How Iran Turns Public Wealth into an Instrument of repression
The 2025 national budget of Iran represents more than a fiscal document; it reflects a structural reorientation of state priorities following the nationwide January 2025 uprising. That uprising emerged amid chronic inflation, currency devaluation, rising exchange rates, and widespread economic hardship affecting broad segments of society.
In this context, the budget is not merely an economic plan. It serves as a policy instrument that reveals how the Iran regime reallocates public resources in response to social unrest.
According to the official Budget Law, the total national budget for 2025 amounts to:
118,966,000,000,000,000 rials (approximately 119 quadrillion rials)
Of this total:
64,076,000,000,000,000 rials (approximately 64 quadrillion rials) are allocated to the general government budget
and
54,890,000,000,000,000 rials are allocated to state-owned companies.
Nearly half of national financial resources circulate through state-owned enterprises, a sector characterized by lower transparency and greater flexibility in fund allocation.
A review of budget lines demonstrates that in the year following mass protests, defense, intelligence, law enforcement, and digital infrastructure sectors not only maintained their allocations but experienced significant growth.
Section One: The Hard Security Pillar – Expansion of Intelligence and Operational Capacity
Ministry of Intelligence
The Ministry of Intelligence budget increased from:
320,781,795 million rials in 2024
to
408,737,547 million rials in 2025
This represents approximately a 27 percent increase.
At a time of fiscal constraints and high inflation, such growth signals prioritization rather than austerity within the intelligence apparatus.
Cybersecurity Expansion
The Center for the Security of Information Exchange under the Ministry of Intelligence increased from:
3,000,000 million rials in 2024
to
13,444,010 million rials in 2025
— more than a fourfold increase.
This surge indicates a shift toward data-driven monitoring, digital surveillance, and expanded technological capacity for identifying and tracking dissent.
In practical terms, the architecture of repression is no longer confined to physical spaces. It increasingly operates through digital surveillance infrastructure.
IRGC Mission Allocations
Portions of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) budget appear under so-called “Martyr Plans,” a naming convention commonly used in Iran’s budget documents to designate operational or strategic projects within the IRGC structure. These titles do not publicly describe the nature of the missions but refer to execution allocations tied to IRGC activities.
For example:
Martyr Rashadi Plan (IRGC mission execution allocation)
2024: 23,509,000 million rials
2025: 30,561,700 million rials
Martyr Hassan Bagheri Plan (IRGC mission execution allocation; named after a senior IRGC commander killed during the Iran-Iraq war)
2024: 22,242,000 million rials
2025: 31,479,700 million rials
These allocations increased between 30 and 41 percent in one fiscal year.
Comparative Growth (2024–2025)
| Line Item | 2024 | 2025 | Growth |
| Ministry of Intelligence | 320,781,795 | 408,737,547 | 27% |
| Information Exchange Security Center | 3,000,000 | 13,444,010 | 4× |
| Martyr Rashadi Plan | 23,509,000 | 30,561,700 | 30% |
| Martyr Hassan Bagheri Plan | 22,242,000 | 31,479,700 | 41% |
During parliamentary review, Rahim Zare, spokesperson of the Budget Consolidation Commission, publicly confirmed on 25 February 2025 that approximately 451 trillion tomans were allocated to strengthening defense capability. Similarly, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf later confirmed that no reduction would be made to the armed forces’ budget following decisions by senior state authorities.
These statements demonstrate that security expansion was an explicit policy choice.
Section Two: The Digital Pillar – Surveillance Infrastructure and the National Information Network
In 2025, digital infrastructure investment expanded substantially.
The National Information Network line item allocates:
168,462,000 million rials
The Ministry of Communications’ total budget reaches:
237,676,720 million rials
Additional allocations include satellite and space services as well as funding for the National Cyberspace Center.
Combined with expanded intelligence cybersecurity funding, these allocations form an integrated system designed to strengthen digital monitoring and control.
The National Information Network allows authorities to restrict access to the global internet during periods of unrest while maintaining domestic services. Although officially described as “digital resilience,” its operational function enables communication control during protests.
Section Three: The Judicial Pillar – Institutionalizing Detention and Legal Control
Following the 2025 uprising, the judiciary assumed a central role in consolidating internal security.
The judiciary’s budget increased by approximately 23 percent compared to 2024.
Because the Prisons Organization and sentence enforcement mechanisms operate within the judiciary’s structure, this increase effectively expands detention and imprisonment capacity.
The cycle of:
Arrest → Case Formation → Trial → Imprisonment
requires sustained financial support.
Digitalization of judicial systems and integration with security databases accelerate and institutionalize this process. Electronic case management and inter-agency data exchange enhance the state’s ability to impose restrictions.
Within the broader framework of human rights, this raises serious concerns regarding:
- arbitrary detention
- due process guarantees
- prolonged imprisonment of political detainees
- restrictions on freedom of expression
- limitations on freedom of peaceful assembly
Thus, the judicial pillar does not merely adjudicate; it legitimizes and perpetuates repression.
Section Four: Security vs. Social Spending
From the general government budget:
Approximately 15–20 percent is allocated directly or indirectly to military and security institutions. Including oil-funded allocations and special lines, this share may exceed 25 percent.
By comparison, education, healthcare, higher education, and social welfare collectively account for roughly 30–35 percent.
However, a structural difference exists:
Social sectors largely finance current expenditures and compensation mechanisms.
Security sectors receive both operational funding and long-term infrastructure investment.
Security, therefore, is not merely funded; it is expanded.
Final Assessment: From Economic Crisis to an Economy of Repression
The January 2025 uprising was rooted in inflation, currency collapse, rising living costs, and widespread poverty. These conditions were not temporary disruptions; they reflected structural inefficiencies, oil dependency, non-productive expenditures, and prioritization of military and security sectors over social development.
Yet the 2025 budget reveals that the Iran regime’s response to this crisis was not economic restructuring in favor of public welfare, but reinforcement of security, intelligence, digital surveillance, and detention capacity.
Public oil revenues and national wealth, instead of being redirected toward poverty reduction and economic stabilization, were channeled into strengthening mechanisms of control.
In effect, economic crisis led to social protest; the fiscal response prioritized suppression of protest rather than correction of economic causes.
This structural choice transforms public finance into an instrument of political consolidation.
The 2025 budget thus reflects what can be described as an economy of repression; a system in which public resources are mobilized to manage dissent rather than resolve its underlying grievances.
