Part 15 of 15
The official rate and the market rate are not the same number
Why Iraq has two dollar prices at once, and which one applies to you.
Read the one before this?
How to read the rate on this page
Ask what a dollar1,588+0.52% costs in Iraq and there are two honest answers. Both are real, both are published here, and confusing them is the single most common mistake made with Iraqi currency figures.
One is set, the other is discovered
The central bank rate is a policy decision. The dinar operates under a currency peg, so the authorities hold it at a fixed value against the dollar and change it only when they decide to. The market rate is not decided by anyone: it is what buyers and sellers in the parallel market settle on, and it moves through the day.
Why they drift apart
Mostly liquidity. When dollars move easily through the official channel, the two prices sit close together. When they do not, demand spills into the open market and the price there rises. This is why the gap is worth watching in its own right: it is a fair proxy for how easily money is actually moving.
Which one applies to you
If you are paying a customs duty or a bank charge quoted at the official rate, the official rate is your number. If you are handing cash to a sarraf, the market rate is. Most household questions — savings, travel, a transfer from abroad — land on the market side.
What we will not do with them
We never average the two, never present one as the other, and never fill a gap in one series using the other. They answer different questions, and a blended figure would answer neither.