In 2025, Iran broke its record for rail freight transit, with over five million tonnes of goods moving through the country. This number was achieved despite international pressure, a representative of Iran Railways said last week. With the weekend past and the fragile Middle Eastern peace shattered, it seems unlikely that Iran will see a repeat of that performance in 2026.
The record-breaking figure of 2025 highlights a modest but real trend: Iran is (or was) becoming an increasingly popular transit country for rail freight. For example, six countries agreed to develop the China-Iran-Europe rail route last year. This news followed a 2.6 times growth in container traffic between China and Iran in the first months of 2025.
Last week, Iran reported that rail freight transit had grown by 7% to heights never seen before – exceeding five million tonnes. This is a result of traffic originating from China, but also from Russia on the North-South Corridor.
Growth despite sanctions
“The importance of this achievement is that it was achieved under the most severe sanctions and political pressures, which have certainly affected international rail transport”, a representative of Iran Railways, Shahriar Naghizadeh, told Iranian media earlier.
“Countries that transit their goods through Iran are in the crosshairs of US sanctions and European Union sanctions, and this has made our work very difficult. However, we have also multiplied our efforts to neutralise these sanctions”, Naghizadeh continued.
“This year, with the efforts made, by signing bilateral and multilateral memorandums of understanding with neighboring countries as well as with countries along the route of these corridors, and with extensive railway diplomacy, we succeeded in extracting this performance from international memorandums of understanding.
Now that sanctions and pressures have turned kinetic – we have all read the news – this success almost certainly won’t be repeated in 2026. Iran suddenly does not seem like an option for rail transit at all. The most important takeaway is perhaps not the achievement of a modest five million tonnes in transit, but rather that the development of rail corridors through Iran will face delays or become impossible altogether.
Iran was on board with transit plans
Policymakers in Tehran were ready to accommodate more rail transit through the country. In November, RailFreight.com reported that Iran was considering building a new 200-kilometre railway to Kars, Türkiye, to facilitate traffic to Europe.
Türkiye, Iran and Pakistan also pursued reopening the Istanbul-Islamabad railway, which should have been launched by the start of the year. The aim was to provide a more economical and faster alternative to sea routes. Iran’s ability to revive these plans depends on a new status quo, whenever that may emerge.