Iran Khodro drew the lottery for its fourteenth sales round on Saturday 10 Mordad 1405 (1 August 2026), and the official figures carried an unusual number: 861,285 people had registered for 53,900 vehicles. In the ordinary scheme (tarh-e adi), the most crowded part of the round, 729,101 applicants competed for 16,170 units, a win rate of 2.22 percent, roughly one person in 45. In the family and population-growth scheme, 122,570 applicants registered for 26,950 units, putting the win rate at about 22 percent.
But the real story of this round sits on the other side of the equation. The prize those 861,285 people queued for is no longer the prize of recent years. According to Eghtesad Online's price table for Monday 12 Mordad 1405 (3 August 2026), the gap between the market price and the factory price of the Soren Plus XU7P was about 51 million tomans, or 3.3 percent; on the Arisan pickup the gap was about 32 million tomans, some 2 percent. On those two models, a lottery winner effectively pays close to the market price.
Background
We set out the mechanics of this market step by step in the lesson Why Cars Became Quasi-Assets in Iran: when the factory price is administered and set below the market price, every car carries a paper profit at the moment of delivery, and the lottery becomes the mechanism that distributes that profit. The wider the gap between the two prices, the stronger the incentive to register.
That same relationship explains why the queue has shortened this year. In late Khordad 1405 (mid-June 2026), after months of dispute between the carmakers and the regulator, price increases were approved and Iran Khodro raised its prices by roughly 45 percent on average; Saipa and Pars Khodro announced new prices in Tir (July). A factory price that rises while the market price stalls in a slump closes the gap from both sides.
A comparison with our own earlier reporting shows the narrowing precisely. In Which Model Offers the Biggest Gain in Iran Khodro's Latest Instant Sale? on Monday 29 Tir 1405 (20 July 2026), the buyer's margin across the four models on offer ran from 4.5 to 12.8 percent, an absolute gain of 72 to 242 million tomans. Two weeks later, across Iran Khodro's best selling models, that margin has come down to a range of 2 to 8.3 percent.
The newspaper Hamshahri, in a report on Monday 12 Mordad 1405 (3 August 2026), went further back. According to that report, the thirteenth round (early Tir 1405, late June 2026) drew more than 1,700,000 registrations, the twelfth round (Bahman 1404, January and February 2026) about 6.8 million, and the eleventh round (Dey 1404, December 2025 and January 2026) about 10 million; figures that put the fall in demand at close to 49.4 percent in a single month and more than 91 percent against last winter's peak. Saeed Motamani, former head of the Tehran car dealers union, told the newspaper Iran the same day that turnout in some sales schemes had dropped by around 50 percent.
Today's numbers
The table below, based on Eghtesad Online's price table for Monday 12 Mordad 1405 (3 August 2026), sets the market price against the factory price for several of Iran Khodro's best selling models. The final column is what a lottery winner actually gains.
| Model | Market price (tomans) | Factory price (tomans) | Gap |
|---|
| Arisan pickup | 1,604,000,000 | 1,571,900,000 | 32.1m (2.0%) |
| Soren Plus XU7P | 1,581,000,000 | 1,530,000,000 | 51m (3.3%) |
| Dena Plus MT6 | 2,085,000,000 | 2,025,000,000 | 60m (3.0%) |
| Tara automatic V4 | 2,575,000,000 | 2,470,000,000 | 105m (4.3%) |
| Dena Plus automatic | 2,740,000,000 | 2,530,000,000 | 210m (8.3%) |
| Peugeot 207 automatic panorama | 2,680,000,000 | 2,183,800,000 | 496.2m (22.7%) |
An independent reading points the same way: on the same day Motamani described the Dena as carrying a factory price of about 2,550 million tomans against a market price of about 2,800 million tomans, a gap in the same region of roughly 250 million tomans. The figures do not match exactly, because sources take different trim levels and different moments of quotation, but the direction is identical.
The important point in the table is that the rent has not disappeared; it has become compressed and uneven. On the market's base models, the ones offered in the largest volumes, the gap has fallen to 2 to 4 percent; but on the Peugeot 207 automatic panorama it is still close to 500 million tomans and 22.7 percent. Those few models explain why 861,285 people still register despite the collapse in demand: the real competition is over a small number of products, not the whole basket. Daily prices for these cars can be followed on the Peugeot 207 page.
The demand side was cold on the same day. On Monday 12 Mordad 1405 (3 August 2026) most best selling models fell: the Peugeot 207 automatic panorama by 32 million tomans, the Tara automatic V4 and the Tara manual V1 by 24 million tomans each, and the Soren Plus XU7P by 13 million tomans.
Drivers
The factory price correction, the single biggest factor. The roughly 45 percent jump in Iran Khodro's approved prices in late Khordad 1405 (mid-June 2026) raised the floor of the equation. As the factory price approaches the market price, a car reverts from an asset with a guaranteed paper profit to an ordinary consumer good, and the speculative incentive disappears.
The ceiling on purchasing power. Motamani says the cheapest cars on the market, such as the Quick, now cost about 1,200 million tomans, and that where 10 percent of showroom visitors once went on to buy, perhaps only 2 to 3 percent do today. The demand that has left the market has, more than anything, been priced out rather than talked out of it.
The cost of tied-up capital and late deliveries. Registering means paying today and receiving the car months later. When the margin falls to 3 percent, several months of tied-up capital in a high inflation economy is effectively a negative return. Motamani also points to delivery delays of five to twelve months at some companies, and to the low liquidity of a car compared with dollars or gold coins.
Lower output, tighter supply. According to filings on the Codal system, the three large carmakers produced 189,000 passenger cars in the first four months of 1405, against 251,570 in the same period a year earlier, a fall of 25 percent. Output in Tir was 17 percent below Khordad, and Iran Khodro produced 40,000 units in Tir, 11 percent fewer than in Khordad. The price correction has not, so far, brought volumes back.
Outlook
This section is analysis rather than reported figures. Statistical Centre of Iran data for Tir 1405 (June and July 2026) shows monthly inflation for "purchase of vehicles" falling from 27.9 percent in Ordibehesht to 1.6 percent in Khordad and then to minus 0.7 percent in Tir, while in the same month monthly inflation for "use of personal transport" ran at 6.1 percent. Price pressure has moved from buying a car to keeping one. Even so, year on year inflation for vehicle purchases in Tir was still 117.8 percent; the story is not that cars have become cheap, but that the pace of their becoming more expensive has slowed. As long as the factory price stays close to the market price, the logic of "register for the profit" stays weak and the logic of "register because you need a car" replaces it, unless a fresh jump in the exchange rate pulls the market price away from the approved price again.
Bottom line
In one sentence: the car lottery is still held, but it is no longer a raffle ticket. The number to remember is 2.22 percent, the win rate in the ordinary scheme, one person in 45, at a moment when the prize on base models has shrunk to just 2 to 4 percent of the price. The rent is not dead, but it has retreated into a handful of specific models, and for the rest of the basket, registering is no longer an investment; it is a purchase.
What to watch
- Bahman Motor's fixed price sale without a lottery, whose registration window opens today, Monday 12 Mordad 1405 (3 August 2026), and which is listed in the Sahmino calendar; a practical test of a model that drops the lottery altogether.
- The number of registrations in Iran Khodro's fifteenth sales round, as a thermometer for whether the decline in demand continues or halts.
- The market versus factory gap on the wide gap models such as the Peugeot 207 automatic panorama, which shows where the rent is concentrated.
- The exchange rate, the one variable that can quickly pull the market price away from the approved price again.
- Monthly production figures filed on Codal, and whether the price correction finally restores output.
