Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the barriers and challenges to international interactions of the faculty members in Iran. Design/methodology/approach: To achieve the purpose, a qualitative phenomenological approach was used. The research population was all experts in the field of higher education in Iran, it included 17 experts who were selected through purposeful sampling by snowball method and based on theoretical saturation. To collect the data, a semi-structured interview was used and for the data analysis, an inductive content analysis was applied. Findings: The findings showed that the barriers and challenges to faculty members' international interactions can be defined through three main barriers: inside university barriers, outside university barriers, and individual barriers. Practical implications: This research identified the barriers and challenges of faculty members' international interactions in Iran. The method of this study can be applied in other applied fields as well. Originality/value: This study adds to the authors' knowledge about international interactions of the faculty members and also the barriers and challenges of these interactions, so to have more interactions of faculty members at the international level, universities should make an effort to identify barriers and eliminate them, more than ever.