Iran's rial traded near 1,933,000 to the dollar on Thursday 30 July, down roughly 33% from about 1,470,000 at the start of 20261. The International Monetary Fund projects a 5.4% contraction in Iranian gross domestic product for 2026 and average inflation of 68.9%2.
From about Wednesday 29 July the government also re-tiered its petrol subsidy, resetting the monthly private-vehicle allowance to 60 litres charged to smart fuel cards, the government-issued cards that meter each vehicle's subsidised quota3. That extends the cut to the second-tier ration announced the previous week, and it moves the same lever: the quantity a household may buy cheaply, rather than the advertised price at the pump.
The preference has a history behind it. An overnight increase in the pump price in November 2019 put people on the street within days, and the state shut down the national internet to manage what followed. A ration adjustment produces no headline figure, no single percentage, nothing a crowd can chant. It arrives instead as a card that empties sooner each month, which spreads the same pain across a hundred private discoveries rather than one public shock.
The oil ministry has disclosed $18 billion in wartime sales through 10 July. Measured against a third off the currency and a projected two-thirds inflation rate, that revenue buys progressively less of the imports, subsidies and salaries it is meant to cover, and the fuel card is where an Iranian household meets the difference.
