With momentum building for the second round of peace talks between the United States and Iran, one of Tehran’s key demands is back in focus — the release of its frozen assets held in other countries. These sanctions have been ailing Iran’s economy since 1979, first imposed after the Islamic Revolution when US hostages were held at the American embassy in Tehran and later amplified over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Washington’s restrictive measures have severely limited Tehran’s ability to access its assets, like revenues from sales of oil and associated products, which are frozen in foreign banks.
A Look At Iran’s Frozen Assets
While the exact amount of Iran’s assets frozen overseas is unclear, some Iranian reports place the total amount at over $100 billion – almost a quarter of the country’s GDP. However, experts on Middle Eastern affairs believe the figure could be much higher.
Talking to Al Jazeera, Frederic Schneider, a nonresident senior fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, said Iran’s frozen assets are about three times what Tehran earns annually from the sale of hydrocarbons. “This is a very substantial sum, especially for a society that has been suffering under decades of US-led sanctions,” he said.
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What’s A Frozen Asset?
When a country’s authority or a global body temporarily retains the property, funds, or securities of a person, company, or another nation’s central bank, it is called “freezing assets”. Assets can be frozen by a court, by another country or international body or even by a banking institution.
Reasons like sanctions, court orders, or other regulatory measures restrict the owner’s ability to sell these assets and profit from them.
Countries claim that they freeze the assets of other nations, persons, or companies because of criminal activities, money laundering, or violations of international law. But critics have pointed out that the measure is often used selectively, especially by the West, to target its rivals.
Apart from Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, Venezuela, Libya, and Cuba are some of the other nations whose assets have been frozen by Western nations, including the US.
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Where Are Iran’s Assets Frozen?
Iran’s assets are frozen in several countries, including the US, China, Japan, Iraq and Europe. While the exact amount, where, and how much is frozen is unknown, according to an Al Jazeera report, Japan holds about $1.5 billion worth of frozen Iranian assets, China holds at least $20 billion, India holds $7 billion, and Iraq holds $6 billion.
The US and European nations, like Luxembourg, also hold approximately $2bn and about $1.6bn in directly frozen Iranian assets, respectively.
Moreover, Qatar also holds about $6 billions. But that amount was moved from South Korea to pay Iran but was subsequently blocked by the US.
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Why Iran Needs Its Frozen Assets
On April 10, even before Iran agreed to sit with the US for ceasefire talks in Pakistan, Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said in a post on X that Iranian frozen assets (revenues frozen in foreign banks) must be released before any negotiations could begin.
A day later, when the talks in Islamabad officially began, some reports suggested that Washington had agreed to unfreeze some of the Iranian assets, but the claims were soon dismissed by the US government. With the next round of talks likely to resume in the coming days, the disagreement over the issue is expected to resurface.
Iran’s economy was already in crisis due to decades of sanctions, restricting its oil trade and limiting its ability to attract investments and modernise its technology. A surge in inflation and a fall in the value of the currency, the rial, added to the country’s problem, which was compounded by infrastructural destruction suffered during the war.
Roxane Farmanfarmaian, academic director and lecturer in international politics specialising in Iran at the University of Cambridge, told Al Jazeera that unfreezing Iran’s assets would significantly help the country.
“It would mean being able to repatriate its funds earned in hard currency from oil sales, for example, back into its own economy. It would also give it control over its currency fluctuations, and hence avoid the vulnerability to currency swings that, for example, set off the December 2025 protests,” she said.
“Having access to its frozen funds will also jump-start the economic growth it needs, improving the government’s relationship with the public and begin the long process of draining out the corruption that is the inevitable accompaniment to sanctions regimes.”