Iran’s official medicine market is being hollowed out as policy instability, currency disruptions and shortages push more patients toward illegal sellers, counterfeit drugs and informal supply networks, industry figures and officials have warned.
The agreement between Tehran and Washington holds out the prospect of sanctions relief and potentially unprecedented foreign investment, but many of its economic promises remain uncertain and some may prove difficult to deliver even if negotiations succeed.
The memorandum of understanding signed on Thursday has prompted fresh hopes of an economic revival in Iran. But even a successful US-Iran agreement may do far less for the country's oil industry than many supporters expect.
Iran's plan to connect its electricity grid to Qatar highlights a growing paradox at the heart of the country's energy strategy: even as Tehran seeks a larger regional role through cross-border energy diplomacy, it faces one of the worst domestic power shortages in decades.
The easing of tensions between Iran and the United States has raised hopes for economic relief, but after years of declining living standards, many Iranians say any breakthrough will be judged by whether it improves their daily lives.
The US Justice Department is investigating how Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei built a global investment portfolio with exposure to Wall Street banks, Bloomberg reported, citing four officials with direct knowledge of the matter.
As Tehran and Washington move toward a memorandum to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, messages from inside Iran show anger that the deal speaks of uranium, Lebanon and money, while ordinary Iranians remain absent from the text.
The US-Iran memorandum has raised expectations of oil waivers, access to frozen funds and a path toward sanctions relief, but economists warn that Tehran’s postwar economy will need far more than a diplomatic breakthrough to escape chronic inflation and structural weakness.
Economists in Tehran remain divided over the economic implications of the US–Iran Memorandum of Understanding ahead of the scheduled signing on Friday.
Deepening poverty in Iran is driving a rise in child labor, exposing children to sexual exploitation, violence and malnutrition, the head of Iran's Association of Social Workers warned on Sunday.
Citizens across Iran say soaring food prices have reduced household diets to the bare minimum needed to stave off hunger, with nutrition and variety increasingly out of reach.
Tourism businesses report empty rooms, mounting losses and growing pressure to cut jobs as rising living costs push travel out of reach for many households.
Simple pleasures, personal goals and everyday purchases have become out of reach for many Iranian teenagers, who told Iran International that economic hardship is reshaping their lives and dimming their hopes for the future.
The Trump administration's sanctions on Iran's largest cryptocurrency exchange mark an escalation in Washington's effort to disrupt the financial infrastructure Tehran uses to operate outside the formal banking system.
Tehran media are publishing increasingly stark assessments of the country's social and economic trajectory, warning that years of sanctions, economic mismanagement and external shocks are eroding both the working class and the middle class.
Iran's imports of services surged to a record $25.5 billion in 2025 while merchandise imports fell sharply, according to newly released data from the Central Bank of Iran, highlighting a significant shift in the country's trade structure.
As US economic pressure, staggering inflation and negative growth converge, economists warn that Iran faces an increasingly bleak outlook that could push millions more people below the poverty line.
Surging inflation and worsening economic hardship in Iran have sharply increased the cost of hygiene and medical supplies for around 45,000 people living with spinal cord injuries, the Iranian news website Khabar Online reported on Tuesday.
More than six weeks after Iran disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and the United States moved to enforce a naval blockade, the confrontation increasingly appears to be entering a new phase: negotiations driven by exhaustion.
Iran’s digital hardware market has yet to recover from wartime disruption, with shortages, volatile prices and rising import costs pushing laptops, mobile phones and computer parts further beyond the reach of many consumers, an economic website reported on Saturday.
The Trump administration’s most powerful pressure point against Tehran may not lie in military action but in China’s deep financial and energy ties with Iran, a former US Treasury sanctions official told the Eye for Iran podcast.
A small port on Oman’s Musandam Peninsula has become part of Iran’s workaround to the maritime blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, traders say, as goods once routed through the UAE are shifted through costlier channels.