Is the Strait of Hormuz closed?

“Closed” does not mean the water is empty. It means the strait is closed to normal commercial traffic: the open, insured, any-flag transit that moved roughly a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil before the crisis. By that measure the waterway has been effectively shut since the 28 February 2026 declaration, with throughput a small fraction of its pre-crisis baseline.

What still moves does so under control. Iran has selectively permitted passage for vessels from a short list of states, scheduled and vetted through a newly created Persian Gulf Strait Authority and subject to per-vessel navigation fees reported in the seven-figure range. That is the opposite of an open strait: transit is now a permission granted case by case, not a right. The mechanics of that regime sit on our transit-fee explainer.

The other tell is who has voted with their hulls. 4 of the world’s nine largest container carriers say in their own advisories that they have stopped using the strait. Others still carry Gulf cargo but route Asia–Europe traffic south of the Cape of Good Hope, adding roughly two weeks to every leg. War-risk underwriters have priced spot transit beyond what most operators will pay. When the people who actually move the cargo stay away, the strait is closed in the only sense that matters to the oil price.

Closed is not necessarily permanent. On June 17, 2026, the Islamabad Memorandum (a 14-point US-Iran settlement brokered by Pakistan, with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt facilitating) was signed and briefly reopened the strait, but it did not hold: the ceasefire frayed within days and traffic stalled again. In early July Iran attacked commercial ships in the strait, the United States answered with a bombing campaign and reimposed sanctions and its naval blockade, and President Trump declared the ceasefire over on July 8. Iran has retaliated against US bases in Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait and re-declared the strait closed until further notice, while an Oman-mediated corridor through Omani waters stays contested. In late July the war widened to a second chokepoint when Yemen's Houthis attacked two Saudi tankers in the Red Sea. A three-night pause in the strikes broke on July 28, when Iran's Revolutionary Guard fired ballistic missiles at US forces in Jordan, all intercepted per US Central Command; the United States answered with strikes on militia sites in Iraq and then a heavy overnight wave on Iran itself, which Iranian state media say killed a family of three on Qeshm Island. On July 30 a drone hit two LNG vessels at Egypt's Damietta port, the first time the war has touched Egypt; no one has claimed it and Iran denies involvement. Saudi Arabia announced a 14-country Maritime Defense Alliance for shipping routes. Oman is mediating, but Iran rejected its plan to manage the strait jointly under voluntary fees. Traffic has begun to return: a Qatari LNG tanker made the first such transit in nearly three weeks and analysts put throughput at roughly a third of pre-war levels at the end of July, against the 5% IMF PortWatch counted over that week. On August 1 two tankers were hit off Oman near the strait within hours of each other, one of them carrying natural gas, and Kuwait intercepted Iranian drones aimed at a US base. On August 2 President Trump called off a planned attack on Iran, saying Gulf leaders had asked him for a deal instead and that its outline was agreed, covering the immediate opening of the strait and an end to what he called Iran's nuclear threat, with talks to resume on August 3. Tehran denies it is negotiating with Washington at all, says its talks are with Oman over a temporary route, and says the strait will not go back to its pre-war state. Nothing has been signed, tankers were still being hit off Oman during the stand-down, and Brent fell about seven dollars over those two days to the low $80s. Tehran still calls the strait closed; the US military publicly rejects that, saying ships are still transiting. By August 5 Iran and Oman said their draft agreement was in its final stage, with the coordinates of a transit route through both countries' waters agreed and a joint statement being drafted, and President Trump said a deal could come within the week. It still needs Washington: Iran says the strait stays shut until the United States ends its blockade, the United States rules out any arrangement that cements Iranian control, and reports citing unnamed sources say the draft would require Gulf-bound ships to coordinate with Tehran. Yemen's Houthis meanwhile claimed an eighth attack on a Saudi tanker and a further ballistic-missile strike in the Gulf of Aden. On August 8 the United Arab Emirates said Iran had hit one of its ADNOC tankers with a missile inside the strait and accused Tehran of piracy, and a day later a Liberian-flagged tanker was struck with five Indian crew aboard. Iran has since put a price on reopening, passing Washington a list of conditions through its foreign minister, and the Revolutionary Guard says the strait stays shut until every one is met. On August 10 and 11 Iran set those conditions out in public, with sanctions relief and war reparations reported among them, its foreign ministry tied any reopening to the United States lifting its naval blockade, and Reuters reported the security council confirming the closure holds until Washington complies. Reports that the two sides are near a deal are single-source and Tehran-routed, and the market read the day the other way. US forces fired on a Panama-flagged ship running the blockade, per the Wall Street Journal, and the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre logged a further incident in the Gulf of Oman on August 11. Brent slipped below $80 on August 6, then climbed back above $89 as the deal hopes faded, trading near $88.60 on August 11. By mid-August the attacks had outrun the diplomacy: gCaptain reported two more tankers struck on August 14, the UAE said Iran hit another of its ADNOC vessels inside the strait on August 15, and the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre was notified of a projectile striking a bulk carrier. Washington vowed to cripple Iran's economy, President Trump said the strait would become US territory "pretty soon", and Iran's deputy foreign minister answered that it "has been Iranian, is Iranian, and will remain Iranian." Bloomberg reports Iran and Oman closing in on a deal on how the strait is run, with the route question largely agreed, but foreign minister Abbas Araghchi says reopening still depends on the United States upholding the June memorandum. Brent held near $88.50 on August 16. The International Maritime Organization put the number of seafarers stranded in the Gulf at roughly 6,000 in mid-July. The 60-day window for a deal expired on August 18 with nothing signed. President Trump had threatened on August 17 to bomb Oman if it impeded the talks, and Iran seized a UAE-owned tanker near Qeshm Island the same day. On August 18 the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre said a vessel was struck by a projectile leaving the strait, with reports differing on whether a crew member was injured or killed, and President Trump labelled a map of the strait "new US territory", which Tehran mocked as delusion. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said the strait will not reopen until Washington lifts its blockade, ends oil sanctions and releases frozen Iranian assets. Qatar said regional efforts are focused on reopening the waterway and reviving the June memorandum, and the Egyptian and Omani foreign ministers discussed the same. Brent crossed $90 as ceasefire hopes dimmed, trading near $91.20 on August 18. On August 19 and 20 President Trump called the blockade "extremely effective", said a lot of boats are coming through the strait and that harsher sanctions may follow, and repeated that no talks with Tehran are planned. Reuters found Hormuz shipping unchanged on the data, CNN reported tankers shifting to the Omani route, and gCaptain reported three Chinese tankers turning back inside the strait. Iran says it turned one back and still holds the UAE-owned tanker it seized on August 17, both Iranian accounts. Axios reported that the United States is quietly running a night-convoy tanker corridor through the southern strait moving about 10 million barrels a day, roughly half the pre-war flow; other outlets relay the account but it traces to that single newsroom. IMF PortWatch has now published through August 16: that week runs between one and eight crossings a day against a pre-crisis 73. Brent rose to $94.50 by midday on August 20. Since August 20 the pressure has shifted to economics: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the United States would unveil its toughest sanctions package on August 24 as a "one-two punch" with the blockade, the UAE is reported to be preparing its own phased restrictions on Iran, and Iran's central bank governor said counterparts report oil revenue fallen to zero. President Trump said on August 21 he views the strait as "an American territory right now". Iran's top security official Mohsen Rezaei said on August 22 that the strait stays closed until Washington corrects its behaviour and threatened countries that join the blockade, while the same day Iran granted a number of Iraqi oil tankers passage after Baghdad said it could not pay salaries, so Tehran restates closure while licensing named cargoes through it. Oman's foreign ministry said its foreign minister and Iran's Abbas Araghchi discussed the conditions for resuming dialogue by phone on August 21. CNN, reading UK Maritime Trade Operations figures, counted 103 vessels entering and 89 leaving over the week to August 22, about 20% of the pre-war average and a different count from PortWatch's daily crossings, and the US Energy Secretary said the Navy has helped move more than 15 million barrels out of the strait. A sanctioned shadow-fleet tanker was hijacked in the Gulf of Aden on August 20 and diverted toward Somalia, per UKMTO. Washington unveiled the sanctions campaign it calls "Economic D-Day" on August 24, and Iran blacklisted 45 tankers over its transit rules, threatening fines, detention and confiscation of cargo. A projectile disabled a Greek-owned tanker off Oman on August 25, the International Maritime Organization put the six-month toll at 68 incidents and 20 dead, and President Trump said the Navy had cleared every mine from the lane. On August 26 Iran's military said it had reached a revenue-sharing agreement with Oman on a temporary corridor, but that account comes from Tehran, Israeli outlets reported the same day that gaps remain and that Qatar has joined the mediation, and the Revolutionary Guard restated that the strait stays closed until Washington meets Iran's conditions. Nothing is signed. Brent fell to a two-week low of $86.59 on August 26. On August 27 and 28 the head of US Central Command declared the strait's shipping lanes cleared of Iranian mines, and a Kuwaiti tanker, the Al-Salam II, was struck by a projectile near Khasab the same day, per UKMTO, with a small fire put out and the crew safe. Qatar's prime minister met Iran's foreign minister in Tehran, Iran's top security official said Iran and Oman had agreed a temporary shipping corridor, an Iranian account Oman has not confirmed, and Tehran says it is preparing conditions for reopening while Washington says it is not talking to Iran. Spot earnings for the biggest crude tankers hit a record near $647,000 a day on August 28, transit reports counted five vessels through the strait against a ten-day average of fifteen, and Brent traded near $89.30. The lull broke overnight into August 31: US forces struck Revolutionary Guard rocket launchers on Larak Island, saying they were being readied to sow sea mines in the shipping lanes, the first US strike on Iranian forces in about a month, and Iran answered with missile attacks on US bases in Jordan and US assets in the UAE plus an unconfirmed claim of downing a US MQ-9 drone. The Guard's navy says a supertanker caught fire after striking two mines in the strait, days after US Central Command declared the lanes cleared; Lloyd's List reported a projectile strike, so the cause is contested. Brent jumped about 3% to near $91 by midday on August 31. The exchange ran into September 1: US Central Command said no ship has hit a mine in the strait, rejecting the Guard's account, President Trump said 30 ships a night are passing through, and US strikes continued against Iranian missile sites near the strait. On the evening of August 31 two supertankers carrying Saudi oil, the Bahri-operated Sidr and the Korean-operated Senegal Prosperity, were struck within minutes of each other leaving the strait, per Reuters, Lloyd's List and UKMTO. Transits stayed in single digits. By September 2 Bahri said two Filipino seafarers died aboard the Sidr, US strikes on Guard sites went on, with Axios reporting two Iranian government tankers among the targets, President Trump claimed "almost total control" of the strait, Iran said a US strike hit a wedding in Sirik, President Pezeshkian offered reciprocal steps if Washington returns to the June memorandum, and Peru cut ties with Iran. Kpler counted four vessels through on September 1. On September 2 and 3 President Trump floated renaming the strait after himself and then withdrew it, the Institute for the Study of War assessed that the US strikes have degraded Iran's mine-laying capacity, Iran's transit blacklist reached 56 vessels, and Mitsui O.S.K. Lines said it cannot see Hormuz operations resuming this year. From September 3 Iran fired missiles and drones at US bases in Kuwait and the UAE, Central Command said its strikes took in two ships, Kpler counted four transits on September 4, UKMTO put traffic about 90% below pre-conflict levels, and on September 5 Iranian state television said four US missiles hit a tanker off Kharg Island, a claim Central Command has not addressed. Brent settled at $96.28 on September 4. Only a handful of ships transited; roughly 400 vessels are holding position away from berth inside the Gulf rather than under way, sea mines remain a hazard, and war-risk insurance is still around 10% of hull value. Passage stays cut off (transit has been disrupted by fresh attacks on shipping in the strait) while the June 17 framework is in dispute. The dated diplomatic timeline tracks where that stands; we track the live conditions that have to clear on the reopening page.