TEHRAN – Tourism Minister Reza Salehi-Amiri has said that 3.5 million religious tourists from Iraq, the Persian Gulf region, Central Asia, and the Caucasus traveled to Iran during the past Persian year (1403), which ended on March 20, 2025.

According to data compiled by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts, Iran registered 7.3 million foreign tourist arrivals in 1403. The ministry said the figures follow internationally recognized tourism definitions, counting anyone who spends at least one night in Iran as a traveler, including Iranian expatriates and foreign nationals.

The ministry also reported record domestic travel during the two-week Nowruz holidays of 1404, with more than 36 million trips documented. It said the data was collected through mobile phone tracking to determine travelers’ final destinations, reducing errors and duplicate counts.

Earlier this year, Salehi-Amiri has underlined that the ministry’s data-gathering methods are based on scientific and verifiable sources. “We speak the language of statistics, and our data is rooted in reliable and verifiable sources,” he said. He added that the ministry will hold a technical meeting with private-sector representatives to review the figures further.

Previously published data showed 6.38 million foreign arrivals in 1402 and 4.23 million in 1401.

According to the minister, some 4.5 million tourists visited the Islamic Republic during the first half of the current Iranian year (March–September 2025). Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a Cabinet meeting, he said tourism flows in October and November had returned to conditions seen before the 12-day Israeli war, according to the Mehr news agency.

He said he expected an increase in tourist numbers by the end of the year compared with 1403.

Salehi-Amiri said developing health tourism is a priority for the ministry. “A comprehensive medical tourism system has been designed in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Labor, the Social Security Organization, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and other relevant agencies, which will be unveiled soon,” he said.

He said Iran currently receives more than one million health tourists each year and aims to double that number and generate €6 billion by the end of the Seventh National Development Plan.

Iran seeks to capitalize on its tourism assets, including bazaars, museums, mosques, bridges, bathhouses, madrasas, mausoleums, churches, towers, and mansions, 29 of which are listed as UNESCO World Heritage sites.

AM