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Iran’s currency crisis entered another threshold on September 6, when the free-market dollar briefly crossed 230,000 tomans before retreating to about 226,000. The regime’s Exchange Center was simultaneously quoting its managed remittance rate at 160,983 tomans, leaving a gap of more than 65,000 tomans between the administered and open markets. Even after the pullback, the dollar remained nearly 10 percent above its level at the beginning of the previous week. The regime’s own media are increasingly acknowledging what lies behind the rush out of rials: Tasnim wrote on September 5 of a “hidden fear” that cash held today will lose purchasing power tomorrow, conceding that conventional official dollar injections are failing to reach the demand driven by attempts to preserve wealth.
The consequences are now appearing in one of the most basic seasonal expenses: sending children back to school. Prices for some stationery have risen by 50 to 100 percent. A 60-page notebook that cost 180,000 tomans has reached 360,000; a 200-page notebook has doubled from 500,000 to one million tomans, while some families report that notebooks for two children now cost more than 12 million tomans, up from five million. The paradox is that there is no physical shortage. The Industry Ministry says annual demand is about 1.6 billion stationery items while warehouses hold roughly 1.7 billion.
"A regime indicted so thoroughly by its own camps is irredeemably rotten to its core and cannot be saved. The Iranian people know the mirage of internal reform is dead; true salvation for the country lies not in fixing the clerical dictatorship, but in its absolute, unequivocal,…
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) September 3, 2026
That distinction matters. The crisis is increasingly one of affordability and confidence rather than availability. Traders say rapid currency movements make normal pricing nearly impossible: one producer said suppliers were already pricing raw materials as though the dollar were at 250,000–260,000 tomans while the market rate was around 220,000. Others said they had stopped selling temporarily because replacing inventory could cost more than the proceeds from current sales. Inflationary expectations are therefore being transmitted into prices even before the latest depreciation is fully reflected in official statistics.
Street Pressure Meets Political Fear
The economic strain is also producing fresh demonstrations. On September 6, Social Security retirees and teachers protested in Tehran and several cities in Khuzestan over declining purchasing power, unpaid claims, inadequate pensions, insurance and healthcare. Teachers gathered outside the Plan and Budget Organization demanding salaries reflecting the poverty line and actual inflation. In Ahvaz, Shush and surrounding areas, retirees chanted “Our wages are in rials, our costs are in dollars,” “The table is empty,” and “Oppression and injustice drove us into the street.” Some demonstrations also included demands for the release of imprisoned workers and protesters.
"The latest phase of Iran’s crisis is therefore distinguished not only by #economic deterioration but by the erosion of political discipline at the top," writes @MansoreGolestan https://t.co/GlE7r4Uwut
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) September 4, 2026
Against that background, government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani offered an unusually revealing measure of the regime’s priorities. She said the January 2026 uprising was more traumatic for her than the two wars Iran has endured since, declaring: “The two wars we went through were not comparable with the days of January.” Couched in the language of grief and concern, her remarks nevertheless expose a deeper political fear: for senior officials, the prospect of another nationwide uprising appears more alarming than confrontation with powerful foreign adversaries. Her repeated hope that January would “never be repeated” underscores how profoundly the revolt shook the ruling establishment.
Meanwhile, Mojtaba Khamenei’s appeals for cohesion have done little to contain factional warfare. On September 5, hardline MP Alaeddin Boroujerdi answered former regime president Hassan Rouhani’s latest criticism of the ruling strategy with an extraordinary public attack headlined “Dr. Rouhani, enough serving America.” He accused Rouhani of trying to make society “bipolar” and of damaging national cohesion—the same unity that Mojtaba has ordered regime factions to preserve. The significance is not that either faction is gaining ascendancy, but that economic deterioration, fear of another uprising and disputes over the regime’s direction are making mutual attacks more explicit precisely when the leadership is demanding that they stop.