Many Iranians use currency exchange networks, intermediary firms and private arrangements to pay for goods and services abroad because of US sanctions, Al Jazeera reported on 14 October.
According to the Al Jazeera report, decades of sanctions have restricted Iran's access to the global financial system, making cross-border payments hard for individuals and businesses.
Al Jazeera said sanctions had increased further during what it called "the current US-Israeli war on Iran". No response from Iranian or US officials to the article had been reported.
The outlet described three main ways of moving money. It said the first is networks of currency exchangers working across borders, who match people in Iran who need rial with people abroad who need foreign currency.
In that system, Al Jazeera said, transactions are settled without money moving directly between Iranian and foreign bank accounts.
The second route is intermediary firms that work like exchange traders. According to Al Jazeera, the customer pays the firm in local currency in Iran, and the firm or an overseas partner pays the foreign supplier in convertible currency from funds held abroad.
Al Jazeera said these routes often bring extra fees, exchange-rate costs, delays and greater complexity.
The third route is private arrangements with individuals, sometimes strangers, to transfer money across borders. Al Jazeera described these as practical when formal channels are unavailable, and said they rely heavily on trust.
The report's subtitle said cryptocurrency is also used, and that each method "comes with its own problems".
An importer named Ghazanfari told Al Jazeera that payment and delivery times had stretched to 102 or even 120 days. His first name and company were not given in the part of the article reviewed.
He said customers were "bound to reconsider importing" because of the delays. "Unfortunately, the main problem now is that our supply routes are gradually being cut off," he said.
His account is that of a single business owner, and the delay times are his own. Al Jazeera did not present them as a nationwide figure in the portion of the article reviewed.
The US Treasury has repeatedly targeted such channels. On 1 May 2026 it announced a action against Iranian shadow banking networks, which it said move billions in foreign currency.
The Treasury said the action was taken under Executive Order 13902, which targets people operating in Iran's financial sector.
It said the step built on earlier actions by its Office of Foreign Assets Control against exchange houses, Iranian bank "rahbar" companies and digital asset exchanges. The Treasury also said exchange houses use front companies in high-risk jurisdictions.
Al Jazeera reported on 29 April that the US had announced sanctions on a network of Iran-linked crypto wallets, freezing $344m in digital assets.
It cited the crypto monitoring firm Chainalysis as saying Iran's crypto ecosystem exceeded $7.78bn last year and grew faster than in 2024. Al Jazeera described Nobitex as Iran's largest digital asset platform.
The claim that some of the wallets are linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps comes from Chainalysis, as reported by Al Jazeera. It has not been independently confirmed.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote on X, as carried by Al Jazeera, that the US would follow the money Tehran was trying to move out of the country and target financial lifelines tied to the Iranian government. No Iranian response to the statement was included in the material reviewed.
Iran has been under US sanctions for decades. They have cut Iranian banks off from the dollar system and the international payments network.
Al Jazeera and Chainalysis say the restrictions have driven reliance on informal exchange networks, intermediary firms and cryptocurrency, and that crypto use is substantial.
Al Jazeera also reported in April that the US had pursued economic pressure alongside negotiations to end the war. The timeline of the conflict has not been independently verified for this report.
According to Al Jazeera and the importer, sanctions raise costs and delay trade. Pressure on informal channels could add to the difficulties facing importers.
The Treasury has issued several further releases on exchange networks since May. No official statement on a specific next step had been found.
