Iraqi Dinar Brief - September 4, 2026: Iraq's 2027 Budget Enters Production

Tomorrow morning Iraq starts writing its 2027 federal budget, the law that carries the dinar's exchange rate. The schedule is on the record: drafting begins Saturday, the draft reaches the Council of Ministers on September 15, the cabinet votes it this month with the deficit capped at 3%, and then parliament receives it. It is the first complete budget the state has produced since 2023, near 200 trillion dinars, and the Kurdistan Region flew a senior financial delegation to Baghdad to sit at the drafting table the day before the first line gets written.

The central bank spent the same week cleaning the system the money will land in. Al-Taif Islamic Bank was placed under an 18-month guardianship on the CBI's own wire, a brokerage was struck off the register, and every bank in Iraq was ordered to file the political class and its families, to the third degree, into a database. The community is circulating 1,320 as the number in the draft. We show you why that is the wrong question, and what the February 2023 record says about where Iraq's rate decisions actually get made.

We walk the production schedule, Erbil's seat at the table, the bank the CBI took over, the 9 cabinet chairs set for next week, the CENTCOM answer to Iran's mine claims, and the first completed $500 million sale of Venezuelan oil through the audited door.