Iraq's non-oil revenue jumps 23.5% to 8.7 trillion dinars

Summary

• Iraq collected about 8.7 trillion dinars in non-oil revenue through July 2026, up 1.7 trillion year-on-year.
• Non-oil income made up roughly 22% of total federal revenue in the same period.
• Faster non-oil growth signals early movement away from budget dependence on volatile crude earnings.

The latest

Iraq's non-oil revenue reached roughly 8.7 trillion dinars through July 2026, up from about 7 trillion in the same stretch of 2025, the General Authority for Monitoring the Allocation of Federal Revenues announced on Sunday, 11 October 2026. The 1.7 trillion dinar increase amounts to 23.5% growth. The authority said the sum covered about 22% of total federal revenue for the period.

Details

• The figures: Non-oil collections stood at approximately 8.7 trillion dinars to the end of July 2026, against roughly 7 trillion over the equivalent months of 2025, according to the authority. The year-on-year gain of 1.7 trillion dinars translates into a 23.5% growth rate, the fastest comparison the body cited.
• Share of the budget: Those receipts represented close to 22% of all federal revenue for the period under review, the authority said. The remaining share is still carried by oil proceeds, the component Iraqi budgets have historically leaned on and the one most exposed to price swings in global crude markets.
• Preliminary status: Authority head Suzan Abdullah Mohammed told the Iraqi News Agency (INA) the numbers are preliminary, drawn from the 2026 bulletin of the Accounting Department at the Finance Ministry. She said the authority must reconcile them with Finance Ministry data before they can be formally adopted, without giving a date for completing that reconciliation.
• Automation decision: Among the measures the authority said it is tracking is Council of Ministers decision 1083 of 2025, which adopts automation and a shift to electronic collection. The move targets manual cash handling across revenue-generating bodies, a long-standing weak point in Iraqi public finance.
• State company dues: The authority also cited cabinet decisions issued on 10 March 2026 requiring follow-up on payments owed by public companies and self-financed departments to the public treasury. Those entities operate on their own budgets while owing the treasury a defined share of their proceeds.
• Customs track: Work on customs collection forms a third strand, with the authority pointing to the rollout of the ASYCUDA system. The automated customs platform is designed to standardize declarations and valuation at border crossings, where leakage has repeatedly been flagged as a drain on federal income.
• The 2027 draft: The authority noted that the draft 2027 budget is moving toward greater reliance on non-oil revenue and includes the creation of two funds, one for development and one for energy. It did not disclose the funds' capitalization, governance, or the timetable for setting them up.
• What is unstated: The authority did not break down which revenue streams — customs, taxes, fees, or state company transfers — drove the 1.7 trillion dinar increase.

Background

Iraq's federal budget has long been dominated by crude export earnings, leaving public spending exposed to oil price cycles. Successive governments have pledged to broaden the revenue base through customs reform, tax collection and transfers from state-owned enterprises, with uneven results.

Between the lines

The three measures the authority cited — electronic collection, treasury transfers from public companies, and automated customs — all target collection machinery rather than new taxes, suggesting the 23.5% rise reflects capturing revenue that previously escaped the treasury. The 22% share also shows how far a budget that remains majority oil-funded still has to travel before the shift signalled in the 2027 draft becomes structural.

What's next

Watch for the authority's reconciliation with Finance Ministry data, which would convert the preliminary 8.7 trillion dinar figure into an official one, and for the 2027 draft budget's treatment of the proposed development and energy funds.

Source: Iraqi News Agency (INA)