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Daily Iron Requirement Calculator

Enter your age, sex, and status to find your daily iron requirement.

How it is calculated

Enter age in years, sex (female or male) and, for women, pregnancy or lactation status. The tool looks the answer up in a table of US recommended daily allowances; there is no formula. The bands are: under 0.5 years 0.27 mg, up to 1 year 11 mg, 1 to 3 years 7 mg, 4 to 8 years 10 mg, 9 to 13 years 8 mg. From 14 to 18 it is 15 mg for girls and 11 mg for boys, from 19 to 50 it is 18 mg for women and 8 mg for men, and from 51 on it is 8 mg for everyone.

Pregnancy sets 27 mg and lactation 9 mg (10 mg under 19), but only for females aged 14 to 50; the status is ignored for anyone else. If sex is left empty the tool uses the male values. The second result is a fixed upper limit: 40 mg under age 14 and 45 mg from 14 on. Rules differ by country, and this is general information, not a prescription.

Worked example

A 30-year-old pregnant woman. At age 30 the female band is 19 to 50, which gives 18 mg. Pregnancy replaces this with 27 mg, so the recommended intake is 27.0 mg per day. Her upper limit is 45 mg, because she is over 14. The same woman not pregnant would be shown 18.0 mg, and a 30-year-old man 8.0 mg.

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Common mistakes

  • Leaving the sex field empty for a woman. The tool then applies the male value, 8 mg instead of 18 mg between ages 19 and 50.
  • Applying the pregnancy setting to a woman over 50. It has no effect there, since the tool counts it only up to age 50.
  • Entering the age of a baby in months as if it were years. 6 months is 0.5 years, and a plain 6 would be treated as six years old.
  • Treating the upper limit as a target. It is the ceiling for total intake from food and supplements, and the recommended figure is the goal.
  • Assuming vegetarians have the same need. This tool applies the same table to everyone, with no adjustment for diet or absorption.

Sources

About this calculator

Recommended daily iron intake (RDA) varies sharply by age, sex, and reproductive status — for example, around 8 mg/day for adult men, 18 mg/day for menstruating adult women (to replace iron lost monthly), 27 mg/day during pregnancy, and lower amounts for young children and older adults — alongside a tolerable upper intake level (commonly 45 mg/day for adults) above which supplementation risks toxicity.

Dietitians, healthcare providers, and individuals checking their own diet or supplement dose use this calculator to find their specific target rather than relying on a single generic number, since iron needs differ so widely between, say, a pregnant woman and an adult man that a one-size-fits-all figure would be misleading for most people.

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Comments (1)

  • Editorial team

    The result is an intake target taken from a US table, so national dietary guidance in your country may use different figures. It describes how much iron to eat, not how much iron your body holds. If you suspect low iron, a blood test arranged through a doctor is what answers that, and the upper limit applies to food and supplements combined. Which age or life stage would you like to see covered in more detail?

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