Market brief
Iraq
The authorities that procure water infrastructure in Iraq, how the deals are put together, and what is in the pipeline.
Reference profile for IraqOverview
Iraq buys water infrastructure through engineering contracts rather than concessions, and increasingly through governorates rather than ministries: the Basra desalination scheme was transferred to Basra Governorate for implementation.1 Basra is the reference project, one million cubic metres a day near Grand Faw Port, built by Al-Rida Group with PowerChina under an EPC contract signed in January 2026 for about US$2.4 billion.1 2 The register tracks 23 schemes, US$ 6.7 bn of their disclosed value in projects not yet operating,3 and the World Bank and JICA are the most active funders. The commercial question is payment rather than procurement: contractors are pressing for settlement of 41 trillion dinars of arrears accumulated since 2014, and there is no payment security beyond the federal budget.4 Household tariffs start at a minimum of IQD 100 a cubic metre under the 2023 budget law, and collection is weak.5 6
Market snapshot
The commercial picture in Iraq: the scale of the economy and the water sector, the investment climate, and where the near-term activity is concentrated.
Political stability
World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators score, 0–100 (absolute scale), 2025. Political stability; higher is more stable.7
Investment climate
World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators score, 0–100 (absolute scale), 2025. Regulatory quality for private investment; higher is better.7
Key institutions
- Ministry of Water ResourcesMinistry
- Governorate water directoratesUtility
Financing & PPP
- PPP frameworkEmerging (desalination discussions)
- Tracked projectsUS$ 7.1 bn disclosed value in our projects register, of which US$ 6.7 bn pipeline (not yet operating)
- Active fundersWorld Bank, JICA
- Climate adaptation planIn preparation (process launched with UNEP in 2020)
Opportunities
- 01Southern (Basra) seawater desalination
- 02Irrigation modernisation
- 03Salinity control & drainage
- 04Network rehabilitation
Key challenges
- 01Declining Tigris–Euphrates inflows from upstream
- 02Rising salinity in the south (Basra)
- 03Ageing infrastructure
- 04Drought & dust storms
Sources and notes
Sources: Water use by sector, total water withdrawal, supply by source and desalination share: FAO AQUASTAT, 2022, FAO AQUASTAT Dissemination System, retrieved 7 October 2026. Water losses: Statistics and GIS Authority, Environmental Statistics of Iraq 2024 (published 2025), average distribution-network losses of 24.5% across the 15 federal governorates; excludes the Kurdistan Region and water supplied without bills. Population and GDP: World Bank WDI, latest year (shown on each tile). Other figures: FAO AQUASTAT / national reports, latest available, approximate. Governance indicators: World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators (2025).
Contracting authorities
The bodies that commission, regulate and operate water infrastructure in Iraq. Ministries set policy and sign the offtake; utilities run the assets; governments set tariffs, often on a regulator’s recommendation, and regulators set service standards.
- Ministry of AgricultureMinistry
- Ministry of Construction, Housing, Municipalities & Public WorksMinistry
- Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR)Ministry
- Baghdad Mayoralty (Amanat Baghdad)Utility
- National Center for Water Resources ManagementBasin & resources authority
- General Commission for Irrigation & ReclamationIrrigation & drainage
How deals are structured
The framework in Iraq is Emerging (desalination discussions), the schemes we track carry US$ 7.1 bn of disclosed value, US$ 6.7 bn of it in projects not yet operating, and the funders most active in the sector are World Bank, JICA.
Delivery splits by asset class across the region: dams and trunk conveyance are mostly engineering contracts carried by sovereign or development-bank finance; bulk supply increasingly uses build-operate-transfer concessions against a long-term offtake; and distribution work is let as performance-based contracts paid against measured leakage reduction. The Finance & Economics hub sets out each model and where it has been used.
How to bid
Iraq is buying water infrastructure through engineering contracts rather than concessions, and increasingly through governorates rather than ministries: the Basra desalination scheme was transferred to Basra Governorate for implementation after moving between ministries.1 The commercial question is not procurement but payment. Contractors are pressing for settlement of 41 trillion dinars of arrears accumulated since the 2014 crisis, with Basra alone owed 1.8 trillion.4
| Procuring bodies | For the largest current scheme, Basra Governorate.1 |
|---|---|
| Contract form | Engineering, procurement and construction awards. No water offtake concession was verified.1 |
| Payment security | None beyond the federal budget, and the budget is the problem. Price the work against a sovereign carrying a public, unsettled arrears stock; assume no escrow and no offtake guarantee.4 |
| Tax | Withholding tax of 15% on interest, loans, deposits, advances and annual allowances; non-upstream contractors to oil companies are taxed at 3.3% or 7%. In the Kurdistan Region non-residents pay 15% on deemed profits, the deemed profit rate being 20% for contracting and services and 25% for installation and maintenance.8 |
| Household tariff | Under the 2023 Federal Budget Law, governorates apply a minimum of IQD 100/m³ (as reported, September 2023); earlier the Baghdad rate was IQD 10/m³, against an operation and maintenance cost of IQD 155/m³ in 2013, and a large part of the population did not pay.5 6 |
The reference project is Basra: one million cubic metres a day in three parallel lines of 335,000, work under way by 26 July 2025 near Grand Faw Port, built by Al-Rida Group with PowerChina. The July 2025 report did not disclose a value.1 The project cost was estimated at about US$4 billion in 2025,9 and the EPC contract signed in January 2026 was valued at 17.193 billion yuan, about US$2.4 billion; the totals on this page use the EPC contract.2
Regulatory intelligence
| Regulation | Status | Year | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strategy for Water & Land Resources (SWLRI 2035) | Reference | 2014 | National master plan: storage, efficiency, allocations. |
| 1987 Euphrates protocol and Syria–Iraq accord | Strained | 1987/1989 | 1987 protocol and 1989 joint minutes, with tensions in 1990: Turkey pledged to pass a yearly average of more than 500 m³/s to Syria; Syria pledged to pass 58% to Iraq and retain 42%. |
| Iraq–Turkey water framework and financing mechanism | In implementation | 2024/2025 | Turkish-built projects paid through Iraqi oil; no release commitment. |
| Iraq–Syria shared-waters protocol | Signed | 2026 | Data exchange; proposal to revive the joint technical committee. |
| Environmental Protection and Improvement Law No. 27 | In force | 2009 | Ministry of Environment leads under Law No. 37 of 2008. |
Primary reference: the Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR); treaty practice varies by season.
Projects
Tracked schemes in Iraq, largest first. Each has its own page with the parties, the finance and a dated history.
Sources and notes
Interactive map: switch views, hover or focus a marker, and use the +/− controls (or double-click, then drag) to zoom and pan. Geometry and data from the MENA Water Review library.
23 tracked in total. The full set, filterable, is in the major projects register.
Track record
Contracts on record in Iraq, from the awards log and the major projects register, dated by commissioning where known.
| Year | Project | Winning firms | US$ m |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Basra Seawater Desalination | PowerChina, Al Ridha Group contractor | 2,400 |
| 2025 | Common Seawater Supply Project | Hyundai Engineering & Construction contractor | 3,160 |
| 2025 | Erbil Sewage Scheme | ITOCHU, Çalık Enerji contractor | n/a |
| 2016 | Mosul Dam grouting and maintenance | Trevi S.p.A contractor | n/a |
| 1992 on line | Main Outfall Drain | Philipp Holzmann, Polensky, Mendes contractor | n/a |
| 1988 on line | Haditha Dam | Energoprojekt contractor | n/a |
| 1986 on line | Mosul Dam | GIMOD contractor | n/a |
| 1961 on line | Darbandikhan Dam | Darbandikhan Group contractor | n/a |
| 1959 on line | Dokan Dam | Dumez-Ballot contractor | n/a |
| 1956 on line | Samarra Barrage | Zueblin, Ransomes and Rapier contractor | n/a |
Pipeline & tenders
Structured procurements and live tenders in Iraq, drawn from the same review that maintains the pipeline tracker.
Pipeline & awards
Tenders
Prices
What households pay
| Household tariff (US$/m³) | Cost of supply (US$/m³) | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| ~$0.08 | $0.13 | 2023 and 2013 | Federal Budget Law No. 13 of 2023, article 18(2), as reported; World Bank project information document, Baghdad water and sewerage improvement5 6 |
IQD 100/m³ minimum (about US$0.08). Under the 2023 Federal Budget Law, governorates apply a minimum of IQD 100/m³ for water and sewerage, rising with consumption (as reported, September 2023); higher rates follow consumption bands adopted locally. Earlier the Baghdad rate was IQD 10/m³ (US$0.0086) for the first 30 m³, in four monthly blocks of 30 m³, with sewerage charged at the same rate and industrial and government users at about IQD 100. Operation and maintenance cost was put at IQD 155/m³ (US$0.13) in 2013, the cost figure shown. Collection is weak: a large part of the population did not pay.
Residential tariffs, and the cost of supply where a utility publishes it, are kept in one place for the whole region so the comparison holds: a tariff means little without the cost it is measured against.
Watch list
What has actually moved in Iraq, dated, from the monthly briefings. Each item names the edition it came from.
- September 2026The water ministry said Turkish-built water projects will be paid for with a daily oil allocation; reserves were above 31 billion m³ in mid-September.From the October 2026 briefing
The full editions are in the briefing archive.
Sources
9 references
Project, pipeline and tender records are compiled from procurer announcements, lender disclosures and trade reporting; each project page carries its own source and the date it was last checked. Institutions are from the decision-maker directory. Economic and water indicators are cited on the reference profile.
- Iraq Business News, “Work starts at major seawater desalination project in Basra”, 26 July 2025.
- Smart Water Magazine, “The sovereign desalination map: why governments are taking back ownership”, 29 May 2026.
- MENA Water Review major projects register and PPP pipeline — compiled from procurer publications, development-bank project pages and trade reporting; each record names its source.
- 964media, on unpaid dues owed to Iraqi contractors, 2 July 2026.
- Infoplus Network, “Governorates begin applying a budget-law clause that raises water and sewerage charges” (Arabic; title translated), 17 September 2023, on article 18(2) of the 2023 Federal Budget Law.
- World Bank (2017), project information document, Baghdad water and sewerage improvement.
- Kaufmann & Kraay, Worldwide Governance Indicators (World Bank), 2025 update: political-stability and regulatory-quality scores, 0–100, shown in the market snapshot. worldbank.org/wgi.
- PwC, Iraq: withholding taxes, worldwide tax summaries.
- Reuters via MarketScreener, “PowerChina wins $4 billion contract for Iraqi water desalination plant, sources say”, 24 July 2025.
Numbered references are linked from the superscript markers in the text. Figures without a marker come from the sources above as compiled in the site methodology.
Sources and notes
Years without a label are award years from the curated log; rows marked on line are dated by commissioning, from the projects register. Register rows without a commissioning date show their stage instead: awarded, with the year recorded, or under construction or operating, with no year. 10 rows in total for Iraq.