Iraq Withholding tax rates
Iraq Withholding tax rates: no single figure applies. The reason is set out below, cited to the governing instrument. Last checked against the official source on 10 Aug 2026.
Iraq's deductions at source on payments to non-residents under the Income Tax Law No. 113 of 1982 (as amended) and General Commission for Taxes instructions: no tax on dividends, 15% on interest, no dedicated royalty head, and on-account contract retentions of 3.3% (general) or 7% (oil and gas non-upstream) on gross payments to contractors. Domestic statutory rates before any double-tax agreement relief. Administered by the General Commission for Taxes (GCT).
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| Current value | structured — see the API |
|---|---|
| In force from | — |
| Official source | PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries - Iraq (reviewed 24 June 2026): 'Dividends are not subject to WHT since dividends paid out of profits that have been subjected to tax are not taxed again in the hands of the shareholder'; interest WHT '15% if such amounts are related to interest on debentures, mortgages, loans, deposits and advances'; 'Industries/activities (non-upstream) contracted with oil and gas companies are subject to WHT on all payments at a rate of 3.3% or 7%.' |
| Last verified | 2026-08-10 |
| Verification | secondary — Corroborated, but the primary instrument was NOT read (usually the publishing host blocks automated access). Iraq's primary instruments - Income Tax Law No. 113 of 1982 as amended and the GCT withholding instructions (notably Instructions No. 2 of 2008 on direct deduction and the oil-and-gas withholding instructions issued under Law No. 19 of 2010) - are published in Arabic in the Official Gazette (Al-Waqa'i' Al-Iraqiya) without a stable official English text online, and GCT practice is known to vary between directorates. All rates here are confirmed through PwC's continuously reviewed summary (24 June 2026); no operative Arabic wording is quoted. The contract-retention percentages in particular are administrative rates that the GCT has adjusted by instruction over time and should be re-verified against current GCT practice before reliance. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
THERE IS NO SINGLE WITHHOLDING TAX RATE, WHICH IS WHY value IS NULL. Iraq taxes payments to non-residents through several unrelated mechanisms at different rates: nothing on dividends, 15% on interest, and on-account retentions of 3.3% or 7% of gross contract payments - and the retentions are ADVANCE tax against final assessment at the 15% corporate rate (35% for oil and gas under Law No. 19 of 2010), not final withholding. A caller wanting a number must name which payment type; read withholding_rates rather than expecting a headline figure. ALL RATES ARE DOMESTIC STATUTORY RATES, BEFORE TREATY RELIEF. Iraq has few double-tax agreements (mainly the Arab Economic Union agreement and a handful of bilaterals) and treaty relief in practice requires case-by-case GCT acceptance. We do NOT serve treaty rates: they are bilateral and applying one is a legal determination rather than a lookup. MECHANISM NOTES: (1) Dividends bear no withholding because Iraq taxes profits once at company level; distributions out of taxed profits are not taxed again. (2) The 15% interest rate applies to interest on debentures, mortgages, loans, deposits and advances paid to non-residents; resident-to-resident interest bears 1.8%-10%. (3) Iraq has NO dedicated royalty withholding head; royalty income of a non-resident from Iraqi sources is taxable by assessment, and payments made under contracts fall into the retention system. (4) The retention system (GCT instructions under the Income Tax Law, applied through the direct-deduction and contract-registration regime) requires payers to withhold 3.3% of gross payments on general trading/contracting and 7% on non-upstream contracts with oil and gas companies, released or credited on final tax clearance - functionally similar to Kuwait's retention but at these rates and creditable against assessed tax. (5) The Kurdistan Region applies its own regime: non-resident entities are taxed at 15% of deemed profit, with deemed-profit ratios varying by activity. No series effective_from is asserted: the components entered force at different times (the 1982 law, 2008 and 2010-11 instructions) and Iraq does not publish consolidated commencement data in English.
Get it programmatically
curl https://mearef.dev/v1/iq/withholding-tax
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://mearef.dev/v1/iq/withholding-tax/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://mearef.dev/provenance/iq/withholding-taxOther Iraq series: CBI Policy Rate (سعر السياسة النقدية) · Value-added tax (VAT) · VAT registration threshold · National minimum wage (الحد الأدنى للأجور) · Public holidays · Consumer Price Index (latest month) · Corporate income tax rate · Legal delay interest (فوائد قانونية) · Personal income tax (progressive bands) · Statutory social-insurance contributions
The same figure elsewhere: Israel · Jordan · Kuwait · Oman · Qatar · all 9