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. Weeks of escalating strikes followed: US forces hit Iranian coastal cities and missile and drone sites near the strait, sent sea drones into combat against Iranian naval sites, reimposed a blockade of Iranian ports and tightened sanctions on Iran's shipping network, while Iran retaliated against US bases in Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, struck two UAE oil tankers with cruise missiles on July 14, attacked shipping off Oman, and re-declared the strait closed until further notice. Diplomacy runs on an Oman-mediated track in Muscat, where Oman activated a southern shipping corridor inside its own territorial waters that vessels may use on pre-war terms, leaving a northern route through Iranian waters that still needs Tehran's approval. Ships briefly began crossing again along the Omani side under US naval escort, and Washington reported more than 8 million barrels of oil moved through in a single day with military help, but the route is contested: Iran criticised Oman's announcement, insists its memorandum with the United States gives it sole authority to designate approved lanes, and its Revolutionary Guard has warned it may act against ships using routes Tehran has not sanctioned, striking near the corridor to hold its leverage. Iran and Oman have separately asked Washington to accept a joint fee covering navigational safety, pollution protection and emergency response, which US negotiators object to and which Oman would keep voluntary rather than mandatory. By mid-July the campaign was widening: US strikes reached deeper into Iran, including targets in the north, the US Navy disabled a tanker trying to run its blockade, and India ordered its shipping companies to stop deploying Indian seafarers through the strait as other owners were told the same. In the days that followed the picture darkened again rather than easing. The US Navy resumed its blockade in force, redirecting five commercial vessels and disabling one, and traffic through the strait fell to a new low as owners pulled back, leaving the Omani corridor open on paper but largely empty. On July 17 an Iranian missile attack on a US base in Jordan killed two American service members, which US Central Command confirmed, and Washington answered a day later with a fresh round of punitive strikes, carrying the bombing campaign into a second week and reaching Iranian port infrastructure including Chabahar, which Tehran condemned as a war crime. Tehran says the latest strikes killed about 50 people and injured 500. Tehran still says the strait stays shut until the United States accepts its terms and complies with the memorandum, President Trump disputes that it is closed at all, and the International Maritime Organization has warned owners the strait is too dangerous to transit, with roughly 6,000 seafarers still stranded in the Gulf. Only a handful of ships transited; roughly 430 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.