Borrowing freeze deepens Iraq’s fiscal crisis ahead of 2026
Shafaq News – Baghdad
The Iraqi government has no legal authority to borrow currency until a new parliament is seated, the prime minister’s financial adviser warned on Tuesday, as Iraq enters 2026 with no budget and a deepening fiscal crunch.
According to Eco Iraq Observatory, the country’s deficit had already reached 17.7 trillion dinars (around $13.5 billion) by end-September 2025, forcing the government to operate under the restrictive 1/12 spending rule and freezing projects nationwide.
Mudher Mohammed Saleh told Shafaq News that while sovereign borrowing — whether domestic or foreign — is barred without parliamentary approval, the law still permits the use of short-term treasury advances funded exclusively by state-owned banks. These advances, he said, are strictly liquidity-management tools and do not constitute sovereign debt under Federal Financial Management Law No. 6 of 2019.
Article 3 of the law, Saleh explained, authorizes the Ministry of Finance to manage public liquidity and reallocate funds among state institutions “according to financial interest,” whereas Article 24 prohibits all internal or external borrowing unless a specific law is passed by parliament. The restriction, he noted, applies to borrowing from outside the government sector and “does not include financing arrangements within the public sector.”
He added that the law places no limits on short-term financial advances or temporary funding arrangements between government entities, so long as they remain within the scope of liquidity management rather than sovereign borrowing. This framework is currently the “only legal mechanism available” to keep essential state expenditures funded until legislative authority is restored and able to pass the required financial laws.
The Federal Supreme Court ruled last month to dissolve parliament and convert the cabinet into a caretaker government. The court said election day — November 11 — marked the end of parliament’s mandate and its authority to legislate or oversee the executive. Under the ruling, the cabinet’s powers are reduced to managing daily, non-deferrable affairs.
Caretaker governments in Iraq are legally confined to routine operations. They cannot pass new laws, approve multi-year contracts, negotiate long-term investment agreements, or implement structural reforms. In practice, they operate at roughly 20–30 percent of normal administrative capacity.
More than 120 draft laws are currently frozen, along with more than 6,000 pending administrative decisions. Thousands of contracts worth an estimated $8–10 billion — including infrastructure and service projects — also remain suspended, according to a previous Shafaq News report on the post-election vacuum.
The new parliament’s first session is expected after January 9, 2026. Government formation may take an additional three to four months even under favorable conditions, further tightening pressure on state finances and planning bodies. Unlike previous political cycles, both the legislature and the cabinet have halted full operations until the new parliament convenes.
Read more: Deficit soars, projects freeze: Iraq heads into 2026 with NO BUDGET
