Iran’s parliament voted on September 20, 2026, to require the Interior Ministry to establish an “Online System for the Registration, Management, and Monitoring of Foreign Communications.” The provision is part of a bill to counter infiltration by foreign intelligence services, governments, and institutions. It places international relationships—including academic cooperation, media work, and business activities—within a registration system accessible to security agencies.

Under Article 10, the Interior Ministry must build the system according to security requirements set by the Ministry of Intelligence and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Intelligence Organization (IRGC-IO). The agencies designated in the bill must receive the full, real-time access they require. The Ministry of Information and Communications Technology is responsible for technical coordination and support.

For people whose work or education depends on international cooperation, the significance is direct: information about their activities and collaborators will enter a government registry, and some partnerships will require approval before they can proceed.

Who Runs the Registry—and Who Gets Access?

Article 10 assigns the Interior Ministry responsibility for establishing the registry within three months of the legislation taking effect. Funding is to come through the annual national budget. Parliament continued reviewing the bill’s provisions on September 27.

The responsibilities are divided across civilian ministries and intelligence agencies. The Interior Ministry builds the system, the communications ministry supports its operation, and the Ministry of Intelligence and IRGC-IO set its security requirements. The designated security agencies receive online access to the records.

This arrangement makes security access part of the registry’s design. Collecting information about foreign partnerships and making it available to intelligence agencies are connected functions of the same system.

“Foreign Agent” Includes Far More Than Intelligence Operatives

Article 2 gives “foreign agent” an expansive meaning. It includes non-Iranian governments, institutions, and organizations, along with individuals and legal entities directly or indirectly supported, employed, directed, supervised, or guided by them. The definition covers people and entities based both inside and outside Iran.

An employment relationship or support from a foreign institution is enough to fall within the wording of this definition. That brings academics, international organization staff, and media professionals into a category commonly associated with espionage, even though the relationships described are routine parts of their work. Falling within the definition does not itself establish a criminal offense; its importance is how broadly the bill identifies the relationships subject to its rules.

Foreign governments are also divided into three tiers. The first covers governments designated as hostile. The second covers governments judged to have planned or carried out actions harmful to the Islamic Republic’s interests in areas including politics, the economy, culture, and security. The Ministry of Intelligence and IRGC-IO propose the second-tier list for approval by the Supreme National Security Council. All remaining governments fall into the third tier. Intelligence agencies therefore help determine how foreign counterparts are classified under the bill.

Scholarships, Journalism, and Cultural Work Fall Within Its Reach

Article 2 lists activities that extend across ordinary professional life. They include financial transactions, the provision of goods and services, legal representation, and legal advice.

Academic work receives particular attention. The list includes publishing books and articles, providing reports and statistics, receiving scholarships and study grants, undertaking research placements, and other forms of university cooperation. Media activities include supplying information, analysis, or advice and establishing or running a publication or website.

The cultural provisions cover workshops, online courses, conferences, festivals, artistic residencies, and the production or exhibition of creative work. Exchanges of medical, genetic, agricultural, and other laboratory samples are included as well.

These categories show how deeply the bill reaches into civilian life. A researcher working with an overseas university, a journalist contributing analysis, or an artist attending a residency would need to consider rules written around the government’s concept of foreign infiltration. The obligations attached to each activity are set out in the bill’s operative provisions and implementing regulations.

The Records Will Identify Collaborators

Article 6, approved on September 2, requires registration of the type of activity and the people associated with it. Activities subject to registration may proceed once the information has been submitted and the system has issued a tracking number.

Recording collaborators gives the registry value beyond the details of any single project. One entry identifies a relationship between an individual and a foreign counterpart. A collection of entries can reveal shared contacts, recurring partnerships, and links between institutions.

That creates a basis for mapping professional and social networks. People submitting information about their own work also disclose connections involving colleagues and partner organizations. Under Article 10, those records become accessible to the security agencies designated in the bill.

Some Partnerships Must Wait for Approval

Article 6 sets a review period of seven working days for activities requiring approval. Officials may extend that period by another seven days by notifying the applicant through the system. If no decision is communicated within the prescribed period, the application is treated as approved.

The Interior Ministry must publish the categories subject to registration within the registry. Implementing regulations will define those categories, with the Interior Ministry proposing the regulations in cooperation with the Ministry of Intelligence and IRGC-IO. The cabinet is responsible for approving them. The duty to register begins once users are given access to the system.

The two intelligence agencies consequently have a role at both ends of the process: they help prepare the registration rules and receive access to the information collected under them. For applicants, the result is an additional condition on international cooperation, with disclosure—and, for certain activities, approval—required before work can begin.

The Same Agencies Also Have Criminal Enforcement Powers

On September 27, parliament approved Article 17, which addresses proposals submitted to bodies covered by the bill. Its provisions apply under specified conditions, including knowledge that the person is supported, supervised, directed, trained, or guided by a foreign party.

The article covers false or incomplete information, omissions, and inaccurate analysis in policy, legislative, or executive proposals that produce the harms listed in the text. Those harms include damage to security and the economy, but also reduced public trust, lower election turnout, and directing votes toward a particular political group.

An accompanying clause designates the Ministry of Intelligence and IRGC-IO as judicial enforcement authorities for this offense and other offenses under the bill. They are responsible for presenting evidence of the foreign relationship, and the person’s knowledge of it, to the competent judicial authority.

Their role therefore extends across rulemaking, access to relationship records, and criminal investigation. This concentration of responsibilities gives the collection of foreign-contact information a clear enforcement context.

The provisions dealing specifically with registration offenses remain part of the parliamentary review. On September 20, Articles 12 through 16 were returned to the National Security Commission after the judiciary said its views had not been obtained.

Making International Cooperation a Security Matter

The registry places government scrutiny before the start of covered activities. Some require a registration record and tracking number; others must also pass an approval process. For people working across borders, these requirements add security oversight to decisions about whom they study with, collaborate with, or provide services to.

The pressure this creates does not depend solely on criminal proceedings. Requiring people to disclose collaborators to a security-accessible registry can discourage partnerships, make organizations reluctant to involve contacts inside Iran, and encourage individuals to avoid activities that could attract official attention.

The central issue is the combination of powers established by the bill: collecting details of activities and associated people, giving security agencies online access, and assigning the Ministry of Intelligence and IRGC-IO roles in both implementation and enforcement. Together, these provisions turn international relationships into records available for security scrutiny—and make that scrutiny a condition of pursuing parts of ordinary professional life.