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. The world’s nine largest container carriers have suspended Hormuz calls or rerouted Asia–Europe traffic south of the Cape of Good Hope, adding roughly two weeks to every leg, and 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 struck more than 80 Iranian targets and reimposed oil sanctions, and President Trump declared the ceasefire over on July 8. On July 8 and 9 US forces struck Iranian coastal cities on consecutive nights, and Iran retaliated with ballistic missile strikes on US bases in Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait. A limited and contested trickle of transits has since resumed under continuing strikes, while diplomacy has shifted to an Oman-mediated track in Muscat, where Oman has floated separate inbound and outbound shipping lanes and a navigational-fee framework that Washington opposes and Tehran has resisted, and the United States presses Iran to publicly declare the strait open to all traffic. In the days since, the strikes have continued through further US rounds and a renewed wave of Iranian attacks off Oman that set a container ship ablaze and hit a second vessel, and Iranian retaliation has widened to US logistics on Omani soil. Iran has again declared the strait closed until further notice, even as Iran and Oman have agreed to keep the Oman-mediated talks on shipping security going. Into July 13 the fighting has intensified further: US forces have carried out a fourth wave of strikes on Iranian missile and drone sites near the strait, both sides now claim control of the waterway, Iran has fired warning shots at merchant ships attempting passage, and transits have fallen to their lowest level in several weeks. Only a handful of ships transited; roughly 380 vessels remain stranded on either side, sea mines remain a hazard, and war-risk insurance is still around 2-4% 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.