--- title: "Iran’s Rial Falls to Record Low of 2.5 Million per Dollar as U.S. Blockade Cuts Oil Sales" description: "Tehran says the Strait of Hormuz will stay closed until Washington accepts its seven-day plan to reopen the waterway." author: "rews desk" published: 2026-10-04T11:11:30Z modified: 2026-10-04T13:02:49Z url: https://rews.cc/a/iran-s-rial-falls-to-record-low-of-2-5-million-per-dollar-as-70f167 language: en tags: ["iran", "oil", "hormuz", "war", "economy", "mideast", "business"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # Iran’s Rial Falls to Record Low of 2.5 Million per Dollar as U.S. Blockade Cuts Oil Sales *Tehran says the Strait of Hormuz will stay closed until Washington accepts its seven-day plan to reopen the waterway.* By rews desk · October 4, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/iran-s-rial-falls-to-record-low-of-2-5-million-per-dollar-as-70f167 ## In brief - The rial fell past 2.5 million to the U.S. dollar on Tuesday, a record low; it traded at 920,000 in August 2025 - Kpler says Iran loaded no oil at export terminals in September, a first since the 1979 revolution - Inflation is near 90% and GDP is expected to contract 5.4% this year; energy is being rationed - Ghalibaf said the Strait of Hormuz stays closed until the U.S. accepts Iran’s seven-day reopening plan - Iraq shipped 2 million barrels through Hormuz on a state-arranged supertanker for the first time in decades Iran’s currency fell to a record low on Tuesday, trading at more than 2.5 million rials to the U.S. dollar as an American naval blockade left the country all but unable to sell its oil. The slide has come fast. The rial’s previous record low, 2.2 million to the dollar, was set less than a month earlier, on Sept. 2. It traded near 1.5 million at the start of this year and around 920,000 in August 2025 — a plunge of roughly 170 percent since then. Back in early 2018, the rate was 35,000. The blockade, reimposed by the United States in mid-July, has driven Iran’s oil exports to virtually zero. Iran loaded no oil at all at its export terminals last month, the first time that has happened since the 1979 Islamic revolution, according to Homayoun Falakshahi, head of crude oil analysis at Kpler. The country can’t import goods by sea either, fuel included, and land routes are clogged. Inflation is running near 90 percent, gross domestic product is expected to shrink 5.4 percent this year, unemployment has jumped and energy is being rationed. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei has voiced concern about “social cohesion.” A currency collapse late last year set off widespread protests, which the government put down in a violent crackdown early this year, and the rial’s fall since the United States and Israel went to war with Iran in February has stirred worries that unrest could return. For now Tehran still collects a trickle of revenue from oil that was already in tankers at sea when the blockade returned. Kpler estimates those supplies totaled 90 million barrels and will run out by the middle of this month. Payments for the final deliveries, most of which end up in China, could stretch to December. After that, the government loses what was once its top source of hard currency: oil sales typically cover about a third of the state budget and help finance the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The United States tightened sanctions last month, making it harder to move money through front companies and intermediaries. In an interview with Fox News last week, President Masoud Pezeshkian said funds in China were inaccessible. “We can’t even get our own money out of a country to which we’ve supplied goods, let alone using those funds to pay someone else in another corner of the world,” he said. President Trump has signaled he will let the economic pressure run and has rejected Tehran’s attempts to restart negotiations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News on Monday that Iran was heading toward an economic “cataclysm,” saying that denying it oil money prevented it from “getting access to money that they will use to try and kill Americans and others around the world.” Tehran, for its part, raised its price for an exit. The Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until the United States accepts Iran’s seven-day plan to reopen the waterway, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the parliament speaker and top negotiator, said on Sunday, according to the state-linked news agency Nournews. Washington made “some proposals through a mediator” days after replying to Iran’s diplomatic proposal, Nournews quoted him as saying. Reopening the strait has been Tehran’s main goal, the Foreign Ministry said, while the Americans keep the focus on nuclear talks. With Iran bottled up, its Persian Gulf neighbors have raised their own shipments under U.S. military protection, eroding Tehran’s hold over the strait, and they are arranging workarounds besides. Iraq’s state tanker company loaded a very large crude carrier with 2 million barrels and arranged for it to sail through the strait “for the first time in decades,” Ali Qais Abdul Jabbar, the director general of Iraqi Oil Tankers Co., said in video comments posted on the Oil Ministry’s Facebook page. Buyers previously sent their own supertankers to collect Iraqi crude at Basra; delivering beyond Hormuz could let Iraq reach refiners reluctant to enter the Gulf and fetch better prices. Iraq’s crude exports averaged about 2.6 million barrels a day through Sept. 21, the ministry said, up from about 2 million in August but still below the 3.3 million to 3.5 million a day shipped before the war. Baghdad is seeking money to buy its own tankers, Oil Minister Basim Mohammed Khudair told the state-run news agency on Saturday, and is pursuing other outlets, including the northern route through Turkey and a proposed pipeline to Syria’s Baniyas port. Mr. Abdul Jabbar did not identify the carrier, its owner or the cargo’s destination. ## Sources - [Iran's currency is being obliterated as the regime runs out of oil to sell](https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/articles/iran-currency-getting-obliterated-regime-214000456.html) — finance.yahoo.com - [Iran says Strait of Hormuz to remain closed until US meets conditions](https://aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/4/iran-says-strait-of-hormuz-to-remain-closed-until-us-meets-conditions) — aljazeera.com - [Iran's currency is collapsing as the regime runs out of oil to sell and can't access its own money abroad](https://fortune.com/2026/10/03/iran-currency-rial-dollar-record-low-blockade-oil-revenue-payments/) — fortune.com - [Iraq Arranges Tanker to Move 2m Barrels Past Strait of Hormuz](https://finance.yahoo.com/energy/articles/iraq-shifts-oil-strategy-arranging-100923807.html) — finance.yahoo.com