Iraq Orders New Banknotes

Tuesday, August 25. Baghdad spent Monday evening arguing with itself in public, and the argument told you more than any announcement could. First the government's spokesman, Haider al-Aboudi, told reporters no decision had been made to remove the zeros from the dinar. Then Rebwar Karim, who sat in Sunday's finance committee session with the CBI, confirmed the government intends to do exactly that. And then came the detail neither man led with: Iraq's central bank has finalized designs for a new series of banknotes and plans to produce 7.5 billion of them across 4 countries, at a stated cost of 250 billion dinars.

So the denial posted before the evidence. Hold all 3 statements at once and the sequence stops looking like confusion. A government that intends nothing does not have finished note designs. A central bank studying an idea does not price a production run. What you watched on Monday was a state answering questions in the order a note exchange requires. Deny the decision. Concede the intent. Surface the paper. And the last part came through lawmakers, while the bank itself said nothing.

And it all landed inside one enormous news day. Washington published the designation sheet we promised you yesterday. Iran's currency printed a record low. Syria came off the terrorism list after 47 years. And the 2027 budget, the paper that must name the dinar's value, got a date for parliament. None of it waited. That is what this week looks like from the inside.

The Production Order

Who prints Iraq's money turns out to be the detail that carries this story. France and Germany have produced the dinar's paper for years. Under the new plan the United Kingdom and Australia join them, and the stated reason, per Iraqi press, is to speed up the process. A country in no hurry does not double its printing capacity. And 7.5 billion notes is not a top-up. It is enough paper to replace the entire series in circulation.

Lawmakers in Sunday's session gave the reason in numbers. Jamal Kocher, a Kurdish member of the finance committee, said Prime Minister al-Zaidi himself requested removing the zeros. Per Kocher, the initiative targets the 8 to 10 trillion dinars in undeclared cash sitting outside the banking system. Karim listed the goals as correcting the accounting, replacing worn paper, and reclaiming trillions in missing dinars. Put those goals together and the new banknotes stop being a reprint of the old money. They are a filter for it. A note exchange runs at 1,000 to 1, a 25,000 note becomes a 25, and every note has to come through a bank to make the crossing. Cash that comes in swaps cleanly. Cash that stays out dies with the old series.

Here is the part to hold onto, and it is why we do not read Monday's disclosure as the beginning of anything. A production order reaching a lawmaker's mouth is the last step of that order's journey, not the first. Contracts of this size are placed long before parliaments hear about them, and the public is told last by design, because announcing an exchange early is how every criminal fortune escapes it.

We taught that with the country's own 2003 exchange in the three-zeros briefing: 2,300 tons of new dinars, printed in 7 plants worldwide, moved on 27 Boeing 747s, and the country only found out the morning the counters opened. For all anyone outside the bank knows today, this paper is already printed, already moving, or already in the country. Since early August the community has carried reports of new notes in-country and bank tellers trained on which paper to accept, rumors yet to validate. And a private ground source has held for weeks that the new currency is already printed and being held pending release. We carry each of those at its proper tier. What changed on Monday is that the public record took a long step toward them.

Which is also how to read the spokesman. His office repeated its standing June denial and attached a 3-to-7-year horizon. That horizon describes the mechanical swap window that follows a decision: dual circulation, old notes walking to counters, machines recalibrated. It says nothing about the distance to the decision itself. Kuwait is the reference here, and its dates are on the record. When Iraq's occupation of Kuwait ended in 1991, the Kuwaiti state voided the stolen series, issued an entirely new one on March 24, and within a month of liberation its dinar stood restored as the most valuable currency in the world, at $3.47. Operations like this move at the speed of the state that runs them, and the announcements that precede them are built to be wrong.

The Designation Sheet

Yesterday we told you the sheet behind Economic D-Day would land, and it landed.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stood at the podium on Monday afternoon and named the operation:

"Today, at President Trump's direction, the United States Treasury has begun Operation Economic Outcast."

He reached for the same history the President did:

"In the Second World War, D-Day marked the historic beginning of a campaign with our allies to target and drive the enemy from its positions, including those in third countries."

His sheet designates nearly 60 entities, individuals, and vessels across 5 sectors: digital assets, gold, technology, aviation, and shipping. The targets sit in jurisdictions including the UAE, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, and Switzerland.

Mechanics matter more than the count here. Bessent said the secondary sanctions would not all bite at once:

"We are giving everyone the opportunity to remedy bad behavior."

That grace period is the weapon. It makes Iran's remaining partners choose compliance before enforcement ever starts, the same way the Emirates cut every lane to Tehran before last week's statement even posted. And he put the choice in one sentence:

Iran faces "complete global isolation and a subsistence economy, or a path back to normalcy with an opportunity to rejoin the global economy."

Keep our line on this, because the community will not. What landed Monday is a siege, and a siege starves the network that held the region's banking hostage. It does not set anyone's exchange rate. Baghdad's sequence of cabinet, budget, bank runs on its own calendar, and the sheet tightens the perimeter around that calendar without running it. Every designation makes the eventual number safer to declare. None of them declares it.

One more note from the same desk. American financial press reports Bessent can reach into the roughly $950 billion Treasury General Account to expand bond buybacks from September 9, and gold answered the week by clearing $4,500, the level that capped every rally this year. So the man cutting Iran out of the dollar system is simultaneously defending the long end of that system with the largest cash account on earth.

The Rial and the Dinar

That perimeter now has a price board, and it updates daily in 2 currencies. Iran's rial hit 2.02 million to the dollar on Monday, crossing 200,000 tomans on the free market for the first time. Tehran's own statistics bureau has inflation at 88.6% and food prices up 128% through mid-year, and the IMF sees the economy contracting 5.4% in 2026.

Across the border the same day, the dollar fell. Baghdad's parallel market closed at 153,850 dinars per $100, down from 154,100. One currency is being priced out of the system it defied. Its neighbor is strengthening on the street while its state orders new paper. Markets can tell which side of the perimeter they are standing on.

The Delisting

Monday also proved the gate swings both ways. Secretary of State Rubio formally removed Syria from the state sponsors of terrorism list after 47 years, calling it a path to prosperity for Syrians and the removal of the final major barriers to private investment. Bessent added that it clears the way for capital to move. Syria's own foreign minister called it the last obstacle to reconnecting his country to the global financial system. Three names remain on that list: Cuba, North Korea, and Iran.

Two of Iraq's neighbors moved through the same American gate inside one news cycle, one out of the system, one back into it. For the country in between, that is the strongest argument on record for the position it chose: 2 years spent meeting the standard before anyone imposed it, bank by bank, license by license. Doors are opening for the countries that queued, and Iraq queued early.

The Budget File

The paper that must carry the dinar's next number now has a date. Iraqi press reports the 2027 budget bill is set for submission to parliament by September 15. Mazhar Muhammad Salih, the Prime Minister's financial advisor, called it one of the most complex budgets Iraq has drafted and gave the working assumption: oil priced at $50 to $60 a barrel as a precaution, against an actual estimate near $70, with salaries and pensions the red line. Budgeting under the estimate means any surplus goes to debt instead of promises the state cannot keep.

Its first claimant has already filed. On the strength of the census count, the Kurdistan Region formally transmitted a 29 trillion dinar draft seeking 14.1% of the national budget. That is up from the 12.7% reference that stood for years. And the cost of the wait keeps being published alongside the preparation: foreign reserves closed June at $86.17 billion, down 11.6% from the end of last year. That is The Controlled Bleed continuing exactly as we mapped it, the state paying, on the record, to hold the old arrangement steady while the replacement is finished behind it. This week the replacement's paper went on order.

Parliament and the Bank

Yesterday we showed you the Governor in the committee room. Now the political leadership has lined up behind him too. Speaker Haibat al-Halbousi and his first deputy, Adnan Faihan, each received the bank's Governor, Nizar Nasser Hussein, in separate meetings, and the Speaker's office put its position in writing: parliament stands ready to pass the legislative amendments the bank needs, to accelerate digital transformation, widen financial inclusion, and cut the country's dependence on cash. A legislature does not line up behind a bank that is planning nothing.

Weapons are moving on the same calendar. Falah al-Fayyadh, chairman of the Popular Mobilization Forces, says the law governing the force goes to parliament within 2 weeks, and September 30, the date that settles both the coalition withdrawal and the factions' weapons, sits 36 days out. Weapons. Cabinet. Budget. Bank. Every file that has to clear before the announcement is in motion at once, and none of them is waiting for the others.

The Read

A question keeps arriving in this channel's inbox, and Monday finally put the answer on the record. Does the redenomination and the revaluation happen at the same time? Look at what the state is actually building and the answer writes itself. New notes are not the event. They are the equipment being prepared FOR the event.

Here is how it works in practice, and Iraq has already run it once. An exchange opens with a window and a deadline. Bring the old notes to a bank and you get the new ones. Hold out, and on the closing date your paper is worth nothing. In 2003 Iraqis got 3 months, and when the window shut, 10,000 tonnes of Saddam's notes became waste paper. Nobody had to be dragged in. The deadline did the pushing, and the new dinar rising 25% during the exchange did the pulling.

Give people a better number on the other side of the counter and the mattresses empty themselves. That is the pull that brings the 8 to 10 trillion off the streets and into the banks, where it is finally counted and on the books. Clean books are what a new value stands on. Paper ordered first. A window with a deadline. A number worth walking in for. Monday showed you the first stage, in writing.

Now look at what Monday actually published. In Washington, nearly 60 names being cut out of the old system, with a grace period designed to make the neighbors comply before the penalties start. In Baghdad, a production order for 7.5 billion notes built to enter the new one, surfaced through lawmakers while the bank stays silent. Between the two stands exactly one thing: a denial that posted 2 hours ahead of its own evidence.

You know from Kuwait what a denial like that is worth. A state that voided its stolen notes and issued a new series stood behind the most valuable currency on earth within a month of getting its country back. Nobody was warned. Warning is the one thing an operation like this cannot afford, and Iraq's own 2003 exchange ran on the same silence. The louder the denials, the closer the counters.

From here the watch stays short: the CBI's own wire, which ran Wednesday's auctions at a routine 5.25% and gave nothing away, the cabinet vote still owed, and the budget due in parliament by September 15, with September 30 now 36 days out.

You watched a state order its new money and deny it in the same evening.

Only one of those took a budget line. Governments do not spend 250 billion dinars on a decision they have not already made.

Recent analysis

• Missiles and Manifests
• Level Playing Field
• September First
• Be Prepared
• Denial or Blueprint

Sources & References

• CBI finalized new banknote designs, 7.5 billion notes planned in Germany, France, Australia and the UK at 250 billion dinars - Channel8 | Iraqi News
• Kocher: PM requested zeros removal, targeting 8-10 trillion IQD in undeclared cash - The New Region
• Karim: intent confirmed, legislative process not yet commenced - Channel8
• Al-Aboudi: no decision made on removing the zeros - Channel8
• Operation Economic Outcast, nearly 60 entities across digital assets, gold, technology, aviation, shipping - NPR | Axios | Euronews
• Bessent remedy-window and two-paths statements - NPR
• Treasury General Account buyback capacity near $950 billion - CNBC
• Gold above $4,500 - Benzinga
• Iran rial record low, 2.02 million per dollar - AP via US News
• Baghdad parallel rate 153,850 per $100 - Shafaq News
• Syria removed from state sponsors of terrorism list - State Department
• Iraq foreign reserves $86.17 billion, down 11.6% - Shafaq News | Iraq Oil Report
• 2027 budget: $50 to $60 oil assumption, September submission - Channel8
• Kurdistan Region 29 trillion dinar draft at 14.1% - The New Region
• Halbousi and Faihan double session with Governor Nizar Nasser Hussein - Channel8
• PMF law to parliament within 2 weeks - The National
• Kuwait 1991 note series and restoration - Banknote World | CGAA
• Internal callbacks - Iraq to Remove the Three Zeros from the IQD | Economic D-Day | Will the Dinar Strengthen or Collapse? | The Controlled Bleed
• Book - Head of the Snake
• The Research Desk - Ask the RI Research Assistant - it answers in seconds and will conduct deep research to find you the answer. Free accounts get 3 questions.
• The Library - Free Resource Library
• The Two Tracks - How Dinar Holders Actually Get Paid
• Common questions about the Iraqi dinar - Is the Iraqi dinar revaluation real? | When will the Iraqi dinar revalue? | What will the Iraqi dinar revalue at? | Is the Iraqi dinar a scam? | Why is the Iraqi dinar valued so low? | Where can I safely buy Iraqi dinar? | How do I exchange Iraqi dinar after a revaluation? | Will I owe tax when my dinar revalues?

For simple answers to every common question, see the full Iraqi Dinar FAQ.

For the holder-level view, see what happens to your dinar when the new notes arrive.