150 million tons crossed Iran's borders, but the value of each exported ton fell to $343 (Thursday, 30 July 2026)

Iran's customs administration has published its foreign trade statistics for the year 1404 (21 March 2025 to 20 March 2026), and one figure in them is unprecedented: 191,588,000 tons of goods moved across the country's borders in a single year, the heaviest volume of foreign trade in Iran's history. Non-oil exports accounted for 150,508,000 tons of that weight, worth $51,657 million, and total non-oil trade (exports plus imports) passed $109,673 million.

So far, the numbers read as good news. But there is one more figure that changes the meaning of the whole report once it is placed alongside them: the value of each exported ton, which in 1404 came to roughly $343.

Background

To know whether $343 is a large number or a small one, it has to be measured against the prior year. According to the IRNA news agency, Iran's non-oil exports in 1403 (March 2024 to March 2025) were worth about $57.8 billion, on a weight of about 152 million tons.

In other words, the weight of exports in 1404 stayed almost flat against 1403 and even edged slightly lower, while the dollar value fell by about 10 percent. Put plainly: in 1404 Iran sold roughly the same quantity of goods and was paid less for them.

The numbers

Source for the 1404 figures: foreign trade statistics of the customs administration of the Islamic Republic of Iran; the 1403 figures are as reported by IRNA. Value per ton is simply dollar value divided by weight, and it has fallen about 10 percent in one year. This indicator is the single most important number in this year's report.

The drivers

One: an export basket that is heavy and cheap

Value per ton is in effect a measure of the "quality" of an export basket. A country that sells phones, pharmaceuticals or software records a very high value per ton; a country that exports iron ore, gas condensate and cement carries a lot of weight for little money. Industrial economies can run into thousands of dollars per ton on this measure, while Iran stays in the range of a few hundred.

The composition of 1404 exports confirms it. The main items are petrochemical products, gas condensate, steel and metal products, pistachios and dates, cement and building materials, and plastic products. Almost all of these are raw or semi-processed goods. Iran is largely supplying the feedstock for other countries' value chains, and the final value added is booked somewhere else.

The pattern is not new, and it shows up in individual commodities too. Sahmino has previously shown that Iran grows 85 to 90 percent of the world's saffron yet sells each kilo for about $862. The $343 figure is the arithmetic sum of many such single stories.

Two: concentration on five destinations

The top five destinations for Iran's non-oil exports in 1404 were, in order, China, Iraq, Türkiye, the United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan. The list shows Iran's economic geography at a glance: one large Asian buyer, three immediate neighbours, and one regional trading hub.

Trade literature calls this market concentration. When the number of buyers is small, the seller's bargaining power falls, and discounting becomes part of the cost of market access. That can explain part of the drop in value per ton.

Three: the intermediary that takes the margin

The role of the UAE on that list deserves attention, because a significant share of it is not final consumption but re-export. Goods leave Iran, land in Dubai, and travel on from there to other markets. Along that route the margin accrues to the intermediary rather than the Iranian producer, and what Iranian customs records is the first-step price, not the final consumer price.

Outlook

Alongside exports, the 1404 report carries another figure that gets less attention: about 20,516,000 tons of goods transited Iranian territory. Transit is foreign-currency income earned without selling any natural resource at all, purely from geography and from roads, rail and ports. It is the one part of trade where Iran sells a service rather than a good, and its value added stays entirely inside the country.

The lever that raises value per ton is not more tonnage. It is processing capacity, branding, and a move toward finished products. Those shifts take years and do not show up in a single year's statistics.

What matters from here is the direction of this ratio rather than its level in any one year. Global petrochemical and steel prices, which carry heavy weight in the export basket, drive much of the swing in value per ton, and they can be tracked on Sahmino's commodity and energy prices page.

The verdict

The 1404 statistics can be told two ways, and both readings are true. The first: under the heaviest sanctions, Iran ran more than $109 billion of non-oil trade, exported 150 million tons of goods and moved 20 million tons in transit, which means the country's trade infrastructure is active and functioning. The second: despite that volume, the dollar value of exports fell against the prior year and value per ton dropped from $380 to $343, which means Iran is working more to earn fewer dollars.

If one thing is to be remembered from this report, it is this: the central question for Iran's export economy is not how much we sell, but how much we get for each ton. This year's record is a record in weight, not in value, and the two should not be conflated.

What to watch

• Quarterly customs releases through 1405 and whether the value-to-weight ratio keeps falling or turns.
• China's share of the destination mix; any material change feeds straight into exporters' bargaining power.
• Global prices for petrochemical products and steel, the two heaviest items in the basket.
• Transit volumes, whose value added, unlike goods exports, stays entirely in the country.
• The underlying concepts are covered in the Sahmino Learn section.

Methodological note: the word "record" in this report refers only to the weight (tonnage) of trade, not to its dollar value, which fell against 1403. Value per ton is also a simple average and does not reveal the composition within the basket. This analysis is based on published official statistics and does not reflect the political positions of any party.