Iron has been determined in commercial and high purity copper cables using high performance ion-pair liquid chromatography (IPC). The proposed method avoids pre separation/preconcentration of trace impurities from bulk copper saving considerable sample preparation time. Tetrabutyl ammonium ion (TBA)+was mainly used as an ion pairing reagent. The UV detector response for iron and copper at various wavelengths has been optimized. The accuracy of the developed method is tested by comparing its results with inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry for the assay of iron in spiked solutions, standard reference material (SRM), and in locally available copper based electrical cables. The relative standard deviation for sample 7 (n = 5) is 1.23%.