KRG Salary Tracker
Public employees in the Kurdistan Region have now gone two months without pay (September and October 2025), amid an unresolved financial dispute with the federal government in Baghdad. Yet the salary crisis is not new; it began a decade ago and has cycled through arrears, staggered installments, and across-the-board cuts with no durable fix. Over the 124-month period (July 2015–October 2025), the record shows a mixed pattern of full payments, fractional disbursements, deductions, and outright non-payment.
From the onset in 2015, two of the six tracked months (July–December) were paid in full, followed by four straight months unpaid. In 2016 and 2017, the KRG shifted to quarter-payments for nearly the entire two-year stretch (23 months in total—12 in 2016 and 11 in 2017), effectively turning salaries into small recurring installments. 2018 moved to partial payments (11 months, January–November), before normalizing in 2019, when all twelve months were paid in full.
The sharpest shock came in 2020: three months were paid in full (January–March), but seven months went unpaid (April–August, November–December). Two additional months—September (18%) and October (21%)—were paid with statutory deductions, reflecting liquidity stress and transfer shortfalls. In 2021, the system stabilized but with six months of 21% cuts (January–June) before full payments resumed for July–December. 2022 delivered a full year of on-time, full payments.
Stress returned late 2023, when salaries for October–December went unpaid despite nine full months earlier in the year. 2024 broadly held up, with January–November paid in full and December unpaid. In 2025, salaries were paid January–August, then went unpaid in September and October; November remains pending as of November 4, 2025.
Across the 124 months captured here, employees received 63 months paid in full, 23 months as quarter-payments, 11 months as partial payments, 8 months paid with deductions (18–21%), and 19 months unpaid. Months marked “Not Paid*” in the table were officially recorded as “delayed” but remain uncompensated to date. This timeline illustrates a recurring pattern: when federal transfers or local revenues tighten, arrears first appear as fractional disbursements or cuts before tipping into outright non-payment. The current two-month gap thus fits a well-established cycle that has persisted since mid-2015, underscoring both the depth of the fiscal dispute and the absence of a lasting settlement mechanism.
The sharpest shock came in 2020: three months were paid in full (January–March), but seven months went unpaid (April–August, November–December). Two additional months—September (18%) and October (21%)—were paid with statutory deductions, reflecting liquidity stress and transfer shortfalls. In 2021, the system stabilized but with six months of 21% cuts (January–June) before full payments resumed for July–December. 2022 delivered a full year of on-time, full payments.
Stress returned late 2023, when salaries for October–December went unpaid despite nine full months earlier in the year. 2024 broadly held up, with January–November paid in full and December unpaid. In 2025, salaries were paid January–August, then went unpaid in September and October; November remains pending as of November 4, 2025.
Across the 124 months captured here, employees received 63 months paid in full, 23 months as quarter-payments, 11 months as partial payments, 8 months paid with deductions (18–21%), and 19 months unpaid. Months marked “Not Paid*” in the table were officially recorded as “delayed” but remain uncompensated to date. This timeline illustrates a recurring pattern: when federal transfers or local revenues tighten, arrears first appear as fractional disbursements or cuts before tipping into outright non-payment. The current two-month gap thus fits a well-established cycle that has persisted since mid-2015, underscoring both the depth of the fiscal dispute and the absence of a lasting settlement mechanism.