Who controls the Strait of Hormuz.

Who closed it.

The parties that declared and enforce the closure of the strait to commercial shipping. Iran has since claimed reopenings more than once; carriers have not returned, which is why the verdict tracks carrier postures.

1. Iran

   Closed the strait to commercial shipping in response to the 28 February 2026 US-Israeli airstrikes (Operation Epic Fury); the formal closure was declared in early March 2026, opening the crisis.

2. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)

   Holds the operational authority to enforce the closure across the chokepoint and its approaches.

Who is contesting it.

The military and commercial actors responding to the closure on the water.

1. US Navy / CENTCOM

   Ran the naval blockade of Iran declared in April 2026 and the Project Freedom escort convoys; briefly lifted the blockade on June 18, 2026 under the Islamabad Memorandum, then resumed strikes on Iranian targets after the ceasefire frayed and finally collapsed on July 8 as Iran moved to re-assert control over the strait. 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, then on September 5 at a US carrier and destroyer near the strait; the United States answered by disabling or sinking three Iranian tankers under a stated "tanker for tanker" policy, Kpler's ten-day transit average fell to ten a day, the lowest since May, and Iran says it will declare a restricted zone at the US blockade line and sign an Oman corridor within days, which Oman has not confirmed. Brent settled at $96.28 on September 4 and US futures did not trade on September 7.

2. The nine largest container carriers

   4 of the top 9 container lines by global TEU say they have stopped using the strait.

3. Gulf crude and LNG shippers

   Tanker and gas operators whose only sea route to market crosses the chokepoint; bypass pipelines cover only about 40% of normal throughput.

Who brokered it.

The diplomatic track that produced the reopening framework.

1. Pakistan

   Primary broker of the June 2026 Islamabad Memorandum, the framework the US and Iran signed to reopen the strait and end the blockade; Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt also facilitated. The full diplomatic timeline is on the peace-talks page.

2. Oman

   A longstanding back-channel between Washington and Tehran, now the lead mediator hosting a technical track in Muscat after the June 17 framework collapsed. Oman has proposed splitting traffic into two corridors: a southern route through Omani waters open on pre-war terms, and a northern route through Iranian waters requiring Tehran's prior approval, with no tolls attached. On July 28 Oman went further and handed Tehran a regionally backed plan to manage the whole strait jointly, funded by voluntary contributions for navigational safety, environmental protection and search and rescue on the model of the Strait of Malacca, under which Iran would not hold sole control. Iran rejected it on national-security grounds and countered with a split that keeps one lane wholly inside Iranian waters and gives Muscat part, but not all, of the other. The talks remain unresolved, and Oman's position is complicated by Iran having struck Omani soil.

Who measures it.

The data authorities of record. Straits surfaces their figures with provenance; these are the primary sources behind the numbers.

1. IMF PortWatch

   Daily commercial transit count of record. Latest reading: 6 vs roughly 85 per day before the crisis.

2. Lloyd's Joint War Committee (JWC)

   Sets the listed-area war-risk posture that drives insurance pricing and, in turn, whether transit is commercially viable.

3. US Energy Information Administration (EIA)

   Source of record for oil prices, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and Cushing stocks tracked across the site.

4. US Treasury OFAC

   Maintains the SDN sanctions list cross-referenced against live AIS positions to flag sanctioned-vessel transits.

Who pays for it.

The economies most dependent on Hormuz-borne crude and LNG, ranked by import exposure.

1. Japan, South Korea, China, India

   The Asian importers carrying the highest dependence on Middle East crude and Qatari LNG routed through the strait.

2. European Union

   Exposed through LNG supply and the Asia to Europe shipping legs now rerouting around the Cape.