US dollar hits historic 2M rials as Iranian currency suffers dramatic collapse

The US dollar has crossed the psychologically devastating threshold of 2 million Iranian rials on the unregulated market. To put it in perspective: at the start of 2026, one dollar fetched about 1.5 million rials. Eight months later, the same greenback buys a third more of Iran’s national currency. The rial has shed approximately 43-50% of its value against the dollar since January, a pace of depreciation that makes even seasoned emerging-market watchers wince. A currency in freefall The exchange rate on Iran’s street market has climbed from around 1.5 million rials per dollar in January to roughly 1.94 million in July before breaching the 2 million mark. Iranians commonly quote prices in tomans, which strip a zero off the rial, so the milestone translates to about 200,000 tomans per dollar. Meanwhile, the official exchange rate sits somewhere between 570,000 and 1.57 million rials, depending on the tier. That gap between what the government says a dollar is worth and what people actually pay for one has ballooned to around 23%. Inflation in July 2026 clocked in at 87.9%. Groceries, rent, imported medicine: everything priced in rials is becoming dramatically more expensive, while w...