Iran Khodro (IKCO) opened the 15th round of its priority based vehicle purchase registration at noon on Wednesday, September 9, 2026 (18 Shahrivar 1405). According to the company's own announcement, 25,200 vehicles have been set aside for this round. On the same day, the 1405 model year Dena Plus turbocharged automatic traded at 3.25 billion tomans on the open market according to Sahmino's recorded prices, while the factory price for the same car in this round's list is 2,611,774,900 tomans. The distance between those two numbers comes to at least 638,225,100 tomans, roughly 24.4 percent above the factory rate.
Background
This is the 15th round of a mechanism in which an applicant is placed on a priority list rather than entered into a lottery (قرعهکشی, the draw system Iranian carmakers used for years). What is new in this round is the entry condition: according to Iran Khodro, applicants do not need to have a bank account blocked or to pay anything at the time of registration, and ordinary applicants, those covered by the family and population support scheme, and applicants replacing worn out vehicles may all register under a 30 day immediate delivery sale.
The past three weeks have been busy for Iran's car market. On 1 Shahrivar 1405 (August 23, 2026) Saipa opened lottery free registration for the Quick, Aria and Pars Nova. Before that, on 28 Mordad 1405 (August 19, 2026), the General Board of the Court of Administrative Justice annulled Competition Council resolution 473 on buyer down payments, a decision Sahmino covered at the time. The common thread is that the cost of joining the purchase queue has fallen without the number of cars on offer rising to match demand.
The numbers
The cars in this round, as announced by Iran Khodro, are the Tara manual V1P, the Soren Plus XU7P, the Peugeot 207 manual with a metal roof, the Dena Plus turbocharged automatic, the Dena Plus manual and the Rana Plus. Open market prices for these cars (1405 model year), from Sahmino's recorded data on Wednesday, September 9, 2026, are:
- Dena Plus turbocharged automatic, optional package: 3,250,000,000 tomans
- Dena Plus 6 speed manual: 2,470,000,000 tomans
- Tara manual V1 Plus: 2,340,000,000 tomans
- Peugeot 207 manual TU5P: 2,200,000,000 tomans
- Rana Plus TU5P: 1,940,000,000 tomans
- Soren Plus XU7P: 1,840,000,000 tomans
The central figure in this report is a simple subtraction with two dated ends. The first end is the factory price of the Dena Plus turbocharged automatic in this round's own list: 2,611,774,900 tomans, as reported by Iran Jib on 18 Shahrivar 1405 (September 9, 2026). The second end is the open market price of the same car in Sahmino's data on the same day: 3,250,000,000 tomans. The difference is 638,225,100 tomans.
That figure is the floor of the calculation rather than its ceiling, because the market rate is not identical across sources. Iran Jib puts the market price of the same car at 3,355,000,000 tomans and the gap at 743,225,100 tomans, equal to 28.5 percent of the factory rate, while Boursenews on the same day reported the widest gap at about 782 million tomans for the Dena Plus automatic and the narrowest at about 298 million tomans for the Rana Plus. We have taken the most conservative number, the one derived from our own recorded price. In Iran Jib's eight car survey, all eight traded above the factory rate on the open market, with the gap ranging from about 8.7 percent to 28.5 percent; the narrowest belonged to the Soren Plus XUVP at about 149.4 million tomans, or 8.66 percent of its factory price.
Registration runs from noon on Wednesday 18 Shahrivar to midnight on Friday 20 Shahrivar 1405 (September 9 to September 11, 2026) through Iran Khodro's online sales system. According to the company, the date of the priority ranking ceremony, held in the presence of supervisory bodies, will be announced after the deadline closes, and final results will reach applicants through the sales system.
Drivers
The mechanism behind this gap is not complicated, and it comes down to a definition: a car in Iran carries two prices because two different mechanisms set them. The factory price is a number fixed under administrative pricing and published in the sale circular, and it is the same for every applicant. The open market price emerges from daily supply and demand and has no ceiling except what a buyer can pay. The distance between the two is, by definition, the part of a car's price that is not the factory's share.
Two things keep that distance alive in this round. The first is the ratio of capacity to demand: 25,200 vehicles against a number of applicants that will not be known until the deadline closes. The second is the removal of the blocked account requirement; when joining the list costs neither cash nor a frozen account, the cost of registering falls close to zero, which raises the number of applicants and lowers each applicant's odds. Both of these describe the announced mechanism rather than predicting where prices go.
One distinction is worth keeping clear: the gap between the factory and market price is nobody's guaranteed profit. Priority ranking means some applicants receive a car and some do not, and a delivered car normally carries transfer restrictions. What this report measures is the difference between two prices announced on one day, not the return on a transaction.
Outlook
At the policy level, the argument is about whether this gap survives. In interviews published by Iran Khodro's own information service, the deputy chair of the parliamentary internal affairs committee called revising and updating car prices "unavoidable", and Hassan Nataj, the member for Babol, described "making car prices real" as a win win for consumers and producers. These are stated positions rather than issued decisions; until the factory price in the sale circular changes, the distance this report measured stays where its two ends put it.
Conclusion
Iran Khodro's 15th priority sale round opened with 25,200 vehicles and no blocked account requirement, and on the same day the factory to market gap on the most expensive car in the list stood at at least 638,225,100 tomans. What matters about that number is that it measures an administrative gap rather than forecasting anything: as long as the factory price for this round holds, the Dena Plus turbocharged automatic stays more than 600 million tomans above its factory rate, through to the end of the registration window; a higher factory price announced for this same round would void that reading. The one thing to remember is that roughly 24 percent of what this car costs on the open market is not the factory's share.
What to watch
- The close of registration at midnight on Friday 20 Shahrivar 1405 (September 11, 2026), and the number of applicants against the 25,200 vehicle capacity.
- Any new circular changing the factory price of these six cars.
- Open market prices for the same six cars in the days after the deadline, on Sahmino's price pages.
- The date of the priority ranking ceremony and Iran Khodro's announcement of results.
