13SEP

Dollar hits 2,735,000 rials in Tehran

2 min read

12:20UTC

The open-market dollar in Tehran touched 2,735,000 rials intraday on 27 October, the Tehran price tracker TGJU says.

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Key takeaway

Tehran's open-market dollar passed 2.7 million rials on 27 October.

Tehran's open-market dollar touched 2,735,000 rials intraday on Tuesday 27 October, says the Tehran price tracker TGJU⁠¹. That is above the 2.5 million dealers quoted on 29 September. The quote came on the day Iran's Persian Gulf Strait Authority issued its warning to Sinokor's ships.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

The rial is Iran's currency. Many Iranians buy and sell dollars on an open market, outside the official banks, because the official rate is not available to everyone. On 27 October one dollar briefly cost 2,735,000 rials on that market, according to a Tehran website that tracks prices. A month earlier it cost about 2.5 million. When the rial falls, imported goods such as medicine, phones and some foods become more expensive for ordinary Iranians.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

Iran's hard-currency income depends on oil sold through routes that the war now threatens. Each Hormuz escalation raises the risk that export revenue falls, and the open market prices that risk at once.

Iranians also hold dollars and gold as savings because inflation has eroded the rial for years. Demand for dollars rises at every shock, which pushes the open-market rate further than trade flows alone would.

What could happen next?

Consequence
Prices of imported goods in Iran are likely to rise further in November.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: In the first days of October 2012, months after the EU oil embargo took effect, the rial lost about a third of its value against the dollar in a week. Traders in Tehran's Grand Bazaar shut their shops in protest on 3 October 2012.

Counter-parallel: In April 2018 the government fixed the rate at 42,000 rials to the dollar and banned trading above it. The open market carried on regardless, and the fixed rate ended up serving mainly as a subsidy for favoured importers.

Immediately, importers who buy dollars on the open market pass the cost into prices for food, medicine and spare parts.

Structurally, a widening gap between official and open-market rates rewards anyone with access to cheap official dollars, which concentrates gains among state-linked firms and feeds the resentment seen in earlier currency crises.

Consensus view: TGJU's open-market series, the rate Iranians actually pay on the street, has moved past the 2.5 million mark of late September. The street rate, not the official one, sets what importers charge for goods priced in dollars.

Counter-view: Iran's central bank runs managed rates for priority imports, so the street rate overstates the cost of essentials bought through state channels. The gap between the two is itself the signal: the wider it grows, the more trade shifts to the open market and the less the state can shield prices.

Key tension: Whether the slide reflects war risk to oil revenue, which a ceasefire could reverse, or a loss of confidence in the rial that would outlast any deal.

Sources:TGJU

Mentions:Iranian rial →Tehran →Iran →TGJU →Persian Gulf →Persian Gulf Strait Authority →Sinokor →Strait of Hormuz →European Union →Grand Bazaar of Tehran →

First Reported In

Update #183 · Iran threatens legal action on Sinokor ships

TGJU· 29 Oct 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Rial passes 2.5 million to the dollar

The rial's 27 October intraday low passed the 2.5 million record of 29 September.

Occurred 29 Sept 2026

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This Event

Dollar hits 2,735,000 rials in Tehran

The rial has fallen further on Tehran's open market since the record quotes of late September.

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Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.