Average Soybean Yield per Acre by State (USDA Data)

Reviewed August 2026 against USDA NASS Crop Production reports and USDA NASS Charts and Maps (Field Crops).

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The US average soybean yield was 53.0 bushels per acre in 2025, up from 50.7 bu/ac in 2024, according to the USDA NASS Crop Production 2025 Summary (January 2026). Nebraska led the major producing states at 65.5 bu/ac, followed by Iowa at 63.5 and Illinois at 62.5. Below is the state-by-state breakdown, the year-over-year trend, and the exact USDA tool to pull a fresher number the day you read this.

National Average Soybean Yield: The Numbers

For the 2025 crop, the national average rose to 53.0 bu/ac on production of 4.26 billion bushels (USDA NASS). For the 2024 crop year, US farmers harvested 86.1 million acres of soybeans and produced 4.37 billion bushels, for a national average yield of 50.7 bushels per acre, per the USDA NASS Crop Production summary released January 10, 2025. That is the figure to use when someone asks for “the average soybean yield” without specifying a state — it is a harvested-acreage-weighted average across every reporting state, not a simple mean of state figures.

That single number hides a wide spread. Corn Belt states with deep Mollisol topsoil and consistent rainfall regularly reach 55–65 bu/ac, while parts of the Southern Plains and drought-exposed counties can fall into the low 40s or below. The state table in the next section shows why “average soybean yield per acre” only tells you where a national blend sits — not what a specific farm should expect.

Soybean Yield by State: Ranked

The states below account for the bulk of US soybean acreage and consistently post the highest recorded yields. Figures are the most recent USDA NASS state-level releases available in this review; where a state’s 2024 figure was not in the source set, the most recent confirmed year is shown instead — check the state’s own NASS report for anything more current.

USDA’s revised 2024 state figures are Illinois 64 bu/ac, Iowa 60, Indiana 59 and Minnesota 45 (USDA NASS, January 2026). For a number closer to your own soil type, use your state’s NASS County Estimates release.

Why Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa Lead

• ✔ Illinois : 64 bu/ac in 2024 and 62.5 in 2025, after 63 in 2023 — the deep Mollisol prairie soils of central Illinois hold moisture through pod-fill better than most of the country.
• ✔ Indiana : 59 bu/ac in 2024 and 59.5 in 2025, usually well above the national average because of similar glacial-till soils and a growing season with fewer heat-stress days than the Southern Plains.
• ✔ Iowa : 60 bu/ac in 2024 and 63.5 in 2025 — Iowa splits acreage between corn and soybeans in rotation, and the same soil quality that produces the country’s highest corn yields lifts soybeans too.
• ✔ Minnesota : 45 bu/ac in 2024, below the national average, and 52.5 in 2025 — reflecting a shorter growing season and more variable spring planting conditions in the northern Corn Belt.

Reading a “Soybean Yield Per Acre” Figure Correctly

• 📊 State averages weight every reporting county, so a state with one dominant high-yield region (like central Illinois) still reports a blended number that includes lower-yielding counties.
• ⚠ Year-to-year swings matter more than most people expect. The national average moved from 51.7 bu/ac in 2021 to 49.6 bu/ac in 2022 — a 2.1 bu/ac swing driven mostly by weather, not by any structural change in farming practice.
• 🌎 “Soybean yield per acre” and “soybean bushel per acre” mean the same measurement. Bushels per acre (bu/ac) is the standard unit; a bushel of soybeans is defined at 60 pounds.
• 📱 For a field-level number instead of a county or state estimate, satellite-based NDVI monitoring through Farmonaut’s Large-Scale Farm Management Solution tracks canopy vigor through the season, which correlates with eventual yield well before harvest.

Soybean Yield by State, 2023 to 2025 (USDA)

The US average soybean yield was 53.0 bushels per acre in 2025, up from 50.7 in 2024. Nebraska had the highest yield of the major states in 2025 at 65.5 bu/ac, ahead of Iowa (63.5) and Illinois (62.5). The table lists every state USDA estimates, sorted by 2025 yield, in bushels per acre.

Source: USDA NASS, Crop Production 2025 Summary (January 2026), which also revises the 2023 and 2024 state figures. Yields swing with the weather: Kansas rose from 35 to 48.5 bu/ac between 2024 and 2025, while Kentucky fell from 48 to 42.

Soybean Yield Per Acre: What the Number Actually Measures

“Soybean yield per acre,” “soybean harvest per acre,” and “soybean crop yield per acre” all refer to the same USDA metric: bushels of harvested soybeans divided by harvested acres, for a given county, state, or the nation. USDA NASS does not publish a separate “yield potential” number — every figure in this article is a harvested-yield figure, meaning it already accounts for whatever acreage was abandoned or left unharvested due to drought, flooding, or other loss.

A useful gut-check: at the 2024 national average of 50.7 bu/ac and a 60 lb/bushel standard weight, one acre of average US soybeans produced roughly 3,042 pounds, or about 1.52 tons, of beans. Nebraska’s 2025 figure of 65.5 bu/ac works out to about 3,930 lbs/acre — nearly 30% more mass per acre than the 2024 national average, which is the practical size of the gap between a top state and the country as a whole.

Average Soybean Yield, Year by Year

The national average has moved in a fairly narrow band across recent crop years: 51.7 bu/ac in 2021, 49.6 bu/ac in 2022, 50.6 bu/ac in 2023, and 50.7 bu/ac in 2024, per the USDA NASS Field Crops soybean yield chart. The 2022 dip to 49.6 bu/ac reflects a drier growing season across parts of the Corn Belt; the recovery to 50.6–50.7 bu/ac in 2023–2024 tracks closer to the longer-run trend line USDA has published since 2000.

This year-over-year view matters more than any single-year snapshot for planning purposes: a farm that only benchmarks against the most recent year’s number risks treating a drought year or a bumper year as the new normal. Comparing at least four years, as above, filters out one bad or one exceptional season.

What Drives the Gap Between States

The roughly 12.5 bu/ac spread between Nebraska (65.5 in 2025) and the national average (53.0 in 2025) comes down to a handful of measurable factors, not a single cause:

• 🧬 Soil type — Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa sit on deep Mollisol prairie soils with high water-holding capacity; states with sandier or shallower soils lose more yield in dry stretches.
• 🌐 Growing-season length and heat stress — pod-fill in August is the most drought-sensitive stage for soybeans; states with hotter, drier Augusts see more year-to-year variance.
• 💧 Rainfall timing, not just total rainfall — a dry June followed by a wet August can outyield the reverse pattern, which is part of why the same state can post 63 bu/ac one year (Illinois, 2023), 64 the next and 62.5 in 2025.
• 🔬 Rotation and management practices — corn-soybean rotation, common across Iowa and Illinois, tends to outyield continuous soybean cropping.
• 📱 In-season monitoring and input timing — Fleet management tools that get equipment into the field at the right window reduce the yield loss from delayed spraying or late planting.

It’s worth being direct about what the public data does not cover. USDA NASS does not publish a national rollup of soybean yield by variety or genetic trait — that data sits with individual seed companies and isn’t aggregated publicly. Organic soybean yields are likewise not broken out separately in the main NASS county and state reports. For a season still underway, USDA’s monthly Crop Production reports forecast state and national yields from August, and final figures follow in January. If you need any of these breakdowns, the seed company’s own trial data or your state’s extension service are the places to ask — USDA’s public figures won’t have them.

Farm-Level Yield & Revenue Calculator

Enter your own acreage, expected yield, and price per bushel to see projected total bushels and revenue, and compare your yield against the 2024 US average of 50.7 bu/ac.

Assumes 100% of entered acreage is harvestable and ignores drying, storage, hauling, and marketing costs. The 2024 US national average (50.7 bu/ac) is shown for comparison only — your county’s USDA NASS estimate will be a closer benchmark than the national figure.

How to Get an Updated Figure Yourself

Every figure in this article carries a vintage because USDA NASS refiles these numbers on a fixed schedule, and a fresher number is almost always available by the time you're reading this. Here is exactly where to look:

• 📅 USDA NASS Quick Stats (quickstats.nass.usda.gov) — search "Soybeans, Yield," filter by state and year, for the most current county- and state-level figures. This database updates as new surveys are released.
• 📅 USDA NASS annual Crop Production report — released each January with final prior-year figures nationally and by state; the 2025 crop figures cited here came from the January 2026 release.
• 📅 American Soybean Association Soy Stats (soygrowers.com) — an annual publication, typically released mid-year, with state-by-state production summaries; cross-reference it against USDA NASS since NASS remains the primary source of record.
• 📅 farmdoc daily (University of Illinois) — publishes analysis of NASS county-level soybean yield data and trend lines, useful if you want the numbers already interpreted rather than raw.

If you're checking a specific state's most recent county estimate, the pattern used by USDA NASS for state publications (illustrated by the Illinois and Minnesota releases cited above) is consistent year to year, so last year's URL structure is a reliable guide to finding this year's release on the agency's site.

Closing the Gap: Field-Level Monitoring

The durable lesson across every year of USDA data is that state and national averages are a starting reference point, not a prediction for any individual field. The gap between Illinois's 64 bu/ac and the national 50.7 bu/ac in 2024 is real and persistent, but within Illinois itself, county-level figures in the USDA NASS Illinois County Estimates vary well beyond the state average in both directions. The same holds in every state: soil, drainage, and in-season management shift an individual field's outcome away from its state's headline number.

Satellite-based NDVI monitoring narrows that gap earlier in the season than waiting for USDA's post-harvest figures, since canopy vigor differences show up weeks before yield differences would otherwise become visible. Combined with supply chain traceability tools, farms can document not just what they harvested but the management decisions that produced it — useful for both crop insurance and buyer requirements.

This also relates to the wheat side of Farmonaut's yield coverage: for regional wheat figures by state, see our separate average wheat yield per acre analysis, which follows the same USDA-sourced approach applied here to soybeans.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Where to Go From Here

The durable way to use this data isn't to memorize one year's numbers — it's to know where they come from and how often they're refiled. USDA NASS Quick Stats and the annual January Crop Production report are the two sources that will still be accurate long after the figures printed here have been superseded by a new harvest. Bookmark those, not this page's specific numbers.

For your own operation, the state and county averages above are a starting point for comparison, not a target. Field-level monitoring — through USDA county data, your own harvest records, or satellite-based tools like Farmonaut — will always tell you more about your specific acres than any state or national figure can.

Summary: The US average soybean yield was 53.0 bu/ac in 2025 and 50.7 in 2024, with Nebraska (65.5), Iowa (63.5) and Illinois (62.5) leading in 2025, per USDA NASS. Check USDA NASS Quick Stats for the current figure, and use county-level data or field monitoring to benchmark your own acres.