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Cabinet Decision No. 957 of 2025 is Iraq's broadest customs-tariff-schedule rewrite in years: it re-brackets duty rates for the full ~16,400-line, 99-chapter national tariff schedule (Customs Tariff Law No. 22 of 2010, as amended) into bands from 0.5% up to 30%, and mandates enforcement through an "advance customs declaration" electronic-clearance system rolled out gradually from 1 December 2025 and made mandatory nationwide from 1 January 2026.
Two specific lines matter most for cross-border commercial exposure:
as an EV/hybrid-adoption incentive, now subject to a flat 15% import duty — effectively reversing Iraq's own green-vehicle policy within the space of a single decree.
same 15% band.
Essential foodstuffs and industrial raw materials sit at the low end of the bracket structure (0.5%-5%); the 15% band captures consumer electronics, appliances and vehicles broadly, with tobacco/alcohol and other luxury lines reaching the 20-30% top bracket.
The measure faces an active domestic legal challenge: opposition lawmakers argue Iraqi Constitution Article 28 requires taxes/fees to be imposed by parliamentary law, not cabinet decision, and have petitioned the Federal Supreme Court to void Decision 957. As of filing, the decision remains in force pending that court's ruling.
Iraq's official gazette and Council of Ministers/customs portals (cabinet.iq, customs.mof.gov.iq, ina.iq) return bot-protection challenges (HTTP 403) to automated fetches, consistent with prior IPTM filings on Iraqi cabinet decisions this cycle — the INA article is confirmed live via search-engine indexing and corroborated by two independent Iraqi/regional outlets (Al-Rasheed Media, a state-linked broadcaster, and Kurdistan24) reporting the same rate, scope and effective date.
industrial oxygen and dairy imports (2025-12-30-iraq-additional-customs-duties-oxygen-dairy) as part of the same end-2025 Iraqi fiscal-tariff push, though the two use different legal instruments (Decision 957's tariff-schedule reform vs. targeted additional-duty decrees).
dealers of hybrid/electric vehicles in a market that had been a rare EV-adoption bright spot in the Gulf/Levant region; expect a near-term import slowdown and border-crossing congestion (multiple outlets report vehicles stranded at crossings when the rate changed on 1 January).
Decision 957's constitutionality under Article 28) is a material reversal risk for any importer or trading partner pricing in the new rates as durable.
against the cabinet's authority to set tariffs by decree could unwind some or all of the rate changes, including the vehicle and gold lines.
— English-language coverage bundles "gold" under the 15% luxury band without distinguishing bullion from finished jewellery, which may carry different HS classifications under the 16,400-line schedule.