state, taken by the person by assignment and held by the person on the last day of each calendar month during the preceding calendar year.
3. In addition to the penalties provided by section 537.6113, subsection 3, the administrator may collect a charge, established by rule, not exceeding seventy-five dollars from each person required to pay fees under this section who fails to pay the fees in full within thirty days after they are due. — Iowa Code §537.6203

The implementing rule confirms the reach past consumer-credit paper and the small-collector floor:

"Debt collectors," as defined in Iowa Code section 537.7102(5), whose acts, practices or conduct is governed by Iowa Code chapter 537 pursuant to 537.1201. Debt collectors whose total debt collected in the preceding calendar year is less than $25,000, and in the current calendar year less than $25,000, are exempt from the notification and fees section of the consumer credit code. The term "debt collectors" is not limited to creditors or debt collectors collecting debts arising from consumer credit transactions, but also includes the collection of debts as that term is defined in Iowa Code section 537.7102(3). — 61 IAC 22.2(1)(b) (emphasis added; rule text as printed IAC 2/5/25)

Penalty for not filing — civil action by the administrator, plus a criminal tag:

3. The administrator may bring a civil action against a person for failure to file notification in accordance with the provisions on notification in section 537.6202, or to pay fees in accordance with the provisions on fees in section 537.6203, to recover the fees the defendant has failed to pay plus interest at the rate of seven percent per annum and the administrator's reasonable costs in bringing the action, and a civil penalty in an amount determined by the court not exceeding the greater of three times the amount of fees the person has failed to pay or one thousand dollars. — Iowa Code §537.6113(3)

3. A person, other than a lessor in a consumer rental purchase agreement, who willfully and knowingly engages in the business of entering into consumer credit transactions, or of taking assignments of rights against consumers arising therefrom and undertaking direct collection of payments or enforcement of these rights, without complying with the provisions of this chapter concerning notification under section 537.6202 or payment of fees under section 537.6203, is guilty of a simple misdemeanor. — Iowa Code §537.5301(3)

(Interpretation: §537.5301(3)'s criminal tag is written to creditors and to assignees who take rights against consumers and collect directly — a debt buyer is squarely inside it. A pure agency collecting on someone else's paper is not obviously within its words; its exposure for failing to file is the §537.6113(3) civil action and the §537.6203(4) late charge.)

The administrator also carves out commercial-only shops:

Companies that solely collect commercial debt are exempt from filing notification with the Office of the Attorney General. — Iowa Attorney General, Debt Collector Notification

Prohibited practices — §537.7103

Threats and coercion (subsection 1) — including a distinctly Iowa provision on credit-reporting a debtor as a willful refuser:

c. False accusations made to a person, including a credit reporting agency, or the threat to falsely accuse, that a debtor is willfully refusing to pay a just debt. However, a failure to reply to requests for payment and a failure to negotiate disputes in good faith are deemed willful refusal. d. The threat to sell or assign to another an obligation of the debtor with an attending representation or implication that the result of the sale or assignment will be to subject the debtor to harsh, vindictive or abusive collection attempts. e. The false threat that nonpayment of a debt may result in the arrest of a person or the seizure, garnishment, attachment or sale of property or wages of that person. f. An action or threat to take an action prohibited by this chapter or any other law. — Iowa Code §537.7103(1)

Harassment (subsection 2) — this is where Iowa's call-frequency and call-time rules live, and both are conduct standards, not numbers:

2. A debt collector shall not oppress, harass or abuse a person in connection with the collection or attempted collection of a debt of that person or another person. The following conduct is oppressive, harassing or abusive within the meaning of this subsection: a. The use of profane or obscene language or language that is intended to abuse the hearer or reader and which by its utterance would tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. b. The placement of telephone calls to the debtor without disclosure of the name of the business or company the debt collector represents. c. Causing expense to a person in the form of long distance telephone tolls, telegram fees or other charges incurred by a medium of communication by attempting to deceive or mislead persons as to the true purpose of the notice, letter, message or communication. d. Causing a telephone to ring or engaging a person in telephone conversation repeatedly or continuously or at unusual hours or times known to be inconvenient, with intent to annoy, harass or threaten a person. — Iowa Code §537.7103(2) (emphasis added)

Third-party disclosure (subsection 3) — the strictest part of the Iowa act, and the only place with hard numeric caps:

3. A debt collector shall not disseminate information relating to a debt or debtor as follows: a. The communication or threat to communicate or imply the fact of a debt to a person other than the debtor or a person who might reasonably be expected to be liable for the debt, except with the written permission of the debtor given after default. For the purposes of this paragraph, the use of language on envelopes indicating that the communication relates to the collection of a debt is a communication of the debt. However, this paragraph does not prohibit a debt collector from any of the following: (1) Notifying a debtor of the fact that the debt collector may report a debt to a credit bureau or engage an agent or an attorney for the purpose of collecting the debt. (2) Reporting a debt to a credit reporting agency or any other person reasonably believed to have a legitimate business need for the information. (3) Engaging an agent or attorney for the purpose of collecting a debt. (4) Attempting to locate a debtor whom the debt collector has reasonable grounds to believe has moved from the debtor's residence, where the purpose of the communication is to trace the debtor, and the content of the communication is restricted to requesting information on the debtor's location. (5) Communicating with the debtor's employer or credit union not more than once during any three-month period when the purpose of the communication is to obtain an employer's or credit union's debt counseling services for the debtor. … (6) Communicating with the debtor's employer once during any one-month period, if the purpose of the communication is to verify with an employer the fact of the debtor's employment and if the debt collector does not disclose … information other than the fact that a debt exists. This subparagraph does not authorize a debt collector to disclose to an employer the fact that a debt is in default. (7) Communicating the fact of the debt not more than once in any three-month period, with the parents of a minor debtor, or with any trustee of any property of the debtor, conservator of the debtor or the debtor's property, or guardian of the debtor. … (8) Communicating with the debtor's spouse with the consent of the debtor, or responding to inquiry from the debtor's spouse. b. The disclosure, publication, or communication of information relating to a person's indebtedness to another person, by publishing or posting a list of indebted persons, commonly known as "deadbeat lists", or by advertising for sale a claim to enforce payment of a debt when the advertisement names the debtor. c. The use of a form of communication to the debtor, except a telegram, an original notice or other court process, or an envelope displaying only the name and address of a debtor and the return address of the debt collector, intended or so designed as to display or convey information about the debt to another person other than the name, address, and phone number of the debt collector. — Iowa Code §537.7103(3) (emphasis added)

Fraudulent, deceptive, or misleading means (subsection 4) — including Iowa's mini-Miranda, which unlike Texas's applies to every debt collector (first-party included) subject only to a depository-institution carve-out:

b. The failure to disclose in the initial written communication with the debtor and, in addition, if the initial communication with the debtor is oral, in that initial oral communication, that the debt collector is attempting to collect a debt and that information obtained will be used for that purpose, and the failure to disclose in subsequent communications that the communication is from a debt collector, except that this paragraph does not apply to either of the following: (1) A formal pleading made in connection with a legal action. (2) Communications issued directly by a state bank as defined in section 524.103 or its affiliate, a state bank chartered under the laws of any other state or its affiliate, a national banking association or its affiliate, a trust company, a federally chartered savings and loan association or savings bank or its affiliate, an out-of-state chartered savings and loan association or savings bank or its affiliate, a financial institution chartered by the federal home loan bank board, a state or federally chartered credit union, a credit union service organization, or a company or association organized or authorized to do business under chapter 515, 518, 518A, or 520, or an officer, employee, or agent of such company or association, provided the communication does not deceptively conceal its origin or its purpose. … d. The failure to clearly disclose the name and full business address of the person to whom the claim has been assigned at the time of making a demand for money. e. An intentional misrepresentation, or a representation which tends to create a false impression of the character, extent or amount of a debt, or of its status in a legal proceeding. … h. A representation that an existing obligation of the debtor may be increased by the addition of attorney's fees, investigation fees, service fees or other fees or charges, when in fact such fees or charges may not legally be added to the existing obligation. — Iowa Code §537.7103(4) (emphasis added)

Fees, bankruptcy-discharge affirmations, and attorney-represented debtors (subsection 5):

c. The collection of or the attempt to collect from the debtor a part or all of the debt collector's fee for services rendered, unless both of the following are applicable: (1) The fee is reasonably related to the actions taken by the debt collector. (2) The debt collector is legally entitled to collect the fee from the debtor. d. The collection of or the attempt to collect interest or other charge, fee or expense incidental to the principal obligation unless the interest or incidental charge, fee, or expense is expressly authorized by the agreement creating the obligation and is legally chargeable to the debtor, or is otherwise legally chargeable. e. A communication with a debtor when the debt collector knows that the debtor is represented by an attorney and the attorney's name and address are known, or could be easily ascertained, unless the attorney fails to answer correspondence, return phone calls or discuss the obligation in question, within a reasonable time, or prior approval is obtained from the debtor's attorney or when the communication is a response in the ordinary course of business to the debtor's inquiry. — Iowa Code §537.7103(5)

Also: §537.7103(5)(b) bars seeking a written affirmation of a bankruptcy-discharged obligation without disclosing its nature and consequences; §537.7103(6) bars communications that violate U.S. postal law; §537.7103(7) bars collecting health-service charges from an employee once a workers'-compensation contested case on liability is pending (§85.27(6)).

Pre-suit right to cure — §§537.5110–537.5111 (Iowa-specific, and it kills premature suits)

1. Notwithstanding any term or agreement to the contrary, the obligation of a consumer in a consumer credit transaction is enforceable by a creditor only after compliance with this section …
2. a. A creditor who believes in good faith that a consumer is in default may give the consumer written notice of the alleged default, and, if the consumer has a right to cure the default, shall give the consumer the notice of right to cure provided in section 537.5111 before commencing any legal action in any court on an obligation of the consumer and before repossessing collateral. …
3. A consumer has a right to cure the default unless, in other than an insurance premium loan transaction, the creditor has given the consumer a proper notice of right to cure with respect to a prior default which occurred within three hundred sixty-five days of the present default, or the consumer has voluntarily surrendered possession of goods that are collateral …
4. a. If the consumer has a right to cure a default: A creditor shall not accelerate the maturity of the unpaid balance of the obligation, demand or take possession of collateral … or otherwise attempt to enforce the obligation until twenty days after a proper notice of right to cure is given. — Iowa Code §537.5110(1)–(4)

7. If a creditor in a consumer credit transaction commences an action for money judgment prior to giving the customer notice of right to cure as required by this section and fails to follow the procedures set out in this section, the court shall dismiss the action without prejudice. … — Iowa Code §537.5110(7)

§537.5111 prescribes the contents and a safe-harbor form ("You are now in default on this credit transaction. You have a right to correct this default until … If you do so, you may continue with the contract as though you did not default."), with a modified form for closed credit card accounts (§537.5111(5)) because curing does not reinstate a closed card account (§537.5110(4)(c)).

Related: §537.3204 lets a consumer keep paying the original creditor until notified of the assignment, and requires the assignee, on request, to "seasonably furnish reasonable proof that the assignment has been made."

Remedies — §537.5201, §537.6113, §537.5301

Private right of action, with an explicit line item for IDCPA violations:

1. a. The consumer … has a cause of action to recover actual damages and in addition a right in an action other than a class action to recover from the person violating this chapter a penalty in an amount determined by the court, but not less than one hundred dollars nor more than one thousand dollars, if a person has violated the provisions of this chapter relating to: … (25) Prohibitions against unfair debt collection practices under section 537.7103. (26) Failure to provide a proper notice of cure or right to cure under sections 537.5110 and 537.5111. … b. With respect to violations arising from sales or loans made pursuant to open-end credit, no action pursuant to this subsection may be brought more than two years after the violations occurred. With respect to violations arising from other consumer credit transactions, no action pursuant to this subsection may be brought more than one year after the due date of the last scheduled payment of the agreement. — Iowa Code §537.5201(1)

6. A person is not liable for a penalty under subsection 1 or 3 if the person notifies the consumer of an error before the person receives from the consumer written notice of the error or before the consumer has brought an action under this section, and the person corrects the error within forty-five days after notifying the consumer. …
7. A person may not be held liable in any action brought under this section for a violation of this chapter if the person shows by a preponderance of evidence that the violation was not intentional and resulted from a bona fide error notwithstanding the maintenance of procedures reasonably adapted to avoid the error.
8. In an action in which it is found that a person has violated this chapter, the court shall award to the consumer the costs of the action and to the consumer's attorneys their reasonable fees. … — Iowa Code §537.5201(6)–(8)

Administrator enforcement:

2. The administrator may bring a civil action against a person to recover a civil penalty of no more than ten thousand dollars for repeatedly and intentionally violating this chapter. No civil penalty pursuant to this subsection may be imposed for violations of this chapter occurring more than two years before the action is brought … — Iowa Code §537.6113(2)

Criminal:

4. A person who willfully and knowingly violates the provisions of section 537.7103 is guilty of a serious misdemeanor. However, this subsection is not applicable to a violation of section 537.7103, subsection 7. — Iowa Code §537.5301(4)

Statute of limitations — §614.1(4) and §614.1(5)

Actions may be brought within the times limited as follows, respectively, after their causes accrue, and not afterwards, except when otherwise specially declared: … 4. Unwritten contracts — injuries to property — fraud — other actions. Those founded on unwritten contracts, those brought for injuries to property, or for relief on the ground of fraud in cases heretofore solely cognizable in a court of chancery, and all other actions not otherwise provided for in this respect, within five years, except as provided by subsections 8 and 10. 5. Written contracts — judgments of courts not of record — recovery of real property and rent. a. Except as provided in paragraph "b", those founded on written contracts, or on judgments of any courts except those provided for in subsection 6, and those brought for the recovery of real property, within ten years. b. Those founded on claims for rent, within five years. 6. Judgments of courts of record. Those founded on a judgment of a court of record … within twenty years … — Iowa Code §614.1(4)–(6) (last amended 2021 Acts, ch 102, §1)

Note there is no separate open-account period in §614.1. Iowa's open-account statute is an accrual rule only:

614.5 Open account. When there is a continuous, open, current account, the cause of action shall be deemed to have accrued on the date of the last item therein, as proved on the trial. — Iowa Code §614.5

Negotiable notes — §554.3118 is NOT the uniform UCC §3-118 (no six-year note SOL in Iowa)

Iowa enacted Revised UCC Article 3 in 1994 (94 Acts, ch 1167), but did not adopt uniform §3-118 "Statute of limitations." The section that occupies the 3-118 slot in Iowa's code is an accrual provision carried over from pre-revision Article 3, and Iowa's Article 3, Part 1 ends at §554.3119 — sections 554.3120, 554.3121 and 554.3122 do not exist (verified 2026-08-11: legis.iowa.gov/docs/code/554.3120.pdf and the two following return 404, while 554.3117 and 554.3119 return the neighboring uniform sections). There is therefore no UCC limitations period for negotiable instruments in Iowa — only an accrual rule:

554.3118 Accrual of cause of action.

1. A cause of action against a maker or an acceptor accrues a. in the case of a time instrument on the day after maturity; b. in the case of a demand instrument upon its date or, if no date is stated, on the date of issue.
2. A cause of action against the obligor of a demand or time certificate of deposit accrues upon demand, but demand on a time certificate may not be made until on or after the date of maturity.
3. A cause of action against a drawer of a draft or an endorser of any instrument accrues upon demand following dishonor of the instrument. Notice of dishonor is a demand.
4. Unless an instrument provides otherwise, interest runs at the rate provided by law for a judgment a. in the case of a maker, acceptor or other primary obligor of a demand instrument, from the date of demand; b. in all other cases from the date of accrual of the cause of action. — Iowa Code §554.3118 (94 Acts, ch 1167, §27, 121, 122)

Plain English (interpretation — the quote wins). This is the opposite resolution from the Missouri/Texas pattern. In states that adopted uniform §3-118, a negotiable note runs six years and displaces the general written-contract period. Iowa has no such section, so a promissory note is simply a written contract and runs the general ten years under §614.1(5)(a), with §554.3118 supplying the accrual date (day after maturity for a time note; date of the instrument or date of issue for a demand note — note that a demand note's clock starts at issue, not at demand, which is the reverse of uniform §3-118(b)). There is no ten-year no-payment backstop and no three-year draft/check period in Iowa's Article 3.

Revival — §614.11 (signed writing only)

614.11 Admission in writing — new promise. Causes of action founded on contract are revived by an admission in writing, signed by the party to be charged, that the debt is unpaid, or by a like new promise to pay the same. — Iowa Code §614.11

Plain English (interpretation — the quote wins). Iowa is a true revival state, not merely a tolling state: the statute says a contract cause of action "are revived," so a qualifying acknowledgment restarts an already-expired claim, not just a running one. But the qualifying act is narrow — a writing signed by the debtor either admitting the debt is unpaid or newly promising to pay. An oral admission, a recorded call, or a payment-plan agreed by phone does not satisfy §614.11 on its face.

Part payment: UNVERIFIED. No Iowa statute makes a bare partial payment a revival event, and §614.11's terms require a signed writing. Iowa case law on whether part payment independently revives or tolls could not be traced to an official source in this pass (searches of iowacourts.gov returned no on-point opinion). Do not auto-re-age Iowa debt on payment activity; attorney review. The conservative posture is: writing signed by the debtor ⇒ new ten-year (or five-year) clock; payment alone ⇒ no change to the clock.

Accrual, tolling, and the borrowing statute

Borrowing statute — a foreign bar is a defense in Iowa, but only for claims that arose elsewhere:

614.7 Bar in foreign jurisdiction. When a cause of action has been fully barred by the laws of any country where the defendant has previously resided, such bar shall be the same defense here as though it had arisen under the provisions of this chapter; but this section shall not apply to causes of action arising within this state. — Iowa Code §614.7

Nonresident tolling:

1. The period of limitation specified in sections 614.1 through 614.5 shall be computed omitting any time when: a. The defendant is a nonresident of the state … — Iowa Code §614.6(1)

Savings statute and death of the debtor:

614.10 Failure of action. If, after the commencement of an action, the plaintiff, for any cause except negligence in its prosecution, fails therein, and a new one is brought within six months thereafter, the second shall be held a continuation of the first. — Iowa Code §614.10

614.2 Death of party to be charged. In all cases where by the death of the party to be charged, the bringing of an action against the party's estate shall have been delayed beyond the period provided for by statute, the time within which action may be brought against the estate is hereby extended for six months from the date of the death of said decedent. — Iowa Code §614.2

Time-barred debt may still be raised defensively:

614.12 Counterclaim. A counterclaim may be pleaded as a defense to any cause of action, notwithstanding it is barred by the provisions of this chapter, if it was the property of the party pleading it at the time it became barred, and was not barred at the time the claim sued on originated; but no judgment thereon, except for costs, can be rendered in favor of the party so pleading it. — Iowa Code §614.12

Credit cards — which bucket? (labeled interpretation)

No Iowa statute assigns credit-card debt to §614.1(4) or §614.1(5). The classification is judicial and proof-dependent. The Iowa Court of Appeals, applying the Iowa Supreme Court's test in Matherly v. Hanson, 359 N.W.2d 450 (Iowa 1984), held a debt buyer's credit-card suit was governed by the five-year unwritten-contract period because the writings produced could not establish the obligation without parol evidence:

In Iowa, in order for an action to be founded on a written contract, the essential facts establishing liability of the defendant must be shown by a writing. Matherly v. Hanson, 359 N.W.2d 450, 454 (Iowa 1984). … The writings produced in this case do not establish a contract. Gemini produced no written promise by New to pay money. … The only agreement Gemini placed in evidence was a generic Sears cardholder agreement. It was not signed by New, nor did New's name appear on the agreement. Gemini produced no documents signed by New. … So, without evidence of New's written acceptance to Sears's offer, Gemini's action must be construed as one to enforce an oral contract. We conclude the five-year statute of limitations applies here for lack of proof of a written contract. — Gemini Capital Group, L.L.C. v. New, No. 1-521 / 10-1096 (Iowa Ct. App. Sept. 8, 2011), slip op. at 5–7 (official PDF, iowacourts.gov)

The same opinion applies §614.5 to fix accrual at the last item on the account (there, the last payment in June 2004; suit filed July 2009 was untimely).

Interpretation — flagged. Gemini is a Court of Appeals decision, decided 2–1 (Eisenhauer, P.J., dissenting; Tabor, J., concurring specially), and it turns on a failure of proof rather than a categorical holding that credit cards are unwritten contracts. The Iowa Supreme Court has not resolved the question. The operative rule for planning is Matherly's: if the holder can show the obligation from writings chargeable to the debtor without resort to parol evidence, the ten-year period is available; otherwise five. A debt buyer holding only a generic cardholder agreement and statements should assume five years.

Plain English

Interpretation — the quotes above win on any conflict.

• The IDCPA covers original creditors. "Debt collector" is anyone engaging in debt collection "whether for the person, the person's employer, or others" (§537.7102(5)). A creditor collecting its own consumer paper is bound by every prohibited practice in §537.7103 — the only thing first parties usually escape is the notification filing, and the AG says so on its own site.
• "Debt" is broader than consumer credit. Medical bills, dishonored checks, 90-days-same-as-cash accounts and ordinary consumer receivables are in, via §537.7102(3)'s "would have been a consumer credit transaction" clause and the administrator's published reading of it.
• No license — a notification. File within 30 days of starting collection activity in Iowa, then every January 31, with a $50 annual fee; the trigger is >$73,400 collected (aggregate, all states) in the prior year, or >$25,000 in the current year. Miss it and you face a $75 late charge and an AG suit for fees + interest + a penalty up to the greater of 3× unpaid fees or $1,000 (§537.6113(3)); creditors and assignees who collect directly also carry a simple-misdemeanor tag (§537.5301(3)). Commercial-only collectors are outside the filing requirement. Banks, credit unions, and licensed lenders under chs. 524/533/536/536A are exempt from notification.
• No numeric call-frequency cap and no numeric call-time window. §537.7103(2)(d) is an intent-to-harass standard ("repeatedly or continuously or at unusual hours or times known to be inconvenient"). Reg F's 7-in-7 presumption and the FDCPA's 8am–9pm rule are the operative numbers in Iowa. But §537.7103(2)(b) adds something federal law does not: every call to the debtor must disclose the name of the business the collector represents — not just the mini-Miranda, the company name, on every call.
• Third-party contact is much tighter than the FDCPA. Communicating the fact of a debt to anyone other than the debtor (or someone who might reasonably be liable) requires the debtor's written permission given after default. The listed exceptions are the only safe paths, and three of them carry hard counters: employer/credit-union debt-counseling contact once per 3 months, employment verification once per month (and never disclosing default), parent/guardian/conservator/trustee once per 3 months. Envelope language announcing a debt is itself a prohibited third-party communication.
• Mini-Miranda on every communication, first party included. §537.7103(4)(b) requires the "attempting to collect a debt" disclosure in the initial written communication, and again in the initial oral communication if the first contact is by phone, and a "this is from a debt collector" disclosure in every subsequent communication. The only carve-outs are formal pleadings and communications issued directly by the listed depository/insurance institutions.
• Assignees must identify themselves in the demand. §537.7103(4)(d) requires the name and full business address of the person to whom the claim has been assigned at the time of the demand.
• Do not sue a consumer-credit debtor before the right-to-cure notice. §537.5110 requires written notice in the §537.5111 form and a 20-day wait before acceleration, repossession, or filing. File early and §537.5110(7) says the court shall dismiss without prejudice; the failure is also its own private right of action under §537.5201(1)(a)(26). One notice covers repeat defaults within 365 days.
• SOL: 10 years written, 5 years unwritten, 5 years for rent, 20 years on court-of-record judgments. Notes are written contracts at 10 years (Iowa never enacted UCC §3-118). Credit cards are a fight decided by what documents the holder can produce; assume 5 unless a signed writing establishes the obligation.
• Revival requires the debtor's signature. §614.11 revives even a dead claim on a signed written admission or new promise. A payment, by itself, has no statutory revival effect in Iowa.
• No time-barred-debt disclosure and no time-barred-suit bar were located. Nothing in ch. 537 art. 7 or ch. 614 requires a Texas/California-style "we will not sue you" notice, and nothing makes filing on a stale debt a per-se statutory violation. Limitations remains an affirmative defense, which means an unraised defense produces a valid Iowa judgment. (Federal law still applies: an FDCPA claim for suing or threatening suit on time-barred debt, and Reg F §1006.26.)

Traps / edge cases

• The "written contract" test is a proof test, not a document-type test. Matherly asks whether the essential facts establishing liability appear in writings chargeable to the debtor, without parol evidence. A signed application plus statements may get you to ten years; a generic cardholder agreement with no signature will not. This makes the Iowa SOL for the same account effectively depend on the seller's media package — a real diligence item on Iowa portfolio purchases.
• Demand notes accrue at issue, not at demand. §554.3118(1)(b) starts the clock "upon its date or, if no date is stated, on the date of issue." A ten-year clock that begins the day the note is signed is a much earlier expiry than the uniform §3-118(b) rule most systems assume.
• §537.7103(2)(b) makes every undisclosed call a violation. Federal law tolerates a meaningful-disclosure standard; Iowa's text is flat — placing calls to the debtor "without disclosure of the name of the business or company the debt collector represents" is per-se oppressive conduct. Dialers that leave silent or partial voicemails are exposed here.
• The "written permission … given after default" gate for third-party contact is easy to violate with routine practices: leaving a message with a household member, a workplace call that names the creditor, or a mailer with a collection-branded envelope. §537.7103(3)(a) treats envelope language itself as communicating the debt.
• §537.7103(1)(c) is a credit-reporting trap. Falsely accusing a debtor to a credit reporting agency of "willfully refusing to pay a just debt" is illegal coercion — but the statute then deems failure to reply to payment requests and failure to negotiate disputes in good faith to be willful refusal, which is the safe harbor.
• The private-action clock is short. §537.5201(1)(b): two years from the violation for open-end credit, and for closed-end credit one year after the due date of the last scheduled payment of the agreement — a limit that can expire before the violation occurs on a long-dead account. §537.6113(2) caps the AG's civil-penalty lookback at two years.
• Bona-fide-error and 45-day cure defenses exist (§537.5201(6)–(7)), but fee-shifting to the consumer is mandatory on any found violation (§537.5201(8)).
• §614.6 nonresident tolling omits any time the defendant is a nonresident — on its face that can indefinitely extend a claim against a debtor who moved out of Iowa. Treat as attorney-review territory (constitutional and interpretive limits on such statutes are not in the text).
• §614.7 borrowing runs one way: a foreign bar helps a defendant only for claims that arose outside Iowa.
• Notification is not a license and produces no certificate. The AG states filers "will not receive a confirmation, notice, or hard copy license," and rejects filings where an out-of-state principal office lists no Iowa registered agent (which may not be the Secretary of State) — §537.6202(1)(f).
• Rule-to-statute cross-references in 61 IAC 22.3 are stale: the rule cites §537.1301(11)–(14)/(17)/(23)/(39) for definitions that have since been renumbered in the Code (e.g. "consumer credit transaction" is now §537.1301(12), "threshold amount" §537.1301(47)). Read the Code, not the rule's subsection numbers.

Related

• ../federal/fdcpa/overview.md
• ../federal/reg-f/call-frequency.md
• ../federal/reg-f/time-barred-debt.md
• ./mo.md — the other non-uniform UCC §3-118 state; Missouri resolves it with an express ouster at 10 years, Iowa by never enacting the section at all
• ./tx.md · ./_matrix.md