Duolingo English Test No Longer Available for Iranian ID Holders; Test Costs $70
The official statement from the Duolingo English Test specifies that the exam is not available in Iran and is also not available to users holding Iranian identification documents. The restrictions are not only based on IP addresses; identity verification fails, and individuals physically overseas cannot take the test either. The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control indefinitely suspended the general license G for Iran starting August 24, which had authorized Americans to provide educational services such as standardized tests for college admissions and vocational certifications to individuals in Iran or those who usually reside there since 2014. Concurrently, licenses for educational activities in third countries, personal remittances to Iran, conference services, and sports exchanges (license F) were also suspended. The cleanup license BB only allows transactions authorized before to be settled until September 8 at 00:01 EDT.
The text of license G stated that Americans could conduct vocational certification exams and college entrance exams for individuals located in Iran or those who are outside but usually reside in Iran, including multiple standardized tests, and provide services required for admission to U.S. institutions. After the suspension, U.S. companies can no longer conduct business solely based on this general license and must apply for specific licenses instead. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described these measures as cutting off the economic ties of the Iranian regime. The Duolingo English Test is a product of a U.S. company, typically priced at around $70 per test, completed online, and was originally a low-cost pathway for Iranians applying to overseas institutions.
Similar testing venues are shrinking. IELTS withdrew from Iran in January. TOEFL's resource site stated that Iran has long been among its top ten or even top five sources of traffic, with appointments after September 5 being fully booked, as if the program is winding down. The university cooperation office has reminded faculty that online courses, exchanges, and conferences for individuals in Iran may need to be re-evaluated. Test-takers changing their IP or traveling to neighboring countries, as long as they submit an Iranian passport or identification documents, still do not meet the new rules.
The applicants who rely on scores as admission tickets are under pressure, not the main business of the testing companies. Since going public, the English test for Duolingo has only been a part of its revenue, with compliance costs outweighing the loss of a single nationality customer base. If U.S. institutions continue to accept Duolingo scores, it implies that they are tacitly allowing those holding Iranian documents to take other subjects that are still open or apply to schools that do not require U.S. company tests.
September 8 is a liquidation date, not a reopening date. The approval of specific licenses is not on the same scale as the bulk release of the general license.
In market mechanisms, sellers can no longer export testing services to Iranian residents, while buyers are study abroad applicants who have lost access to affordable online testing slots. Transactions are driven by the rewritten sanctions terms, not by a disappearance of demand. Funds are stuck in registration and score sending fees. Beneficiaries are those who can still take tests in third countries with non-Iranian documents and those who switch to channels that do not involve U.S. testing agencies; the pressured parties are students applying this season with Iranian passports and programs that rely on these scores for bulk admissions.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
The general license G was an educational loophole left over from the 2014 nuclear negotiations: standardized tests were written as services that could be exported. Suspending it indefinitely along with remittances, conferences, and sports as of August 2026 effectively retracts the old exception that 'students are not the regime.' Duolingo first changed its help center to state 'Iranian documents are not usable,' as the company's lawyers treated the passport field as a sanctions filter to avoid OFAC inquiries about why they were providing entrance exams to individuals who usually reside in Iran.
The capital pathway is very short. The $70 registration fee is negligible for a public company, but fines and bank supply cuts are not. IELTS left in January, and TOEFL is cutting appointments during the cleanup period; U.S. testing operations are withdrawing from Iranian accounts. Applicants' funds will reroute to testing agencies, language classes, or third-country identification documents that are still open; they will not disappear, just become more expensive, slower, and with fewer options.
In comparison, Cuba's educational general license remains partially effective, while North Korea has almost no exceptions. Iran has regressed from being able to take U.S. entrance exams to being in the same basket as conferences and remittances. The industry phase is a compliance contraction of educational services, not a shrinkage of the English proficiency market.
The structural change is regulatory change. The mechanism is: once the general license is revoked, U.S. companies are responsible for both 'where the person is' and 'where the document is issued'; online testing relies on remote elimination of geography, while identification documents reintroduce geography into the system. Sanctions target the channels, and students in those channels are the first to encounter locks.
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