Strait of Hormuz Live Tracker & Monitor, updated 22 SEP 2026 · 2022Z
Closed.
to commercial shipping · by war-risk insurance
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 →
Per IMF PortWatch, 1 vessel transited the Strait of Hormuz on September 20 at 1% of typical, effectively closed to commercial shipping, even as Iran ties any reopening to its own conditions with Brent down 1.7%; crisis pressure at 86 (extreme).
Auto-composed from the live figures · not hand-written
Contestedsome shipping resumed · US blockade lifted · 1 via PortWatch (September 20)
The stakes
Pump figure modeled from live Brent · odds market-implied · not forecasts
vs pre-crisis ~$72 +36.7%
Front-month futures · ~15 min delay
Hormuz Indexv0.7.2
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 SEP 20, IMF PortWatch's most recent published day, commercial transit through the Strait reached 1% of pre-crisis volume: 1 vessel against a typical 85 per day. War-risk insurance for tankers prices at 40.0× pre-crisis on the latest trade-press read, with 6 P&I clubs withdrawing cover. Brent has moved -1.66% in the past twenty-four hours.
Commercial transits
SEP 20 · vs typical 85/day
1
−84 vs pre-crisis
Throughput
% of pre-crisis typical
1%
−99pp vs pre-crisis
War-risk insurance
VLCC ≈ $10.0M
The cost to insure one supertanker for the passage, vs peacetime.
40.0×est.
+3900% vs pre-crisis
PortWatch counts AIS-broadcasting crossings only. Vessels that stop transmitting are not captured, and most of that gap looks like ordinary reception loss rather than deliberate evasion, so true flow may run higher than the figure above.
- 01
The Guardian and gCaptain report Iran has offered to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if the US eases its blockade, but Apa.az reports Iranian officials deny any such plans exist.
- 02
UKMTO reports an LPG tanker was hit by debris from unknown projectiles in the Strait of Hormuz, with two crew members injured; the attacker has not been identified in independent reporting.
- 03
IMF PortWatch recorded 1 transit on 2026-09-20 against a pre-crisis baseline of 85 per day; Brent stood at $99.79, down 0.15% over 24 hours, as of 17:49 UTC.
Situation
The Strait of Hormuz remains at the center of a disputed and rapidly shifting diplomatic and operational picture. The Guardian and gCaptain report that an Iranian official said Iran could reopen the strait within seven days if Washington lifted its blockade, a proposal that has drawn global attention and helped push Brent to $99.79, down 0.15% over 24 hours, as of 17:49 UTC. Apa.az reports that Iranian officials deny any such plans exist, leaving the proposal actively contested within the same window. The site's own reading of IMF PortWatch data records 1 transit on 2026-09-20, against a pre-crisis baseline of 85 per day, consistent with the severely constrained throughput picture that has persisted since February. On the incident front, bernama and The Malaysian Reserve report that a UKMTO advisory identified an LPG tanker struck by debris from unknown projectiles in the strait, injuring two crew members; no party has been identified as responsible in independent reporting. A Pakistan-bound LNG tanker from Qatar crossed the strait toward Karachi, per Hellenic Shipping News, though that report remains single-source. The Guardian separately reports up to 169 people killed over three days as Houthis battle for Red Sea coastal heights in Yemen, compounding pressure on regional shipping corridors. Whether any US-Iran diplomatic contact is genuinely in motion remains unresolved: the offer, as reported by The Guardian and gCaptain, is denied, per Israel National News, by Iranian officials. As of 17:49 UTC, 311 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 elevated 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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September: $10 in against about $83 out
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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.
Transits by type.
Vessel mixCurrently transiting vessels grouped by type. The headline transit count above conflates traffic that energy desks read differently: a Capesize bulker and a VLCC are not the same signal. 171 vessels in the window are not holding position, broken down here. Transit is the residual of the anchored test, so read it as a ceiling.
Tankers
Crude, products, LNG and chemical carriers.
10
21h20hCargo
Container, bulk, vehicle and general cargo.
51
21h20hOther
Passenger, fishing, tugs and unclassified traffic.
110
21h20hMilitary
Naval, coast-guard and law-enforcement vessels. A floor, not a census: warships routinely transit with AIS switched off.
0
21h20h
Sample mix · by port
Bandar Abbas
2 sample
Tankers0Cargo2Military0Other0Jebel Ali
10 sample
Tankers0Cargo7Military2Other1Khor Fakkan
10 sample
Tankers4Cargo6Military0Other0Fujairah
10 sample
Tankers8Cargo1Military0Other1Sohar
10 sample
Tankers4Cargo5Military0Other1
| Port | Tankers | Cargo | Military | Other | Sample |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bandar Abbas | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Jebel Ali | 0 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 10 |
| Khor Fakkan | 4 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| Fujairah | 8 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 10 |
| Sohar | 4 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 10 |
Up to 10 expected, arriving, departing and in-port vessels sampled at each port. A separate scrape sample, not used to compute the type mix above.
Tankers gone dark.
Dark-tanker count74
tankers · last 24hof 217 screened▲ vs 7d baseline 58.0
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 8,102 vessels of every type ever recorded in the wider bbox since monitoring began.
That is 74 of 217 tankers that met the screen. Non-tankers that met the same screen went dark at 18.0% on the identical test. The tanker rate is running 1.9x the ambient rate, a gap too large to read as ambient dropout alone. 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 · 10m agoSurface effects
Container carriers.
CarriersThe nine largest container carriers by global TEU capacity, with their declared posture for Strait of Hormuz transit and the surcharge applied to twenty-foot equivalent units rerouted via the Cape. 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. 4 of 9 advisories describe stopping Hormuz or Gulf service, 0 describe reduced or escorted service still running, and 5 make no claim about the strait either way. The verdict counts only the first group.
Hormuz stopped
4
of 9 · 0 limited · 5 unstated
Rerouting
8
0 suspended
Stranded
8+
2/9 report vessels
- 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 →Rerouting$1.2k/TEUsince MAR 4 - 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. It said on 25 June that three of its vessels remained in the Gulf.
Maersk · Middle East Operational Update 46 →Rerouting$1.0k/TEUsince 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 →Rerouting$950/TEUsince MAR 58 stranded - 04
COSCO
COSCO Shipping has suspended bookings to Bandar Abbas and routes Europe-bound services via the Cape. Two of its container ships crossed the strait in late March with Iranian clearance; it has not published a Gulf posture or vessel count since.
WorldCargo News →Limited$600/TEUsince MAR 15 - 05
Hapag-Lloyd
Hapag-Lloyd has suspended Hormuz transits and reroutes via the Cape. By 1 July it had moved all four of its vessels out of the Gulf.
WorldCargo News →Rerouting$1.1k/TEUsince MAR 30 stranded - 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 →Rerouting$900/TEUsince 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 →Rerouting$850/TEUsince MAR 5 - 08
HMM
HMM declared a service deviation for cargo linked to the Arabian Gulf, Red Sea and Horn of Africa on 13 March 2026 and said it would invoke its bill of lading rights over affected shipments. No advisory newer than that has been found.
Container News, 13 March 2026, citing HMM advisory →Rerouting$800/TEUsince MAR 13 - 09
Yang Ming
Yang Ming revised its GS2 service on 26 March 2026 and said on 20 April that ships bound for Middle East ports beyond Sohar, Oman would discharge at Khor Fakkan instead, 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 →Rerouting$750/TEUsince MAR 26
AIS pulse.
AIS pulseStranded vessels · 7d
366
holding position away from berth7d range 256–496▼ 46 vs 7d ago
Per-port pressure across 4 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 mix 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$12.4M volcloses 1 Jan 2027
25%
market price
Reopening
Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by September 30?Polymarket$9.3M volcloses 1 Oct 2026
1%
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 October 1, 2026? (Before Oct 1, 2026)Kalshi3.2M contractscloses 1 Oct 2026
1%
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)Kalshi2.8M contractscloses 1 Jan 2027
20%
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
45%
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 November 1, 2026? (Before Nov 1, 2026)Kalshi1.4M contractscloses 1 Nov 2026
8%
market price
Currency pressure
Tehran open-market rate.
Iranian toman231,525
Toman per USD · Tehran open-market mid
Buy 230,350Sell 232,700
24h +0.64%7d +0.55%
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. The rial tends to move ahead of Brent on Iran escalation: capital flight into hard currency is faster than the oil futures re-pricing the same risk.
Downstream trade-diversion impact (share of world oil and LNG rerouted, average extra voyage days, and the countries most exposed) 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 lays out conditions for reopening Strait of Hormuz, Iranian media says By Investing.com
- 02
Diplomatic
Araghchi–Witkoff Meeting in New York; Tehran Sets Conditions for Reopening Strait of Hormuz
- 03
Diplomatic
Iran submits conditions for reopening of Hormuz to U.S. representative, state media says
- 04
Maritime
How the civil war in Yemen could affect global shipping routes
Houthi militants have made a lightning advance along the Red Sea coast, capturing strategically important territory in Yemen. Hundreds of civilians have been killed and more than 100,000 people have been forced to flee their homes. The Guardian's Oliver Holmes explains why this…
- 05
Diplomatic
Iran could reopen Strait of Hormuz within 7 days as Trump says US moving towards deal
- 06
Diplomatic
Qatar urges diplomacy, rejects Strait of Hormuz ‘bargaining’
Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani called for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz while speaking at the UN.
- 07
Diplomatic
Euro Zone Bond Yields Drop as Iran Considers Reopening Hormuz
Euro zone bond yields fell for a second straight day on Tuesday, hitting their lowest in almost two weeks after Iran raised the prospect of reopening the Strait of Hormuz and Washington hinted it could restart talks with Tehran, pushing oil prices lower.Germany's 10-year bond yi…
- 08
Maritime
Pakistan-bound LNG tanker crosses Strait of Hormuz en route to Karachi— minister
A tanker carrying liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar has crossed the Strait of Hormuz and is heading for Pakistan, the country’s petroleum minister said on Monday, as Islamabad bolsters its energy supplies amid tensions in the Middle East. The Bermuda-flagged Shandong Redwoo…
Shandong RedwooBermudalng
Active negotiation tracks, mediators, and back-channel work at the peace-talks page.
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