IQD 68.3 trillion — Iraq's actual spending through July against IQD 39.1 trillion of revenue, the state account shows

Summary

• Iraq collected 39.096 trillion dinars by end-July 2026, with oil supplying 78% of the total, according to the Finance Ministry's state account.
• Actual spending reached 68.262 trillion dinars: 65.424 trillion current and 2.838 trillion investment.
• The ministry publishes no deficit figure; the 26.3 trillion dinar gap reported in the press subtracts revenue from current spending alone.

The latest

Iraq's federal budget recorded actual spending of 68.262 trillion dinars in the first seven months of 2026 against revenue of 39.096 trillion, according to the Finance Ministry's state account to end-July. Spending splits into 65.424 trillion dinars of current expenditure and 2.838 trillion of investment. The account prints no deficit line; the 26.329 trillion dinar deficit circulated by some outlets was obtained by subtracting revenue from current spending only. Oil sales accounted for 78% of all income collected through the end of July.

Details

• The headline figures: The state account shows total revenue of 39.096 trillion dinars through end-July 2026 against actual expenditure of 68.262 trillion dinars, of which 65.424 trillion was current spending and 2.838 trillion investment spending. The ministry does not publish a deficit for the period.
• The oil share: Oil revenue reached roughly 30.356 trillion dinars, or 78% of everything the state collected, according to the ministry figures. That leaves non-oil sources — taxes, customs, fees and state-company returns — supplying under a quarter of the budget's income through July.
• Where the money went: Economist Nabil al-Marsoumi said on X that around 51 trillion dinars of total spending went to salaries and social welfare payments. On the ministry's own expenditure figure, that single category absorbs the large majority of what the federal government disbursed in the period.
• The economist's reading: Al-Marsoumi argued that the data point to a deepening dependence on oil in the Iraqi budget alongside a swelling operational chapter — the recurring spending line covering wages, pensions and running costs, as opposed to investment allocations.
• The structural squeeze: With oil at 78% of revenue and salaries and welfare at roughly 51 trillion dinars, the two sides of the ledger are locked together: a payroll fixed in dinars is being financed by an income stream priced in a commodity Baghdad does not control.
• Scale of the gap: Actual spending exceeded revenue by about 75%, meaning for every dinar collected Iraq spent roughly one and three-quarters through the end of July. The ministry has not stated how the gap was financed.
• The timeframe: The figures cover execution of the federal budget only to the end of July 2026 and are therefore partial-year numbers. The ministry did not publish a projection for the full-year deficit or state how the seven-month gap was financed.
• The investment question: Al-Marsoumi's reference to an inflated operational chapter points to the recurring trade-off in Iraqi budgets, where the share left for investment and capital projects narrows as wages, pensions and welfare claim more of each year's outlays.

Background

Iraq has run an oil-dominated budget for years, with crude sales historically supplying the overwhelming majority of federal revenue. Successive governments have pledged to widen non-oil income through taxes and customs, and the latest Finance Ministry figures show oil still at 78% of collections.

Between the lines

The seven-month numbers describe a budget with limited room to maneuver. Nearly all the revenue is oil, and the largest expenditure line is salaries and welfare, which governments rarely cut. That combination, as al-Marsoumi framed it, means any sustained weakness in crude prices passes almost directly into the deficit rather than being absorbed elsewhere in the ledger.

What's next

Watch the Finance Ministry's next state account for August and later months, and any announcement on how Baghdad is financing the gap between revenue and spending.

Source: Iraqi Finance Ministry, state account to end-July 2026 (https://www.mof.gov.iq/In-Year-Reports-2026); Shafaq News