Iraq policy interest rate
The Central Bank of Iraq's policy interest rate — the annual rate applied between the CBI and banks registered with it, and the anchor of the CBI's standing-facility corridor. Set by the CBI Board under the CBI Law No. 56 of 2004. Under the framework published on the CBI's monetary policy page, primary credit to banks is priced at the policy rate + 2%, secondary credit at policy rate + 3%, and the lender-of-last-resort facility at policy rate + 3.5%. The CBI does not hold a fixed, pre-announced meeting calendar and does not publish dated numbered rate decisions in the way Gulf central banks do; changes are announced by the Board when made.
| Current value | 5.5 percent |
|---|---|
| In force from | 2024-10-24 |
| Official source | Central Bank of Iraq — Monetary Policy page (السياسة النقدية): 'سعر الفائدة المحدد من قبل البنك المركزي العراقي الذي يبلغ حاليًا 5.5%' ('the interest rate set by the Central Bank of Iraq, currently 5.5%'); level established by the CBI Board decision of 24 October 2024 cutting the policy rate from 7.5% to 5.5% |
| Last verified | 2026-07-24 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
VERIFIED FROM THE CBI'S OWN SITE: cbi.iq/page/26 states the policy rate is currently 5.5% and sets out the corridor built on it (primary credit = policy + 2%, secondary credit = policy + 3%, last-resort lending = policy + 3.5%). The 5.5% level dates from the CBI Board decision of Thursday 24 October 2024, which cut the rate from 7.5% to 5.5% and simultaneously restarted issuance of CBI securities (Islamic certificates of deposit and transfers) for the first time since June 2023; the deputy governor framed it as supporting credit expansion as inflation fell from ~8% to under 3% (Iraqi Economy News Agency, 25 Oct 2024, https://economy-news.net/content.php?id=49146). No change has been announced since; the rate was still 5.5% at confirmation (24 Jul 2026). CAUTION ON THE CBI PAGE'S OWN WORDING: the same page also says 'the bank adopted the new monetary policy rate since mid-2023 to be (5.5%)' — read against the 24 Oct 2024 cut, the mid-2023 reference is to the ADOPTION OF THE POLICY-RATE FRAMEWORK (June 2023), not to a 5.5% level in 2023; the level in mid-2023 was 7.5%. The CBI has not corrected the sentence. THE EXCHANGE RATE, NOT THE POLICY RATE, IS IRAQ'S OPERATIONAL ANCHOR: the IQD is pegged to the USD. The Council of Ministers revalued on 7 February 2023 from 1,460 to a 1,300 IQD/USD CBI window rate, with banks selling to the public at 1,320 IQD/USD; the CBI's own homepage converter published 1,310.000 IQD/USD at confirmation (the rate at which the CBI sells dollars to licensed banks), and the 2026 federal budget was built on 1,300 IQD/USD (Shafaq News, 8 Jan 2026). A PARALLEL (STREET) MARKET RATE PERSISTS AND IS MATERIALLY WEAKER: Baghdad's Kifah and Harithiya exchanges quoted about 151,250-154,000 IQD per USD 100 through July 2026, i.e. roughly 1,513-1,540 IQD/USD, a premium of ~15% over the official rate. Because the CBI defends a peg, the policy rate is not a market-clearing signal in the way a floating-rate central bank's is — treat 5.5% as the administered bank-facility rate, not as a proxy for Iraqi market interest rates. ACCESS NOTE: CBI publishes its interest-rate tables only as downloadable Excel/PDF at https://cbi.iq/page/143 (nothing numeric in the page HTML), and its Monetary Policy Reports are image-based PDFs from which text could not be extracted; the numeric level had to be taken from the Arabic monetary policy page body.
Earlier values
| From | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2023-06-01 | 7.5 | Central Bank of Iraq — policy rate of 7.5%, in force from Ju |
Get it programmatically
curl https://asiaref.dev/v1/iq/policy-rate
# $0.001 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://asiaref.dev/v1/iq/policy-rate/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://asiaref.dev/provenance/iq/policy-rateOther Iraq series: VAT rate · minimum wage · public holidays · inflation rate (CPI) · corporate tax rate · income tax rates