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Christian converts from Islam
Beginning in the 1970s some Protestant pastors started to hold church services in homes in Persian, rather than in one of the ethnic Christian minority languages (Armenian, Syriac). One of the key leaders who spearheaded this movement was the Assemblies of God bishop Haik Hovsepian Mehr. Worshiping in homes, rather than in church buildings, and utilizing the national language (Persian) which was spoken by all Muslims, combined with dissatisfaction at violence connected to the Iranian Revolution led to substantial numbers of Iranian Muslims departing Islam and converting to Christianity. This took place both within Iran and abroad, among the Iranian diaspora.

Muslims who change their faith to Christianity are subject to societal and official pressure which may lead to the death penalty. Although the Civil Code does not provide explicitly for the death penalty – with the crime being punishable by fines, lashing, and prison terms – judges can impose the death penalty if they desire. In 2011, Youcef Nadarkhani, an Jammiat-e Rabbani pastor, was allegedly sentenced to death for refusing to recant his faith. More recently the Iranian-American pastor and former Muslim Saeed Abedini, who in 2013 was sentenced to eight years prison, allegedly "Helped to build the country’s underground Christian church network". Iranian official sources have denied these claims.

Satellite TV networks, such as Mohabat TV, Sat7 Pars, and TBN Nejat TV distribute educational and encouraging programs for Christians, especially targeting Persian speakers. Some Christian ex-Muslims emigrate from Iran for educational, political, security or economic reasons.

It is difficult to obtain accurate figures for Protestants of all denominations and Catholics in Iran. Complicating the matter is the mixture of ethnic identity with religious affiliation, and the number of Muslim converts to Christianity, who as discussed above have a strong incentive to conceal themselves. Most informants often referred to "only a few thousand" in estimating the overall numbers of non-ethnic Christians in Iran. According to the data from the mid 1990s, all Protestant churches in Iran claimed an ethnic and Iranian membership of 5,000, 8,000, 10,000 or 15,000. A 2015 study estimated (describing this as a conservative estimate) that there were 100,000 Christian believers from a Muslim background living in Iran, most of them evangelical or Pentecostal Christians.

There are some officially recognized ethnically Iranian Christian communities, as the descendants of Muslims who converted to Protestant Christianity in 19th century were exempted from the laws passed in 1979.