About Us

About CostOfIranWar.com

CostOfIranWar.com is an independent, nonpartisan data journalism project dedicated to tracking and publishing real-time financial data related to the United States military operation in Iran, officially designated Operation Epic Fury, which began on February 28, 2026.

Our Mission

We believe that citizens in a democracy have a fundamental right to know how their government spends their money—especially in times of war. Our mission is simple: to make the financial cost of the Iran conflict visible, understandable, and impossible to ignore.

War budgets are complicated. Pentagon appropriations run into thousands of pages of dense legislative text. Billions of dollars move through supplemental appropriations, emergency authorizations, and classified black-budget accounts that rarely receive mainstream media attention. We cut through that complexity and present the numbers in a format anyone can understand: a live counter, updated every second, showing the total estimated cost of America’s military engagement with Iran.

How We Build Our Numbers

Our calculations are grounded in verified, publicly available data from authoritative primary sources:

• The Pentagon briefing to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense (March 11, 2026), which confirmed $11.3 billion in costs for the first six days of operations.
• Analysis by CSIS analysts Mark Cancian and John Park, which estimated cumulative costs of $16.5 billion by day 12 of the campaign.
• The Penn Wharton Budget Model, which projects direct costs of $40–$95 billion and total economic impact potentially exceeding $210 billion.
• Reports from NBC News, the Washington Post, UPI, and other major news organizations citing Pentagon and White House officials.
• Data from the IRS Statistics of Income Division (approximately 150 million individual taxpayers) and the US Census Bureau (approximately 131 million households) for per-capita calculations.

We use a piecewise linear interpolation model that transitions between verified data anchors and extrapolates forward using confirmed burn-rate estimates. Full methodology details are available on our Methodology page.

What We Are — And What We Are Not

We are a data and economic analysis platform. We do not take positions on whether the war is justified, strategically sound, or morally defensible. We do not publish opinion pieces advocating for or against US military policy. We present verified financial data and let readers draw their own conclusions.

We are not affiliated with any political party, government agency, military contractor, foreign government, or advocacy organization. We accept no advertising from defense industry companies. Our operational costs are covered independently.

Our Team

CostOfIranWar.com is run by a small team of data journalists, economists, and web developers with backgrounds in public finance, defense budgeting, and investigative reporting. We draw on expertise in US federal budgeting, military procurement, and macroeconomic modeling to ensure our numbers are as accurate as currently available data allows.

Transparency and Corrections

We are committed to transparency. If we make an error, we correct it promptly and note the correction publicly. If new verified data becomes available that requires us to revise our model, we update immediately and document what changed and why. We welcome scrutiny from researchers, journalists, and members of the public.

Contact Us

For questions about our data, methodology, or to report an error, please reach us at info@costofiranwar.com. For media inquiries, please use the same address with “MEDIA” in the subject line.