The official rial is February's market rial
The dollar cost more than 2.5 million rials in Tehran's open market on Tuesday, a record. The central bank's rate for exchange offices is 1.71 million. That official price is now weaker than the street price was the week before the war began, and the street has moved another 49 per cent beyond it.
Ashkan Forouzani via UnsplashTraders in Tehran were exchanging "more than 2.5 million rials to the U.S. dollar" on Tuesday, the Associated Press reports, a record low and the second in a month; the previous one, 2.2 million, was set on 2 September. Bonbast, which publishes a running quote from Tehran's open market in toman, ten rials apiece, had the dollar at 254,600 toman to sell at 12:40 UTC. That is 2,546,000 rials, up from 2,450,000 on Monday.
That is one price. The Central Bank of Iran publishes another. Its SANA rate, the rate it sets for licensed exchange offices, was 1,706,268 rials to the dollar on Saturday, according to Trend, which reports the bank's daily table. The central bank's own site rejected this desk's requests, and the Exchange Centre, where importers buy currency at managed rates, serves its pages only to users inside Iran. The official rate is therefore reported here second-hand.
Put the two together and the gap is the story. At Tuesday's open-market price the dollar costs 49 per cent more on the street than at the window. The official rial is worth about two-thirds of what the central bank says it is worth.
The more telling comparison is with the past. On 25 February, three days before the war began, Bonbast's archive has the dollar at 165,950 toman, or 1,659,500 rials. The central bank's official rate today, 1,706,268, is nearly 3 per cent weaker than that. Seven months of war and blockade have moved the official rate to roughly where the open market stood before any of it started. The open market has moved another 49 per cent on top.
From 25 February to Tuesday the dollar's open-market price rose 53 per cent. Put the other way, the rial lost 35 per cent of its dollar value. Since 1 September, when Bonbast's archive has 215,900 toman, the dollar has risen 18 per cent. Abdolnaser Hemmati, the central bank governor, said in remarks reported on Saturday that point-to-point inflation had eased to 83.8 per cent in September from 84.4 per cent in August, according to Iran International, which cited the Tasnim news agency. "Although the decrease is small," he said, "the fact that the trend of point-to-point inflation is declining is very important."
A two-tier rate is not a curiosity. It is a subsidy with a queue attached. Whoever is allowed to buy dollars at 1.71 million and sell goods priced off 2.55 million collects the difference, and the allocation of that right is a political decision rather than a market one. For households, the open-market rate is the one that sets the price of anything imported, whatever the official table says.
The route out of the rial that does not pass through either window is crypto, and the United States has spent the year trying to close it. On 2 June Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Nobitex, Iran's largest exchange, and three others. Treasury said Nobitex processed "more than 50 percent of all Iranian digital asset inflows in 2025" and "helped the Central Bank of Iran access hundreds of millions of dollars in stablecoins used to prop up the plummeting value of the Iranian rial". What the enforcement side recovers from such flows tends to be small against what moves. Nobitex's public market data did not resolve from this desk on Tuesday, so the rial price of tether, the closest thing to a third exchange rate, is not given here.
The diplomatic backdrop is the only thing that has moved the other way. The AP reports that Abbas Araghchi, Iran's foreign minister, says indirect talks with the United States on reopening the strait, conducted through Qatar, have become "more serious". President Trump rejected Tehran's latest proposal on Saturday. The open market, which has no mediator, priced the rejection faster than the talks.
Two numbers will say whether the gap closes. One is the official rate: a central bank that lets it drift towards the street is admitting what the street already knows, and one that holds it at 1.71 million is choosing to keep paying the subsidy. The other is the street rate on the day the strait reopens, if it does. Until one of them moves, Iran has an official currency priced in February and a real one priced in September.