Iran

Iran: Energy Scale, Thin and Dated Financial Record

Economic foundation

Iran's economy was worth $475.3 billion in 2024, per World Bank WDI, with a population of 91.6 million the same year. Output per person comes to about $5,190 on the World Bank's 2024 figures. The IMF's World Economic Outlook projects general government debt at 37.3 percent of GDP for 2026. A debt ratio at that level says little on its own about fiscal room, since the file contains no revenue, budget or external-financing data to set against it.

The reserves entry requires a flag rather than an analysis. The World Bank figure in this dataset is $7.7 billion for 1982. That is a 44-year-old reading and carries no information about Iran's current external position. No contemporary reserves figure is available here, and none should be inferred from the one on file.

Military posture

SIPRI's 2025 figures put military expenditure at $7.4 billion, or 2.092 percent of GDP on SIPRI's accounting. Dollar-denominated spending figures for Iran depend heavily on the exchange rate applied, and the dataset does not state which rate SIPRI used, so the absolute total should be treated as less robust than the GDP share.

The Correlates of War National Material Capabilities series, current to 2022, records 610,000 active personnel and a Composite Index of National Capability score of 0.0164. CINC measures a state's share of global totals across six components, placing Iran at roughly 1.6 percent of measured world capability in that year. The gap between a force of 610,000 and a reported budget of $7.4 billion is wide; the file offers no data on paramilitary forces, proxy funding or off-budget military spending that would help explain it.

This dataset contains no nuclear warhead figure for Iran. That absence is a gap in the data, not a finding about Iran's program, and nothing in this file speaks to nuclear status either way.

Governance indicators

V-Dem's v15 release scores Iran for 2025 at 0.159 on electoral democracy and 0.103 on liberal democracy, both zero-to-one scales. State capacity is scored at 0.209, the lowest of the three readings.

Energy

Energy is where Iran's measured weight sits. Our World in Data records oil production of 2,726.7 TWh and gas production of 2,629.2 TWh, both 2024 figures, against domestic primary energy of 12.92 exajoules in 2024 and electricity generation of 395.8 TWh in 2025. The file holds no export, pricing or revenue data, so the fiscal value of that output cannot be stated.

Data gaps

Missing: current reserves, warhead estimates, paramilitary manpower, arms transfers, sanctions exposure, conflict events. Manpower is three years behind the spending data.

Sources: World Bank WDI, IMF WEO, SIPRI Milex, COW NMC, V-Dem v15, Our World in Data (Energy).