Irreligion in Iran

Irreligion in Iran has a long historical background. Non-religious citizens are officially unrecognized by the Iranian government. In the official 2011 census, 265,899 persons did not state any religion (0.3% of total population). Between 2017 and 2022, the World Values Survey found that 96.6% of Iranians identified as Muslims, with 1.3% of Iranians identifying as atheists. In the 1999-2004 cycle, the WVS had found 1% of Iranians had identified as atheists.

However, a 2020 social media-based survey conducted by GAMAAN found a much larger percentage of Iranians identifying as atheists (8.8%), as well as a larger fraction of Iranians (22.2%) identifying as not following any religion. Nonetheless, the reliability of the survey has been questioned, as it used self-selecting participants reached through social media and chain referrals. For comparison, the same survey put the number of Muslims in Iran at 40.4%, and Zoroastrians at 7.7%. The Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America put the number of Zoroastrians in Iran at up to 25,271 in 2012, equivalent to 0.03% of an 87.6 million population.

Under Iranian law, apostasy from Islam is punishable by death (although not practiced much). Non-religious Iranians are officially unrecognized by the government, and one must declare oneself as a member of one of the four recognized faiths in order to avail oneself of many of the rights of citizenship.

Citizens of the Islamic Republic of Iran are officially divided into four categories: Muslims, Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians. This official division ignores other religious minorities in Iran, notably the agnostics, atheists and Bahá'ís.