Iran has recovered only around $3 billion of frozen assets so far since signing its nuclear deal with world powers, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has said.
U.S. Republicans and other opponents of the deal often warned that Tehran would reap a huge "windfall" from the return of money long frozen under U.S. sanctions.
"Remember the debate over how much money Iran was going to get?" Kerry said at a dinner hosted by the J Street group.
"You heard some of the presidential candidates putting out a mistaken figure of $155 billion. I never thought it would be that. Others thought it would be about $100 billion."
Kerry said the State Department came up with an estimate of about $55 billion "when you really take a hard look at the economy and what is happening," but "guess what folks. You know how much they have received to date?... About $3 billion."
Kerry made his remarks on the eve of a meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, In New York to address Iranian complaints that it has not received the relief expected from the lifting of economic sanctions.