The True Cost of Iran’s War: Far More Than $25 Billion

The Trump administration asserts that the initial two months of the United States’ confrontation with Iran cost taxpayers roughly $25 billion—but the true price tag for this undeclared, unlawful conflict is significantly higher.

That official figure was presented to members of Congress at an April 29 hearing, when acting Pentagon Comptroller Jules Hurst III stated that we were “spending about $25 billion on Operation Epic Fury.” He later clarified that this figure “reflects the munitions that have been spent to date and other operational costs.” In plain terms, it covers only the direct military expenditures of the war: bombs dropped, missiles fired, and equipment destroyed.

Although that estimate is already nearly two weeks old, it remains the administration’s most straightforward reply to one of the many open questions about the conflict. It also, clearly, omits a lot.

A more comprehensive estimate comes from Stephen Semler, a journalist who co-founded the Security Policy Reform Institute. In a Substack post last week, Semler estimated that the war had cost nearly $72 billion in its first 60 days.

That figure accounts for the costs of operations, weapons, damaged and destroyed U.S. military assets, and wartime subsidies to Israel.

“The $25 billion war cost given by Pentagon Secretary Hegseth and acting Comptroller Hurst before Congress was a lie,” Semler wrote. “It was a denial of the Iran War’s spiraling costs, one of several foreseen consequences of the Trump administration’s decision to go to war.”

Semler isn’t the only skeptic. In the long run, the “Iran war will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, and very possibly trillions,” wrote University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers in an op-ed published Friday by The New York Times. Wolfers’ projection extends beyond military outlays to include the rising price of oil, a likely uptick in inflation, higher interest rates to combat inflation, and the slower economic growth that would result from all of that.

“If it takes a couple of years for the economy to return to normal, that slower growth rate would mean around $400 billion in lost income,” Wolfers concludes.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s estimate of direct military costs is likely understating even that total. In early April, the Penn Wharton Budget Model projected that two months of war with Iran would cost between $38 billion and $47 billion. In fact, the cost had already surpassed $25 billion in the first 32 days of the conflict, according to that model.

It’s important to remember that the Trump administration asked Congress for $200 billion to cover the war’s costs in March.

The direct military and budgetary costs of the war—whatever they end up being—do not provide a complete tally.

The economic cost of the war has already exceeded $37 billion, according to an ongoing estimate from Brown University’s Watson School of International and Public Affairs. That total includes more than $20 billion in higher gasoline prices paid by Americans since the war began on February 28, when the average price for a gallon of gas was under $3. By Monday, the average had risen to about $4.52 per gallon.

That figure aligns roughly with the nearly $24 billion in higher gas prices that Americans have paid since the start of the conflict, according to Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy.

In other words, even if the military cost of the war is no larger than the Pentagon’s official estimate, the overall price tag effectively doubles once the economic impact of higher fuel prices is included.

There are other unknowns as well. Does the Pentagon’s estimate include the cost of rebuilding American military bases in the Middle East that have been damaged or destroyed by Iranian missiles? Hurst’s testimony suggests it does not. There are also the ongoing expenses of medical care for the wounded, and indeed the broader human cost of the conflict: 13 Americans killed, more than 300 wounded, and thousands of casualties (including dozens of schoolchildren) in Iran and neighboring nations.

At that same April 29 hearing with the House Armed Services Committee, Hurst promised that the administration would request a supplemental appropriation from Congress to cover the Iran war, and he said the request would “come to Congress once we have a full assessment of the cost of the conflict.”

When that assessment arrives, lawmakers should anticipate a bill that is significantly higher than $25 billion.

This is one reason the Constitution requires presidents to seek approval from Congress before starting wars. So that the elected representatives of the American people can debate the potential costs, fiscal and otherwise, rather than simply being expected to cover the bill for a reckless and pointless conflict.