Kurdistan rejects Baghdad figure, insists on 14.14% budget share

The emblem of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), 2026. Photo: KRG/via iKurd.net

KRG to Baghdad: 14.14%, Not 12.68%

ERBIL,— The Kurdistan Regional Government’s caretaker cabinet on Wednesday pushed back against a federal decision that set the region’s share of Iraq’s population at 12.68%, a figure tied directly to how much funding the region will get from the 2027 budget.

The cabinet ordered officials to pursue legal steps to force Baghdad to use the results of the 2024 census instead.

In a statement issued after its weekly session, the Council of Ministers said the approved results of the General Population and Housing Census put the Kurdistan Region’s share of the country’s population at 14.14%, not 12.68%.

Ministers called getting the population ratio right a “fundamental issue” that shapes the region’s financial and constitutional rights.

They said the number affects the federal budget, how public money is divided, the region’s seats in federal bodies, and its representation in Iraqi embassies abroad.

The dispute stems from Iraq’s continued use of population figures from the 2022 federal budget law, which the Kurdistan Region says are outdated and do not match the 2024 census.

That census counted Iraq’s total population at 46,118,793 people, not including foreign residents, figures released by the state-run Iraqi News Agency.

People in Erbil city, Iraqi Kurdistan, 2014. Photo: Creative Commons/Omar Harran/flickr-

The Kurdistan Region Statistics Office put the region’s population at 6,519,129, which it says works out to a 14.24% share under the 2024 numbers.

Erbil and Baghdad have clashed over budget shares since 2014, when a fight over the Kurdistan Region’s independent oil exports to Turkey turned into a long-running political and financial standoff.

That standoff has led to late and irregular paychecks for public workers in the Kurdistan Region, with some employees going without pay for several months at a stretch in multiple years.

Promotions have also been frozen, and money has been cut from pension funds.

Under the three-year federal budget law passed in 2022, the Kurdistan Region’s share was fixed at about 12.5% once so-called sovereign spending, such as defense and foreign affairs, was subtracted.

Responding to the lower federal number, the Council of Ministers told the Ministry of Planning, the Ministry of Justice and the Cabinet Secretariat on Wednesday to work together and use every constitutional, legal and judicial option available to fix the percentage and make sure the official census results are followed.

The decision comes as Erbil finalizes its demands ahead of new budget legislation, which the federal government is drafting and hopes to complete before the end of the year.

A source at the region’s finance ministry told Rudaw TV earlier this month that a KRG delegation’s recent trip to Baghdad had laid the groundwork for a month of in-depth budget talks.

“We are heading to a month of extensive discussions with Baghdad,” the source said, adding that the talks would cover the region’s financial needs and legal duties in full.

The source also addressed federal plans to switch from traditional budgeting to a program-and-performance-based model, saying it remains a pilot project limited to Diwaniya and Salahadin provinces and has no connection to the Kurdistan Region’s budget share.

(With files from Rudaw)