The 2025–2026 Iranian protests were a series of nationwide demonstrations against the government of Iran that began on 28 December 2025 amid a deepening economic crisis. The unrest followed a sharp depreciation of the Iranian rial, rising inflation, and widespread shortages linked to international sanctions and government mismanagement. This event has been the largest uprising in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, spreading to more than 200 cities across the country. The ensuing crackdown, reportedly carried out under orders by Ali Khamenei and senior officials to use live fire on protesters, resulted in massacres that left thousands of protesters dead.
Initially sparked by frustration over record-high inflation, food prices, and currency depreciation, the protests quickly evolved into a broader movement demanding an end to the Islamic government. Beginning with the bazaari (shopkeepers and merchants) in Tehran's Grand Bazaar and later university students, the demonstrations soon spread to other major cities and small settlements. Protesters chanted anti-government slogans.
Although largely leaderless, the protests escalated on 8 January following a call for unified protests by Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran's last shah. On 8 January, 1.5 million protesters took to the streets of Tehran and, by 9 January, 5 million people were protesting nationwide according to an unnamed European diplomat citing intelligence. Pahlavi has called for a peaceful transition and a referendum to determine Iran's future political system. The Iranian government has cut off Internet access and telephone services in an attempt to prevent protesters from organising. It has accused the United States and Israel of fuelling the protests.
By 9 January, millions had taken to the streets in protests across all 31 provinces. Amid the internet blackout, Iranian security forces escalated their use of live ammunition against demonstrators. Hospitals in Tehran and Shiraz were reported to be overwhelmed by injured protesters, many suffering gunshot wounds. Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson confirmed that security forces had fired on protesters, raising international concern over human rights. Thousands were also arrested during the violent crackdown. Despite the blackout, on 10 January 2026, The Guardian documented multiple reports of security forces opening fire on demonstrations, with one eyewitness stating they saw "hundreds of bodies" across Tehran.
By late January, Time, The Guardian and Iran International, citing local health officials, reported estimates that between 30,000 and 36,500 protesters were killed during 8–9 January. On 20 January the International Centre for Human Rights (ICHR) said its investigation estimated that at least 43,000 people had been killed by Iranian government forces during the protests. As of 5 February 2026, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) had confirmed and documented 7,015 deaths, including at least 6,508 protesters, with 11,744 additional cases under review. The Iranian government had reported 3,117 deaths, while local health officials said the total death toll could be as high as 30,000.
On 11 February, President Pezeshkian apologized to the nation for the massacres. On 21 February, a second major wave of student‑led protests erupted at the start of the new academic semester across several Iranian universities. Demonstrations included sit‑ins and campus protests. The renewed unrest coincided with forty‑day memorials for those killed in earlier protests and featured chants against Ali Khamenei as well as calls for Reza Pahlavi to replace him. During the unrest, a student at the Iran University of Science and Technology in Tehran died, Iranian state media attributed the death to a "sudden health incident". Protests continued over the following days, with demonstrations from 23 to 25 February adopting the Lion and Sun flag and featuring anti‑government chants. University authorities and security forces declared the protests "illegal", conducted searches of student dormitories, and arrested suspected participants, while Basij members and other security forces attacked protesters at several universities.
Following the escalation of the 2026 Iran war and strikes on government and military targets, protests continued across Iran despite renewed internet shutdowns and heavy security deployments. Demonstrations took the form of nightly rooftop chants from residential buildings, with videos showing security forces firing towards people chanting from windows. The assassination of Ali Khamenei marked a turning point, with gatherings and celebrations in several areas despite violent crackdowns. After the government announced Mojtaba Khamenei as the new supreme leader on 8 March, protesters chanted "Death to Mojtaba" in residential neighborhoods. Opposition figure Reza Pahlavi later urged Iranians to remain in their homes while continuing rooftop chants as a sign of unity, while the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened a wider crackdown. During Chaharshanbe Suri celebrations ahead of Nowruz, many Iranians defied official restrictions and gathered in the streets, prompting security forces to disperse crowds with gunfire.
The 2025–2026 Iranian protests were a series of nationwide demonstrations against the government of Iran that began on 28 December 2025 amid a deepening economic crisis. The unrest followed a sharp depreciation of the Iranian rial, rising inflation, and widespread shortages linked to international sanctions and government mismanagement. This event has been the largest uprising in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, spreading to more than 200 cities across the country. The ensuing crackdown, reportedly carried out under orders by Ali Khamenei and senior officials to use live fire on protesters, resulted in massacres that left thousands of protesters dead.
Initially sparked by frustration over record-high inflation, food prices, and currency depreciation, the protests quickly evolved into a broader movement demanding an end to the Islamic government. Beginning with the bazaari (shopkeepers and merchants) in Tehran's Grand Bazaar and later university students, the demonstrations soon spread to other major cities and small settlements. Protesters chanted anti-government slogans.
Although largely leaderless, the protests escalated on 8 January following a call for unified protests by Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran's last shah. On 8 January, 1.5 million protesters took to the streets of Tehran and, by 9 January, 5 million people were protesting nationwide according to an unnamed European diplomat citing intelligence. Pahlavi has called for a peaceful transition and a referendum to determine Iran's future political system. The Iranian government has cut off Internet access and telephone services in an attempt to prevent protesters from organising. It has accused the United States and Israel of fuelling the protests.
By 9 January, millions had taken to the streets in protests across all 31 provinces. Amid the internet blackout, Iranian security forces escalated their use of live ammunition against demonstrators. Hospitals in Tehran and Shiraz were reported to be overwhelmed by injured protesters, many suffering gunshot wounds. Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson confirmed that security forces had fired on protesters, raising international concern over human rights. Thousands were also arrested during the violent crackdown. Despite the blackout, on 10 January 2026, The Guardian documented multiple reports of security forces opening fire on demonstrations, with one eyewitness stating they saw "hundreds of bodies" across Tehran.
By late January, Time, The Guardian and Iran International, citing local health officials, reported estimates that between 30,000 and 36,500 protesters were killed during 8–9 January. On 20 January the International Centre for Human Rights (ICHR) said its investigation estimated that at least 43,000 people had been killed by Iranian government forces during the protests. As of 5 February 2026, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) had confirmed and documented 7,015 deaths, including at least 6,508 protesters, with 11,744 additional cases under review. The Iranian government had reported 3,117 deaths, while local health officials said the total death toll could be as high as 30,000.
On 11 February, President Pezeshkian apologized to the nation for the massacres. On 21 February, a second major wave of student‑led protests erupted at the start of the new academic semester across several Iranian universities. Demonstrations included sit‑ins and campus protests. The renewed unrest coincided with forty‑day memorials for those killed in earlier protests and featured chants against Ali Khamenei as well as calls for Reza Pahlavi to replace him. During the unrest, a student at the Iran University of Science and Technology in Tehran died, Iranian state media attributed the death to a "sudden health incident". Protests continued over the following days, with demonstrations from 23 to 25 February adopting the Lion and Sun flag and featuring anti‑government chants. University authorities and security forces declared the protests "illegal", conducted searches of student dormitories, and arrested suspected participants, while Basij members and other security forces attacked protesters at several universities.
Following the escalation of the 2026 Iran war and strikes on government and military targets, protests continued across Iran despite renewed internet shutdowns and heavy security deployments. Demonstrations took the form of nightly rooftop chants from residential buildings, with videos showing security forces firing towards people chanting from windows. The assassination of Ali Khamenei marked a turning point, with gatherings and celebrations in several areas despite violent crackdowns. After the government announced Mojtaba Khamenei as the new supreme leader on 8 March, protesters chanted "Death to Mojtaba" in residential neighborhoods. Opposition figure Reza Pahlavi later urged Iranians to remain in their homes while continuing rooftop chants as a sign of unity, while the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened a wider crackdown. During Chaharshanbe Suri celebrations ahead of Nowruz, many Iranians defied official restrictions and gathered in the streets, prompting security forces to disperse crowds with gunfire.
Background
Economic crisis in Iran
Beginning in 2024, Iran's economy experienced sharp inflation, a devalued currency, and an energy shortage, which culminated in widespread electricity and gas disruptions and apologies from president Masoud Pezeshkian. Iran has suffered declines in global influence, most notably following the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, a major ally. The economic crisis was compounded by fears of renewed conflict after the June 2025 Twelve-Day War with Israel during which Iran's nuclear facilities were struck by the United States. In September 2025, the UN reimposed sanctions on Iran using the "snapback" mechanism, causing the currency to weaken, resulting in price increases for food supplies such as meat, rice, and other staples, freezing Iranian assets abroad, suspending arms transactions, and imposing penalties related to the country's ballistic-missile programme.
Many Iranians feared a broader confrontation involving the US, which contributed to market instability. In the final months of 2025, Iran's economy experienced a sharp depreciation of the Iranian rial, with the US dollar reaching approximately 145,000 Iranian tomans. The country's state statistics centre reported an inflation rate of 42% in December 2025. Food prices rose 72%, while prices for health and medical goods increased by 50% year-on-year. By 3 January, the government increased the value of the rial to 1.38 million. This had no effect, and on 6 January the rial fell to a new record low of 1.5 million to the US dollar, triggering a sharp rise in prices, including food and other essential goods. Analysts cited government monetary and fiscal policies, economic mismanagement, chronic budget deficits, and the continuation of sanctions as key contributing factors. These conditions directly affected trade guilds, particularly businesses dependent on imports. In February 2026, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent acknowledged that US sanctions policy had contributed directly to Iran's currency crisis. In testimony before the US Senate Banking Committee, Bessent stated: "What we have done is created a dollar shortage in the country. It came to a swift and, I would say, grand culmination in December, when one of the largest banks in Iran went under. The central bank had to print money. The Iranian currency went into free fall. Inflation exploded, and hence we have seen the Iranian people out on the street."
Iran is experiencing a mismanaged water crisis. Reports in Iranian media indicated the government planned to raise taxes with the start of the Iranian new year on 21 March, fuelling further concern. Some protest messaging linked economic hardship to criticism of the government's foreign policy; during the December 2025 demonstrations, some participants chanted "Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, My Life for Iran". Discontent has also been due to political corruption, with protesters accusing the government of authoritarianism and prioritising proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas over domestic needs. Iran faces challenges from ethnic secessionist movements from the Kurds, Azerbaijanis, Khuzestani Arabs, and Balochis and from the US and Israel.
There were calls for the overthrow of the government, and distrust in the government's calls for dialogue, seeing them as self-serving and deceptive. NPR reported that months before the protests, public anger and frustration had been mounting due to energy shortages, civil rights abuses and widespread corruption, and that the protests sparked concerns that they could deteriorate into something much more serious. The political character of the protests was marked by protesters chanting "Death to the Dictator" in reference to supreme leaderAli Khamenei, and their loss of faith in Pezeshkian, who was elected in 2024 on promises of good governance, but had overseen water and electricity cuts, while failing to deliver on the promise of lifting internet censorship. Pezeshkian promised to meet with protest representatives, and recognized "the constitutional right of peaceful protest", although he lacked control over security forces. By 1 January 2026, dozens of protesters had been arrested and there were cases of security forces firing live ammunition at protesters. Students at Shahid Beheshti University released a statement declaring that "This criminal system has taken our future hostage for 47 years. It won't be changed with reform or with false promises".
Comparison to previous protests
The protests were described as Iran's largest since 2022, when nationwide demonstrations erupted following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in police custody for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly. On 30 December, Ellie Borhan, a British-Iranian activist, viewed this wave of protests as stronger than previous ones. Iranian public faith in their government faded since the 2022 crackdown on the Woman, Life, Freedom movement during the Mahsa Amini protests. Protests were previously held in May 2025 by truck drivers beginning in Bandar Abbas, who blocked roads and ports in Iran due to discontent over low salaries, high insurance rates, and possible hikes in fuel prices in the future.
Protest slogans have shifted ideologically compared to the 2022 protests. Some new chants increasingly reflect monarchist sentiments. Already in June 2025, during the Twelve-Day War, the exiled crown princeReza Pahlavi had intensified his political efforts and appealed to the international community to help the Iranian people force out Ali Khamenei's theocratic rule while offering himself up as interim leader to take over running the country. In comparison to the Mahsa Amini protests (2022–2023) which were mainly fuelled by girls and women, young men played larger roles in later rounds of the 2025–2026 protests.
Market traders were influential during the 1979 Islamic Revolution, helping to mobilise public support that ultimately led to the overthrow of the monarchy. The demonstrations were notable in the context of a large-scale government crackdown on dissidents, including arrests of prominent opponents and the highest number of executions in nearly 40 years. Executions in Iran have reportedly doubled in 2025 compared to 2024; the execution trends were on the rise since 2022, with activists alleging that the Islamic Republic aims to use executions to instil fear in its population and therefore suppress internal opposition.
Kurdish-majority regions in Iran have previously undergone severe repression stemming from the Amini protests in 2022, leading to fears of ethnic crackdowns from the government. This was in part due to Iran's accusing Kurdish opposition groups of having incited the 2022 protests. Despite this, Kurdish opposition groups have continued to call for solidarity in the nationwide protests and strikes. Iran has also repeatedly accused Kurdish militias from Iraq of attempting to incite unrest, including in the protests in 2026. Likewise, Balochi regions in Iran, long suffering from underdevelopment and political exclusion, have also previously been subject to violent crackdowns in the Amini protests. On 10 December 2025, Sunni-Balochi militant groups in Iran like the Jaysh al-Adl announced a merger into a united organization called the Jebhe-ye Mobaarezin-e Mardomi (People's Fighters Front). In its coalition video, the union rejected Shia Islam-led clerical rule in the Islamic Republic. The same day, the group carried out an attack on an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps regional command, killing four of its soldiers and wounding three others; it announced responsibility for the attack the next day.
Protests
Initial bazaar
28 December 2025
On 28 December, groups of shopkeepers and merchants at Alaeddin Shopping Centre in Tehran and other commercial centres, including Charsou Mall, went on strike by closing their shops. Simultaneously, protest gatherings formed around these locations, and images and videos of widespread shop closures circulated on social media. According to reports, protesters cited the rising dollar exchange rate and market instability, warning that continued conditions would lead to the bankruptcy of many small and medium-sized businesses. Some gatherings extended into surrounding streets, including Jomhuri Street. Other people had joined in with the shopkeepers to protest against economic conditions on Jomhuri Street. Elsewhere, iron traders in Iran closed their shops in similar protests against the devalued currency.
Around the onset of the protests, the value of the Iranian rial sank to a record low of 1.45 million per US dollar before slightly recovering to 1.38 million. The rial had lost approximately 40 percent of its value since the Twelve-Day War, in part due to the sinking of oil revenue from US sanctions. The year-on-year inflation rate was up at 42.2 percent. The protests were first started by shopkeepers who sold electronic goods in central Tehran who shut down their stores. State media revealed blurred footage of initially smaller-scale protests by merchants.
Videos and eyewitness accounts showed groups of merchants chanting slogans against economic mismanagement and in some cases expressing anti-government sentiments. Protesters also chanted "Law Enforcement, support, support", calling on security forces to back the protests. The protesters' main demands included stabilizing exchange rates, addressing merchants' economic hardships, creating a predictable business environment, and preventing losses caused by market volatility. There were no reported clashes with security forces on this day and it remained peaceful.
29 December
The protests continued into their second day on 29 December and expanded across various parts of Tehran, including the Grand Bazaar. Merchants and shopkeepers closed their businesses and gathered in the streets to protest the unprecedented collapse of the rial and sharp increases in currency and gold prices. Protesters voiced opposition to economic conditions and government management, citing declining purchasing power and rising living costs. Videos shared online showed continued gatherings around Lalehzar, Chaharsouq, and Jomhuri Street, with participants largely non-violent while conveying critical messages toward government economic policies. The merchants at the Grand Bazaar in Tehran joined the electronic goods shopkeepers who had started the protests the previous day.
Footage verified by independent sources showed crowds at malls near Tehran's Grand Bazaar chanting "freedom" (Persian: آزادی, romanised: Âzâdi). Law enforcement forces used tear gas to disperse demonstrators outside the Alaeddin Shopping Centre. Protests also spread to other cities in Iran. On the night of 29 December 2025, protests were reported in several regions across Iran, including Qeshm in the south, and Zanjan and Hamadan in the north. Demonstrators chanted slogans critical of the supreme leader, including "Death to the Dictator" on Qeshm Island and "Seyyed Ali [Khamenei] will be toppled this year" in Zanjan. A video and photo of an unidentified protester went viral, who defiantly sat in the middle of the Jomhuri Eslami Street at Tehran and refused to move for motorbike security forces, but later was beaten and forced to leave. The protester became known as Tehran's Tank Man, a reference to the Tank Man during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre.
Spread across Iran
30 December
By the third day of protests, strikes and security measures had expanded, with shops closing in parts of Tehran such as Shoush and Molavi, as well as in Isfahan's Naqsh-e Jahan Square. Heavy security deployments were reported in Tehran, Mashhad, and at Khajeh Nasir University. Government responses included ordering temporary closures in 11 provinces, including Tehran province, due to cold weather and energy constraints. Security forces fired on protesters in Hamadan and deployed tear gas in Tehran and Malard.