Yes, you can take iron and vitamin C together, and it is one of the few supplement pairings where taking them at the same time genuinely helps. Vitamin C improves how much iron your body absorbs, so the combination is working for you rather than against you.
Why it works
The iron in supplements and plant foods is mostly in a form the gut absorbs poorly. Vitamin C changes that iron into a form that is easier to take up, and it also keeps other things in a meal from binding to the iron and blocking it. The effect is meaningful: taking iron with a source of vitamin C, whether a supplement or simply a glass of orange juice, can noticeably increase how much actually gets absorbed. This matters most for the non-haem iron in supplements and plant-based diets, where absorption needs all the help it can get.
How to take them
Take them at the same time, on an emptyish stomach if your gut tolerates it, since food can blunt iron absorption. A common approach is iron with a small glass of orange juice, or an iron supplement that already includes vitamin C. If iron upsets your stomach, the gentler bisglycinate form is usually easier to tolerate than ferrous sulphate.
What to keep away from it
The flip side of iron absorbing better with vitamin C is that it absorbs worse alongside a few other things: calcium, coffee, tea and high-fibre foods all reduce iron uptake when taken at the same time. So the pairing to seek out is iron with vitamin C, and the one to separate is iron and calcium. And because iron should not be taken blind, it is worth knowing your ferritin first, which is one of the clearest cases for a blood test before supplementing.
To check iron, vitamin C, or both against any medication you take, the free checker will show you the result and the reasoning.