Farmland Cash Rent — 2025 NASS Averages

All 48 published states shown — pulled directly from USDA NASS QuickStats (2025 Cash Rents survey, August 2025 estimates; retrieved July 19, 2026). "—" means NASS did not publish a 2025 estimate for that category (small irrigated acreage, limited pasture rental market, or data-quality suppression). Alaska and Rhode Island have no published 2025 cash-rent estimates. Heads-up when comparing against news coverage: widely quoted figures like "U.S. cropland $161" or "Nebraska $226" are all-cropland averages (irrigated + dryland blended) — this table separates the two, which is why some numbers differ from headlines. County-level detail: NASS county releases (e.g., NE, KS, SD, TX).

What the NASS cash rent survey actually measures

The figures above are survey estimates of rent that was genuinely paid on working leases — not asking prices, not listings, and not appraised values. Each year USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service gathers that information and publishes averages by state for three categories that behave like separate markets: non-irrigated cropland, irrigated cropland, and pasture. Where the sample in a county is deep enough, NASS also publishes county estimates, and those land in late August alongside the state release. Where the sample is too thin, or an acreage category barely exists locally, nothing is published at all. That is why several cells in the table carry a dash instead of a number, and why a handful of states are available only at the state level.

Two consequences matter for you. First, a published average looks backward. It describes agreements struck before the questionnaire went out, so in a year when grain prices, cattle markets or input costs swing hard, the survey trails the conversation you are actually having across the kitchen table. Second, an average is one point squeezed out of a distribution that can be extremely wide. Some of the leases inside that average were signed well beneath it and some well above it, and the published figure discloses nothing about how far the tails stretch in your particular township.

Why the county average is a starting point, not a fair price

A county average answers a question about a county. Your question is about one field, and no field is average. The county figure blends bottom ground and hillsides, tiled quarters and wet pockets, big square blocks and odd triangles behind a creek. It is the correct place to begin a negotiation because both parties can look it up for free and neither can accuse the other of inventing it. It is the wrong place to end one, because it has already averaged away every distinguishing feature of the acres in question.

Treat the county number as the anchor and then argue, out loud and with evidence, about the direction and size of the adjustment. That is what the low and high percentages in the calculator are for. Canned adjustment factors pretend to a precision nobody has, and some of what you would adjust for is already folded into the county figure.

The parcel facts that pull a field off the average

Productivity dominates. A soil productivity or corn-suitability rating from your county soil survey is the single most defensible number either side can bring, because it is public, parcel-specific and hard to dispute. Drainage is second: functioning tile, or its absence, changes both expected yield and the number of days a planter can run. Field size and shape matter more than people outside the tractor cab expect — point rows, tight headlands, buried obstacles and scattered small tracts all raise the cost per acre of covering the ground with modern equipment. Road access determines whether grain trucks and sprayers can reach the field in wet conditions or must detour. Distance from the operator's base is real money in fuel, road time and machinery hours, which is why a neighbour whose shop sits half a mile away can rationally outbid an operator forty minutes out.

Who pays for what

Two leases at identical dollars per acre are not equal deals if the responsibilities differ. Settle in writing who buys and applies lime, who funds phosphorus and potassium build-up as opposed to maintenance fertility, who repairs fence and maintains livestock water on pasture, who cleans ditches and fixes broken tile, who controls noxious weeds, who carries insurance, and who keeps hunting rights (retained or included, that changes real value — see our hunting lease page). A tenant asked to build fertility on ground held under a one-year handshake will bid lower, and should.

Cash rent versus flexible and share arrangements

Fixed cash rent is a transfer of risk. The landowner receives a known amount regardless of drought, hail or a collapse in prices, and the tenant absorbs every bit of that uncertainty in exchange for keeping the upside of a good year. Its virtue is simplicity; its weakness is that it can feel badly wrong to one party in any unusual season.

A crop share splits both production and, usually, some inputs by an agreed fraction, so the two parties move together instead of against each other. A flexible lease sits between the extremes: a guaranteed base rent, plus an additional payment triggered by a written formula tied to actual yield, price, or both. Flexible arrangements defuse the argument about who guessed the market correctly, but they demand more trust, honest records, and a formula written plainly enough that neither side can reinterpret it in December.

The same number reads differently from each side

If you own the ground, rent is the return on an asset you could sell or farm yourself, and your priorities are stability, a tenant who limes and controls erosion, and a rate that keeps pace over a long relationship. If you farm the ground, rent is typically the largest single cost per acre and it is fixed before you know a thing about the year ahead; your priority is a rate your realistic budget can service in a mediocre season, not a triumphant one.

Both readings are legitimate, and the productive conversation is usually about terms rather than the headline rate. Length of agreement, notice period, payment timing, improvement credits and a defined process for annual review are often worth more to each party than the last few dollars per acre either could win by grinding.

What this tool cannot tell you

It cannot value your farm, and nothing here is an appraisal, an offer, or legal, tax or investment advice. It does not know your soils, your drainage, your yield history, your landlord's tax situation, or what the operator down the road is prepared to bid to keep his equipment busy. It does not track land values, interest rates or property taxes, all of which shape what an owner needs. It cannot see local competition, which in a tight neighbourhood overwhelms every adjustment discussed above.

Use it as a planning estimate to frame a conversation and pressure-test a budget. Pull the current county release for your area, walk the field, and remember that a signed lease is a binding legal document — have an attorney licensed in the property's state review anything material before you put your name on it.

Timing note for negotiations: NASS releases fresh cash rent data every late August. If you are negotiating a fall lease, the new county numbers arrive right when you need them.