Part 2 of 9
Where to exchange money in Sulaymaniyah: the souq by the Khanqa mosque, and why no board is online
Sulaymaniyah has one of the busiest currency souqs in Iraq and not a single office that publishes its board online. Where the market is, who is listed, and how to get the day's price.
Read the one before this?
Where to exchange money in Erbil: Ronaki, Nishtiman and the offices that publish a board
Sulaymaniyah is the second city of the Kurdistan Region and, by the count of people changing money on an ordinary morning, one of the busiest currency markets in Iraq. It is also the strategic hole in every rate service, DinarView included: not one office in the city publishes its board online. The price exists, it moves, thousands of people trade at it every day, and it never reaches a web page. This guide explains where the market is, which offices are listed, and how to get the day’s number until that changes.
The souq by the Khanqa mosque
The money-exchange market in Sulaymaniyah is a physical souq, not a street of shopfronts. It sits beside the Khanqa mosque in the old commercial centre, a short walk from the Grand Bazaar, and it runs from early morning until mid-afternoon; by four o’clock most of the tables are packed away. Friday is closed. Dozens of dealers work side by side, which is why the price inside the souq is tight: a dealer who quotes worse than the table next to him loses the customer in the time it takes to say the number.
Two listed offices work from inside the souq. Lawko keeps a counter there and answers the phone during souq hours. Cash Time keeps remarkable hours for an exchange office, from five in the morning until one at night, which makes it the place to change money when the souq is shut.
Mawlawi Street and Shorsh Street
Outside the souq the offices spread along two streets. Shakhy Zerin is on Mawlawi Street, the old main street that runs past the bazaar. Bnari Bamo is on Shorsh Street, the long avenue that carries most of the city’s traffic. The Baghdad chains have their Sulaymaniyah branches on Salem Street: Al-Rayan, a seven-city company headquartered in Najaf, and Al-Quttaf, next to Erbil Bank.
Omed the goldsmith trades a few doors from the souq, which is the pattern in every Iraqi city: gold and currency share a street, because a mithqal of gold is priced in dinars that are priced in dollars.
The offices DinarView lists
| Office | Where | Phone | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lawko | Money souq, Khanqa mosque | +964 770 152 5165 | Souq hours, 08:00–16:00, Friday closed |
| Cash Time | Money souq | +964 770 620 9797 | 05:00–01:00 |
| Bnari Bamo | Shorsh Street | +964 770 860 5050 | Daily |
| Shakhy Zerin | Mawlawi Street | +964 770 940 0416 | Daily |
| Al-Rayan, Sulaymaniyah branch | Salem Street | +964 780 091 6916 | Daily, Friday closed |
| Al-Quttaf, Sulaymaniyah branch | Salem Street, next to Erbil Bank | — | Daily |
None of the six has a tick in DinarView’s directory, because a tick means the site reads that office’s published board, and there is none to read. They are listed as places to go. The Sulaymaniyah page says so plainly and shows no number, rather than dressing up the national figure as a local one.
How the price is quoted
The souq quotes the dollar1,588+0.52% the same way Erbil does: dinars per $100, buy and sell, for new-series notes in good condition. Other currencies are quoted against the dollar. The Sulaymaniyah price sits a little above Erbil’s most days; the difference is small, usually within a few hundred dinars per $100, and it narrows when the dollar is calm and widens when it moves. The gap between the souq and the Central Bank’s official 1,310 per dollar is the same 18 percent or so that separates every Iraqi market from the official window.
Iranian toman227,900−1.13% changes hands here more than in any other Kurdish city, because Sulaymaniyah is the gateway to the Iranian border crossings. Toman is quoted in dinars per 100,000 or per million, and the price is far more volatile than the dollar’s; ask for the figure twice and write it down.
Getting the day’s number
- Call before you go. Lawko and Cash Time answer the phone with the current buy and sell. Ask for the price per hundred and whether it is for new notes.
- Compare inside the souq. Ten dealers in ten metres; walk the row before you hand anything over. The difference between the best and worst quote on a table is usually larger than the difference between cities.
- Small notes cost more. Twenties and tens fetch less per dollar than hundreds, everywhere in Iraq. If you are changing a large amount, change hundreds.
- After hours. Cash Time until one in the morning; otherwise the hotel counters, at a worse rate.
Why there is no board online, and what would fix it
Erbil’s offices publish boards because a handful of companies there decided to, and once two did, the rest had to follow. Sulaymaniyah’s market is older and more fragmented: many small dealers, few companies with a website, and a souq culture in which the price is something you ask for in person. Nobody has been forced to publish yet.
DinarView’s plan for the city is simple and is already under way. The six offices above are in the directory with working phones. The next step is a daily quote from one or two of them, typed into a partner form each morning, so that Sulaymaniyah gets a real local figure with a named source under it. When two offices post, the city gets a median like Erbil’s; with one, the figure is shown and labelled indicative. If you run an office in Sulaymaniyah and want to be that source, the office form reaches us the same day.
A worked example: toman and dollars in the souq
A trader coming back from Baneh with 20 million toman and a visitor with $300 walk into the souq on the same morning. The visitor’s case is simple: at a buy price near 154,600 per $100, three notes bring 463,800 dinars, and the tables will quote within a few hundred dinars of one another. The trader’s case is where the souq earns its reputation. Toman is quoted per 100,000, and at the national figure on this site’s toman page the 20 million are worth roughly 1.4 million dinars; but the souq’s toman price moves with the border, not with Baghdad, and on a day when the crossings are busy the buy price can sit two or three percent below the feed. The trader who asks three tables before selling can be 40,000 dinars better off than the one who sells at the first. Nobody publishes that price; it is why the souq is full at nine in the morning.
The gold link
Omed the goldsmith a few doors from the souq is not a coincidence. Gold in Sulaymaniyah is bought by the mithqal, five grams, and priced in dinars that are themselves priced in dollars, so the goldsmith needs the dollar rate before he can open. On a morning when the dollar moves, the mithqal moves with it within the hour, and families who bought gold as savings watch the currency souq as closely as the jewellers do. DinarView’s gold page shows the mithqal derived from the world price and the day’s dollar; the souq’s jewellers add their own margin on top, which is the number to ask for in person.
Questions readers ask
Is the Sulaymaniyah rate higher than Erbil’s? Usually by a little, rarely by much. Treat Erbil’s published boards as the floor and expect the souq to sit within a few hundred dinars per $100 of them.
Can I change money on Friday? The souq is closed. Cash Time is open, and some Shorsh Street offices open in the afternoon; call first.
Where do I change toman? In the souq, and at the offices on Mawlawi Street. The toman price on DinarView is a national figure from feeds, not a Sulaymaniyah souq price, and is labelled as such.