Iranians Return Online After One of the Longest Shutdowns

A blackout lifted

Iranians returned online after enduring one of the world's longest and strictest national internet shutdowns. President Masoud Pezeshkian ordered the end of the blackout on May 25, and Iran partially restored internet access on May 26 in the days that followed.

The cutoff had been imposed on January 8, 2026, during protests and was extended after the US-Israel attacks on Iran. It stretched across most of 2026 for roughly 90 million people, ranking among the world's longest and strictest national shutdowns.

Connectivity returns, slowly

The internet monitor NetBlocks reported connectivity at roughly 86% of pre-cutoff capacity. Even so, service remained slow, and apps such as YouTube and Instagram stayed heavily restricted despite the broader restoration.

The partial nature of the rollback meant many Iranians regained access without a full return to normal online life, with heavy limits still in place on widely used platforms.

A costly outage

The economic damage was substantial. The cutoff was estimated to cost between $30 million and $40 million daily in direct losses, compounding the strain on businesses and individuals over the long months it remained in force. Spread across most of 2026, those daily losses mounted into a heavy toll on the economy.

For Azerbaijan, the partial reopening of its southern neighbor's internet signals a degree of de-escalation tied to the broader regional ceasefire talks now under way between Washington and Tehran.