Normal iron levels depend on which blood test you’re looking at, but the most useful single marker is ferritin, which reflects how much iron your body has in storage. For adult men, a typical ferritin range is 24 to 336 micrograms per liter (mcg/L). For adult women, it’s 11 to 307 mcg/L. Those ranges are wide, though, and where you fall within them matters more than simply being “in range.”
What Each Iron Test Measures
When your doctor orders an “iron panel,” you’ll typically see several numbers on the results. Each one tells a different part of the story.
Ferritin measures your stored iron. Think of it as the savings account. This is the most sensitive early indicator of iron deficiency, often dropping before any other number looks abnormal. It’s also the test most people see on routine bloodwork.
Serum iron measures the iron circulating in your blood at that moment. It fluctuates throughout the day and after meals, so it’s less reliable on its own.
TIBC (total iron-binding capacity) tells you how much room your blood’s transport proteins have to carry iron. A normal TIBC falls between 240 and 450 mcg/dL. When your iron stores are low, TIBC goes up because your body is making more transport proteins to grab whatever iron it can find. When iron is too high, TIBC drops.
Transferrin saturation (TSAT) is the percentage of those transport proteins actually carrying iron. Normal is 20% to 50% for men and 15% to 45% for women. A TSAT below 20% points toward iron deficiency. Above 45% raises concern about iron overload.
Ferritin Levels That Signal a Problem
The World Health Organization defines low ferritin as below 15 mcg/L in adults and below 12 mcg/L in children. But in clinical practice, iron deficiency can be identified when ferritin dips below 30 mcg/L. That gap matters: many people with ferritin between 15 and 30 already have depleted iron stores and symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, or restless legs, yet their labs may come back marked “normal.”
If you have a chronic inflammatory condition like rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, or kidney disease, ferritin readings are less straightforward. Inflammation artificially raises ferritin, so the threshold for diagnosing iron deficiency jumps to 100 mcg/L in these situations. Someone with a ferritin of 60 and active inflammation may actually be iron deficient even though that number looks fine on paper.
Levels Linked to Hair Loss and Fatigue
Being “in range” doesn’t always mean you feel your best. Research on hair loss in women has found that optimal hair growth occurs when ferritin is around 70 mcg/L, and treatment outcomes for thinning hair improve noticeably once ferritin rises above 40 mcg/L. Many people report fatigue resolving only after their ferritin climbs well above 30, even though a lab reference range might list anything over 11 as normal for women.
This is why some clinicians now aim for a target ferritin of at least 100 mcg/L when treating iron deficiency, particularly before planned surgeries where significant blood loss is expected.
Hemoglobin Levels and Anemia
Ferritin tells you about iron stores. Hemoglobin tells you whether those stores have dropped low enough to affect your red blood cells. The WHO thresholds for anemia are:
- Adult men: below 13.0 g/dL
- Adult women (not pregnant): below 12.0 g/dL
- Pregnant women: below 11.0 g/dL in the first and third trimesters, below 10.5 g/dL in the second trimester
- Children ages 5 to 11: below 11.5 g/dL
- Children ages 1 to 4: below 11.0 g/dL
Iron deficiency progresses in stages. First your ferritin drops. Then your transferrin saturation falls. Hemoglobin is often the last to budge, which means you can be genuinely iron deficient for months before you technically qualify as anemic. This stage, called iron deficiency without anemia, still causes real symptoms and benefits from treatment.
Iron Levels During Pregnancy
Pregnancy creates enormous demand for iron as blood volume expands and the fetus develops. Ferritin naturally decreases as pregnancy progresses, but current guidelines may underestimate how much. The standard CDC cutoff for iron deficiency in pregnancy is ferritin at or below 15 mcg/L, but newer physiologically based research suggests the real thresholds are higher: roughly 25 mcg/L in the first trimester and 20 mcg/L in the second and third trimesters. Using these updated numbers, an additional 1 in 10 pregnant women would be recognized as iron deficient compared to current screening.
Iron Levels in Children
Children’s ferritin levels shift with age. Infants under one year typically have a median ferritin around 33 mcg/L, reflecting iron stores built up during pregnancy. Between ages 1 and 5, ferritin drops to a median of about 19 mcg/L, making this a particularly vulnerable window for deficiency. By school age (5 to 12), the median climbs back to around 25 mcg/L. In a large study of children and adolescents, 24% of all ferritin measurements fell below 15 mcg/L and 12% fell below 10 mcg/L, suggesting iron deficiency in children is common and underrecognized.
When Iron Is Too High
Iron overload is less common than deficiency but carries serious risks. A transferrin saturation above 45% is the earliest flag. For hereditary hemochromatosis, the most common genetic iron overload condition, ferritin levels above 1,000 mcg/L signal real danger. Three independent studies have shown that liver cirrhosis from hemochromatosis occurs almost exclusively in patients whose ferritin exceeds 1,000 mcg/L. A ferritin around 1,650 mcg/L has the best combined sensitivity and specificity for predicting cirrhosis in these patients.
Moderately elevated ferritin (say, 400 to 600 mcg/L) doesn’t automatically mean hemochromatosis. Ferritin rises with infection, liver disease, heavy alcohol use, obesity, and general inflammation. That’s why transferrin saturation is checked alongside ferritin when iron overload is suspected. If both are high, genetic testing for hemochromatosis is the next step.
Quick Reference for Key Thresholds
- Ferritin below 15 mcg/L: iron deficiency by WHO criteria
- Ferritin below 30 mcg/L: iron deficiency in clinical practice
- Ferritin 40 to 70 mcg/L: range associated with improved hair growth and energy
- Ferritin below 100 mcg/L with chronic inflammation: likely iron deficient
- Transferrin saturation below 20%: iron deficiency
- Transferrin saturation above 45%: possible iron overload
- Ferritin above 1,000 mcg/L: risk of organ damage from iron overload