Part 7 of 9
Where to exchange money in Kirkuk: the Baghdad Road corridor, Domiz and the offices that double as salary agents
Kirkuk's 40 licensed exchange companies serve a city that pays salaries through cards and agents as much as through banks. Where the counters are, who is listed, and how the dollar is quoted.
Read the one before this?
Where to exchange money in Mosul: University Street, the North Garage and a market rebuilding itself
Kirkuk is a city of salaries. The oil company, the governorate and the security services pay tens of thousands of people every month, and a large share of that money arrives on a payment card or through an agent rather than at a bank counter. Kirkuk’s exchange offices have grown into that gap: many of them are also card cash-out points and salary agents, which is why the busiest counters are not on a single street of exchangers but strung along the roads people already use. The Central Bank’s register lists 40 licensed companies in the governorate.
The Baghdad Road corridor and Domiz
The Baghdad Road is the city’s commercial artery and the exchangers follow it. Dubai International Exchange is on the road itself. The Domiz junction, where the road meets the southern districts, is where Haj Jasim Al-Fayhan keeps an office that is at once an exchanger, a card cash-out point and a salary agent; on payday the queue is for the salary window, not the dollar. Ahmed Office answers on a mobile number and is the office DinarView could confirm by phone. Anwar Kirkuk is a licensed company with a website and no board. Al-Fanjan, the Baghdad transfer company, keeps a Kirkuk branch on its national number.
Several offices found in the Maps census, such as the counters called Banking Castle and Aziz Kirkuk, could not be confirmed by phone or website and are not listed until they can be.
The offices DinarView lists
| Office | Where | Board online | Phone | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ahmed Office | Kirkuk | No | +964 770 233 7366 | Daily |
| Haj Jasim Al-Fayhan | Domiz junction | No | — | Daily; salary agent |
| Anwar Kirkuk | Kirkuk | No | — | Daily |
| Dubai International Exchange | Baghdad Road | No | — | Daily |
| Al-Fanjan, Kirkuk branch | Kirkuk | No | +964 780 900 0072 | Daily |
The five, with maps, are on the Kirkuk page. None publishes a board DinarView can read, so the page shows no number and says why.
How Kirkuk quotes
Dinars per $100, buy and sell, for new-series notes. Kirkuk sits an hour from Erbil and its cash comes up the same road as Mosul‘s, so the counter price tracks Erbil’s boards closely, usually within a few hundred dinars per $100. The spread is 250 to 500 dinars, wider than Ronaki’s and about the same as Baghdad’s; on payday it narrows, because the offices want the dollars that the salaried are buying.
Kirkuk’s second currency is the Turkish lira48.78+0.22%, for the same reasons as Mosul, and Iranian toman227,900−1.13% appears on the boards nearer the eastern districts. Both are quoted against the dollar first.
Payday and the card counters
A visitor sees Kirkuk’s exchangers at their quietest. The first days of each month are different: the salary agents open early, the card cash-out queues reach the pavement, and the dollar counter is a side business until the afternoon. If you need to change a large amount, avoid the first week of the month or go in the morning. If you are a Kirkuk resident paid to a card, the same offices will cash it out and sell you dollars in one visit, and the agent commission is posted at the counter.
Before you go
- Check Erbil’s boards first. Kirkuk’s counters price off them. Khaki and Gailany on DinarView’s rate board are the reference.
- Confirm the office is licensed. The 40 companies on the register are the ones that should be handling your money; an agent counter without a licence number is a card kiosk, not an exchanger.
- Official-rate dollars. No listed Kirkuk office sells at the Central Bank’s window. The nearest are Al-Qand’s branches in Mosul and Baghdad.
- Friday. Most counters close or open for an afternoon only; call first.
A worked example: a salary card, a cash-out and dollars
A Kirkuk teacher paid 1.2 million dinars to a card wants to keep $500 of it in dollars. At an agent counter the cash-out commission is posted, typically a small fixed sum or a fraction of a percent, so the 1.2 million comes out as about 1,190,000 in notes. The dollar leg is priced like anywhere else: at a sell price near 154,650 per $100 on the day this guide was written, $500 costs 773,250 dinars, leaving the teacher about 417,000 dinars and five hundred-dollar notes. Two things are worth checking. The first is that the commission and the dollar price are separate numbers; an agent who quotes one figure for both is hiding one of them. The second is the date: in the first week of the month the queue is long and the dollar counter is a side business, and a teacher who waits ten days pays the same price with no queue.
Kirkuk between three markets
Kirkuk sits at the junction of the roads to Erbil, Sulaymaniyah and Baghdad, and its money comes from all three. The Erbil road brings the boards that set the price; the Sulaymaniyah road brings toman and the souq’s habits; the Baghdad road brings the transfer companies and the official window’s dollars. On a normal morning the three prices are within a few hundred dinars per $100 of one another and Kirkuk’s counters sit in the middle. When they diverge, on a day when Baghdad’s auction moves and Erbil’s boards have not caught up, a Kirkuk office can be quoting yesterday’s Erbil price or this morning’s Baghdad one, and the reader who checks both on DinarView’s rate board knows which is which before the office does.
Questions readers ask
Is the Kirkuk rate the same as Erbil’s? Within a few hundred dinars per $100 on the same morning, most days. Erbil’s boards are the reference and Kirkuk’s counters follow them.
Where can I change money on the Baghdad Road? Dubai International Exchange is on the road; Haj Jasim Al-Fayhan is at the Domiz junction where the road turns south.
Why does DinarView list so few Kirkuk offices? Because only these five could be confirmed by phone, website or a Maps listing with an address. The register has 40; more will be added as each is checked.
Can I cash out a salary card and buy dollars in one place? At the agent counters, yes. The cash-out commission and the dollar price are two separate numbers; ask for both.