Iraq

Iraq's financial system is supervised by the Central Bank of Iraq. The country's foreign exchange arrangements are unusual and are the determining factor for anyone here.

The dollar auction

Iraq earns its foreign currency almost entirely from state oil sales, and those dollars enter the economy through a central bank auction in which banks bid on behalf of importers and other approved uses. The dinar is held at an official rate, and the auction is the mechanism that supports it.

The system's dependence on access to US dollar clearing has made it a compliance chokepoint. From 2023, tighter controls applied to Iraqi banks' dollar transfers — requiring detailed information on end beneficiaries to satisfy US correspondent banking requirements — sharply reduced approved volumes and opened a substantial gap between the official rate and the parallel market rate. The authorities responded with measures including revaluing the official rate and restricting cash dollar transactions.

For a trader, the practical facts are: dollars are rationed through an administrative process, the rate you can actually obtain depends on the channel, and moving money abroad to fund a trading account does not fall within the approved purposes the auction serves.

What that means

Residents who trade with offshore platforms are outside every framework — Iraqi and foreign. No domestic authority can act on a withdrawal refusal, and the funding route is likely to run through informal channels that carry their own exposure.

The regulatory position

There is no domestic licensing regime for retail leveraged CFD brokers, and the CBI has warned about unlicensed financial activity. The Iraq Securities Commission oversees the domestic stock exchange, which is a separate and regulated market.

Cautions

Currency-related schemes have specifically targeted Iraq — including long-running "dinar revaluation" promotions sold to buyers abroad promising enormous gains from a currency reform that was never going to work that way. A currency's unit value is not a claim on future wealth, and redenominations do not create value.