Strait of Hormuz Live Tracker & Monitor, updated 27 OCT 2026 · 1609Z
Closed.
to commercial shipping · by transit count
The Strait of Hormuz is the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that carries close to a fifth of the world’s oil. This page tracks, live, whether ships are getting through. New here? Start here →
Shipping in the Strait of Hormuz is under fresh attack, disrupting transit, and the latest official PortWatch count is 4 vessels on October 18 at 5% of typical; Brent crude is trading at $114.09; crisis pressure at 88 (extreme) and the Escalation Forecast at 60 (high).
Auto-composed from the live figures · not hand-written
DisruptedStrait under attack
The stakes
Pump figure modeled from live Brent · odds market-implied · not forecasts
vs pre-crisis ~$72 ~+58%
Front-month futures · ~15 min delay
Hormuz Indexv0.7.20
How this is computed →Our two 0–100 gauges: how disrupted the strait is right now, and how much escalation markets price in. Read the second as a direction of travel, not a forecast for any fixed day.
On OCT 18, IMF PortWatch's most recent published day, commercial transit through the Strait reached 5% of the pre-crisis vessel count: 4 vessels against a typical 85 per day. War-risk insurance for tankers priced at 32.0× pre-crisis as of 7 Oct, our last trade-press read, with 6 P&I clubs having cancelled war cover for charterers and other non-mutual liability in March 2026 (buy-back cover has been offered since). Brent has moved -1.71% in the past twenty-four hours.
Commercial transits
OCT 18 · vs typical 85/day
4
−81 vs pre-crisis
Throughput
% of pre-crisis typical
5%
−95pp vs pre-crisis
War-risk insurance
as of 7 Oct
The cost to insure one supertanker for the passage, vs peacetime.
32.0×est.
+3100% vs pre-crisis
PortWatch counts AIS-broadcasting crossings only. Tankers crossing with transponders off are not counted, and trade press reports such crossings, so true flow runs higher than the figure above.
- 01
Iran is keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed as seven conditions stall US negotiations, per AL Circle; the report is unverified and single-source.
- 02
The Houthis say they struck Saudi Arabia's Ras Tanura refinery with a ballistic missile, per gCaptain; Riyadh has not confirmed the claim.
- 03
Brent stood at $113.65, down 2.09% over 24 hours, as of 15:44 UTC; IMF PortWatch recorded 4 transits on October 18, against a pre-crisis baseline of 85 per day.
Situation
The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed to commercial traffic, with IMF PortWatch recording 4 transits on October 18 against a pre-crisis baseline of 85 per day. AL Circle, citing an unverified single source, reports that Iran is holding the strait closed as seven conditions stall negotiations between Iran and the United States; that framing aligns with parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf's October 4 statement that the strait will not open until Iran's conditions, rooted in the June Islamabad Memorandum, are met. Al Jazeera reports that Tehran remains firm on its demands despite diplomatic urgency around the ongoing US-Israeli conflict. Separately, per Iranian state media, a tanker caught fire after hitting a naval mine east of the strait; no maritime authority has confirmed that claim, and it repeats a pattern of unconfirmed mine-strike reports that US Central Command has previously disputed. On the second front, Yemen's Houthis say they struck Saudi Arabia's Ras Tanura refinery with a ballistic missile, per gCaptain; Riyadh has not confirmed the claim. Brent stood at $113.65, down 2.09% over 24 hours, as of 15:44 UTC; WTI stood at $99.97. The feed indexed 17 headlines in the past 24 hours. As of 15:52 UTC, 143 AIS-visible vessels were holding position away from berth in the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf watch box, a count that leaves out ships within 25km of a working port. On the Hormuz Index, Crisis Pressure, the state composite, sits in the extreme band, with its value set by physical transit deviation alone; the Escalation Forecast sits in the high band, with the Brent-WTI forward spread as its top contributor.
AI-assisted · refreshed daily at 12:00 UTC · more often in crisisAll briefs →
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I.
At sea.
Live vessel mix, dark tankers, the carriers who have suspended Hormuz transits, and a rolling reading of stranded-vessel pressure.
Vessels moving in the Gulf, by type.
Vessel mixVessels grouped by type. A Capesize bulker and a VLCC are not the same signal for an energy desk. 180 vessels anywhere in the Gulf tracking box moved between two position reports in the past hour; 4 of them are inside the strait window itself. A first sighting, or a fix over an hour old, counts as neither moving nor holding, so this isn't a ceiling.
Tankers
Crude, products, LNG and chemical carriers.
16
19 Oct 21h27 Oct 15hCargo
Container, bulk, vehicle and general cargo.
49
19 Oct 21h27 Oct 15hOther
Passenger, fishing, tugs and unclassified traffic.
115
19 Oct 21h27 Oct 15hMilitary
Naval, coast-guard and law-enforcement vessels. A floor, not a census: warships routinely transit with AIS switched off.
0
19 Oct 21h27 Oct 15h
Tankers gone dark.
Dark-tanker count135
tankers · last 24hof 233 screened▲ vs 7d baseline 99.8
Tankers that were broadcasting actively on inside the strait core area and have stopped transmitting for between 3 and 24 hours. The screen is tankers only, with 50 or more sightings, last positioned inside the core area: a narrower population than the 9,085 vessels of every type ever recorded in the wider bbox since monitoring began.
That is 135 of 233 tankers that met the screen. Non-tankers that met the same screen went dark at 28.9% on the identical test. The tanker rate (57.9%) is running 2.0x the whole-box ambient rate (28.9%), but within the same waters, compared cell by cell, 135 tankers went dark against about 125 expected at the ambient rate there, so the excess is not distinguishable from ambient dropout. Read the count as a floor on hulls we stopped receiving, not a verified evasion tally.
Baseline averages the count over the last 168 hourly samples.
Dark-fleet identities (API) → Match methodology →
AIS-derived · 26m agoSurface effects
Container carriers.
CarriersThe nine largest container carriers by global TEU capacity, with their declared posture for Strait of Hormuz transit and any dollar figure a carrier notice states, per container or per TEU as the carrier quotes it. The surcharge and stranded-vessel figures are indicative editorial estimates, not contracted rates or confirmed tallies; each row links to the carrier’s own advisory.Posture key: Rerouting means Hormuz calls dropped but cargo still moving, via the Cape or escorted convoys; Suspended means no transits and no reroute announced. A carrier’s own advisory may say “suspended” about its Hormuz calls while we class the line as rerouting because its cargo still sails.Read the Hormuz figure, not the posture counts, for whether the strait is being used. Most of these lines moved Asia–Europe services to the Cape of Good Hope, which is a Red Sea decision and says nothing about Hormuz. 5 of 9 advisories describe stopping Hormuz or Gulf service, 0 describe reduced or escorted service still running, and 4 make no claim about the strait either way. The verdict counts only advisories from the last 60 days: that’s 1 of the 5, not all 5.
Hormuz stopped
5
of 9 · 1 in the verdict · 0 limited · 4 unstated
Rerouting
8
0 suspended
Stranded
n/a
no carrier count from the last 60 days
- 01
MSC
Mediterranean Shipping Company routes Asia–Europe services via the Cape of Good Hope. Its March advisory suspended Middle East bookings and told ships in the area to shelter; it has published no vessel count since.
MSC · Customer advisory, March 2026, and Ship & Bunker, 2 March 2026 →Reroutingsince MAR 1 - 02
Maersk
Maersk has suspended bookings to Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Gulf ports, Jordan and most UAE ports. It discharges at Fujairah and Khor Fakkan, outside the strait, and moves cargo overland to Jebel Ali, and it charges USD 1,000 a container on any vessel that transits the Strait of Hormuz, on top of an Emergency Freight rate. Its Update 46 of 11 September 2026 sets that rate at USD 1,800 per 20-foot dry container, USD 3,000 per 40-foot dry container and USD 3,800 per reefer, special or dangerous-goods container, on cargo loading from or bound for Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia (Dammam and Jubail), Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Oman (except Salalah). The surcharge figure shown is the USD 1,000 per-container transit fee, not the Emergency Freight rate. It said on 25 June that three of its vessels remained in the Gulf.
Maersk · Middle East Operational Update 46 →Rerouting$1.0k/containersince MAR 2 - 03
CMA CGM
CMA CGM has activated Cape of Good Hope routing for all Asia–Europe services. Its chief financial officer said on the second-quarter earnings call on 30 July that eight of its vessels were inside the Gulf and unable to exit through the strait.
CMA CGM Q2 earnings call, via WorldCargo News →Reroutingsince MAR 58 stranded as of JUL 30 - 04
COSCO
COSCO Shipping suspended all new Middle East bookings on 4 March, then resumed Far East bookings by landbridge on 25 March. Two of its container ships crossed the strait in late March through the Larak Island corridor; it has not published a Gulf posture or vessel count since.
WorldCargo News, Datamar News (4 March 2026), Container News (27 March 2026) →Limitedsince MAR 4 - 05
Hapag-Lloyd
Hapag-Lloyd has suspended Hormuz transits and reroutes via the Cape. On 4 May 2026 it reopened Upper Gulf bookings via Sharjah feeders. By 1 July it had moved all four of its vessels out of the Gulf.
WorldCargo News, Container News (4 May 2026) →Reroutingsince MAR 30 stranded as of JUL 1 - 06
ONE
Ocean Network Express suspended new bookings to and from the Persian Gulf on 2 March 2026, citing safety for crew, vessels and cargo. No advisory newer than that has been found.
ONE · Temporary Suspension of Bookings to and from the Persian Gulf, 2 March 2026 →Reroutingsince MAR 2 - 07
Evergreen
Evergreen Marine suspended new bookings to Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia (except Jeddah) and Iraq's Umm Qasr port on 5 March 2026, citing crew and vessel safety. No advisory newer than that has been found.
Container News, 5 March 2026, citing Evergreen Marine advisory →Reroutingsince MAR 5 - 08
HMM
HMM declared a service deviation for cargo linked to the Arabian Gulf, Red Sea and Horn of Africa on 11 March 2026 and said it would invoke its bill of lading rights over affected shipments. The Container News report cites a deviation recovery cost of USD 1,000 per container. No advisory newer than that has been found.
Container News, 11 March 2026, citing HMM advisory →Rerouting$1.0k/containersince MAR 11 - 09
Yang Ming
Yang Ming's revision of its GS2 service was reported on 26 March 2026. Its advisory of 20 April covers Khor Fakkan and Sohar, with normal routing to resume once conditions allow. No advisory newer than that has been found.
Container News, 20 April 2026, citing Yang Ming advisory, and 26 March 2026 →Reroutingsince MAR 26
AIS pulse.
AIS pulseHolding offshore · 8d
143
at anchor away from port, many off Dubaino trend: coverage moved 19%
Per-port pressure across 4 Gulf and bypass ports (counts, tanker mix, congestion scores) at the ports page →
Per-port pressure across Gulf and bypass ports is at the ports page; sanctioned-vessel cross-referencing at the sanctioned-vessels page; pipeline bypass capacity at the pipelines page; LNG cargo exposure and the country-level demand at risk at the LNG-supply page; the Cape of Good Hope reroute, explained, at the reroute page; and peer-chokepoint comparison at the chokepoints page.
II.
Markets.
Prediction-market odds on duration and probability of a wider regional war, and Iran's open-market currency under pressure.
What the market expects.
Prediction marketsImplied probabilities from Kalshi and Polymarket: public, dollar-weighted markets where traders price contracts on Hormuz, Iran, and broader Middle East outcomes. Forward-looking where the rest of the page is backward-looking.
Reopening
Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by December 31?Polymarket$15.7M volcloses 31 Dec 2026
12%
market price
Reopening
Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by October 31?Polymarket$3.5M volcloses 31 Oct 2026
<1%
market price
Reopening
Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by November 30?Polymarket$1.1M volcloses 30 Nov 2026
6%
market price
Reopening
Will the 7-day moving average of transit calls through the Strait of Hormuz as reported by the IMF PortWatch be above 60 before July 1, 2027? (Before Jul 1, 2027)Kalshi1.6M contractscloses 1 Jul 2027
32%
market price
Reopening
Will the 7-day moving average of transit calls through the Strait of Hormuz as reported by the IMF PortWatch be above 60 before January 1, 2027? (Before Jan 1, 2027)Kalshi3.5M contractscloses 5 Jan 2027
9%
market price
Reopening
Will the 7-day moving average of transit calls through the Strait of Hormuz as reported by the IMF PortWatch be above 60 before April 1, 2027? (Before Apr 1, 2027)Kalshi847K contractscloses 1 Apr 2027
21%
market price
Currency pressure
Tehran open-market rate.
Iranian toman269,350
Toman per USD · Tehran open-market mid
Buy 268,000Sell 270,700
24h -0.80%7d +1.96%
The black-market USD rate Tehran’s trading houses quote when transacting. The government’s official rate is an administratively set, subsidized rate that sits far below what the open market charges and is not a price most Iranians can actually buy dollars at; the figure above is the rate they pay.
Watch this number when headlines break. It’s a stress gauge for Iran’s economy: when people rush into hard currency, the rial price of a dollar climbs.
Downstream trade-diversion impact (the extra voyage time, the fleet-capacity squeeze, and the countries most exposed to a prolonged reroute) at the Cape reroute page. War-risk insurance dynamics, how the JWC listing translates into premium multiples and lay-up clauses, at the war-risk insurance page; and how a Brent spike propagates to retail gasoline, diesel, and container freight at the oil-price impact page.
III.
Events.
The indexed chronology of strikes, maritime incidents, formal closures, and diplomatic activity that defines this crisis.
Recent events.
Chronology- 01
Diplomatic
Iran’s calculations as US escalation looms: Trust, midterms, Hormuz
Tehran remains firm on demands despite diplomatic urgency to prevent escalation in the ongoing US-Israeli conflict.
- 02
Maritime
Oil Tanker Catches Fire After Hitting Naval Mine Near Strait of Hormuz
- 03
Diplomatic
Qatar urges Iran to reopen Strait of Hormuz amid US mediation efforts
- 04
Diplomatic
The Emir of Qatar and the Iranian President discuss negotiations and the Strait of Hormuz in Moscow.
- 05
Military
Yemen's Houthis Say They Hit Saudi Ras Tanura Oil Refinery With Missile
emen's Iran-aligned Houthis said on Tuesday they had hit Saudi Arabia's Ras Tanura oil refinery, the ?biggest in the kingdom, with a ballistic missile.
- 06
Military
From Israeli missiles to the Strait of Hormuz: 5 reasons why Netanyahu’s election fate matters to India...
- 07
Closure
Iran keeps Strait of Hormuz closed as seven conditions stall US negotiations
- 08
Diplomatic
Trump describes a ceasefire with Iran as a "waste of time," while highlighting the decline in oil prices and the protection of the Strait of Hormuz
Active negotiation tracks, mediators, and back-channel work at the peace-talks page.
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