TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s sweeping internet shutdown, which has kept 90 million people cut off from the global web for most of 2026, is wiping out an online economy that had become a lifeline for millions navigating international sanctions and economic mismanagement, the Associated Press reported this week.
The cutoff began during mass anti-government protests in January and tightened into a near-total blackout on Feb. 28, when U.S. and Israeli forces launched military strikes. Authorities have refused to lift it despite an uneasy truce, and the economic toll is mounting.
“The internet outage in the past four months has completely destroyed not only my business, but many online businesses,” fashion designer Amen Khademi told the AP at her Tehran studio, where she was photographing new designs she cannot post. Her Instagram shop, with more than 30,000 followers, has been inactive for months.
Farnaz Ojaghloo, a fitness coach and model who worked with Khademi, said the shutdown dried up her online courses and modeling income. “Psychologically, it really hits hard,” she said. “All the plans you had for six months or a year ahead get pushed aside, and your only concern becomes surviving in the moment.”
Iran’s Chamber of Commerce member Afshin Kolahi estimated the daily direct economic loss at $30–40 million, with indirect losses likely twice as high, according to local media cited by the AP. Communications Minister Sattar Hashemi said about 10 million Iranians hold jobs that depend on internet connectivity.
Mahsa Alimardani, an internet censorship expert at the rights group Witness, described the shutdown as unprecedented in its combination of scale and severity: “an entire country of 90 million people with a developed digital economy deliberately reverted to a controlled national intranet.”
The pain extends beyond digital startups. Online retailer DigiKala recently laid off 200 workers. Reza Olfatnasab, head of a national group representing digital businesses, told Iranian media that the shutdown is hurting “production, foreign trade and even traditional business.”
For most Iranians, the only way online is through black-market virtual private networks, whose prices have soared. State media routinely report arrests of people using illegal VPNs or the banned U.S. satellite system Starlink. Senior officials receive “white” SIM cards that grant them access to the global web, and under public pressure the government is expanding restricted access to a limited number of professions, businesses and media outlets.
An e-commerce trade group in Tehran called the tiered system “an abuse of an obvious need of every citizen,” warning that the outage threatens “the destruction of the country’s infrastructure at the hands of our own decision-makers.”
For the vast majority, the government’s domestic network is the only option. A Tehran advertising worker who asked not to be named for safety reasons told the AP that sponsors are unwilling to pay for content that cannot be posted on major platforms, and his income has fallen to near zero. A gamer in Isfahan, also speaking anonymously, said Iran’s national network is “terrible” — slow, insecure, and full of bugs — and that he has lost almost all his income from sponsors and donations.
The economic damage is pushing more Iranians toward emigration, a software developer told the AP. He lost his job after his former company laid off nearly all its employees. “The internet shutdown has wiped out remote work,” he said.
The consequences are visible on Tehran’s streets. Reza Amiri, 32, a former employee of an internet provider who lost his job after the war started, now sells hats and umbrellas near a metro stop. Monireh Pishgahi, who once supplied three online shops from her tailoring business, shut down and laid off her five employees after sales collapsed. One downtown shopkeeper, Mohammad Rihai, said he has given up trying to persuade street vendors to keep the sidewalk outside his store clear. “After the war, you see them all along the sidewalk,” he said. “I cannot fight them anymore.”