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Iran is losing An estimated $1.56 million is being lost every hour as a result of state-enforced internet blackouts, draining the struggling economy and disrupting the lives of more than 90 million people, according to an internet privacy analyst.
The long-term disruption stems from Protests continue to escalate He claimed that losses continued throughout January even after partial connectivity was restored.
“The current blackout is expected to cost Iran $37.4 million per day, or $1.56 million per hour,” said research director Simon Migliano. at privacy companiestold Fox News Digital. “The comprehensive internet blockade itself cost Iran more than $780 million, while subsequent strict filtering continues to have significant additional economic impacts.”
The internet privacy and security analyst added: “By 2025, Iran has already lost $215 million in economic losses due to disruptions in internet access.”
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Iran’s Internet blackout began on January 8, with losses reportedly worth $1.56 million per hour due to protests. (Maria/Middle East Pictures/AFP via Getty Images)
Migliano said his estimate was to use NetBlocks Cost Toolan economic model that measures the direct impact on gross domestic product when a country’s digital economy is forced offline.
The model uses data from the World Bank, International Telecommunications Union, Eurostat and the U.S. Census Bureau to estimate direct losses in productivity, online transactions and remote working.
According to the NetBlocks organization, Internet access in Iran has been completely cut off since January 9, 2026, following protests that swept the country. (Samuel Boivin/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
iranian authorities suddenly cut off communication On the evening of January 8, amid widespread protests against the clerical regime.
While officials have since restored much of the country’s domestic bandwidth as well as local and international phone calls and text messages, free access to the internet is largely unavailable for the following reasons: Heavy state filtering.
“The recent 579% surge in VPN demand reflects the scramble for digital survival,” Miliano said. Miliano then described how even if access briefly resumes, the internet remains “heavily censored and virtually unusable without circumvention tools like VPNs.”
He added: “We can see spikes indicating that once connectivity is restored, users are immediately seeking VPNs to access websites and services outside state-controlled networks, including global platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram that remain inaccessible.”
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“The recent 579% surge in VPN demand reflects the scramble for digital survival,” Migliano said. (User-generated content via AP)
“Sustained demand – which is 427% above normal on average – suggests the Iranians are stockpiling evasion tools in case of further blackouts,” Miliano said.
“The usual strategy is to download as many free tools as possible and cycle between them. It becomes a cat-and-mouse game as governments block individual VPN servers and providers rotate IP addresses to stay ahead of censorship,” he added.
Iran’s Information and Communications Technology Minister Sattar Hashemi acknowledged the economic damage caused by the blackout strategy.
He said the recent disruptions were costing the digital economy about “5 trillion rials” a day and nearly 50 trillion rials to the wider economy. iran international.
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“Iran’s three-week internet blockade may have been lifted, but connectivity remains severely disrupted,” Miliano claimed.
“Access remains heavily filtered. It is limited to a ‘whitelist’ of government-approved websites and apps, and the connection itself remains highly unstable throughout the day,” he added.
