The question
When will the Strait of Hormuz reopen?
The answer
<1%
market-implied reopening by 15 September 2026 · Polymarket
The Islamabad Memorandum, a Pakistan-brokered US-Iran framework signed June 17, 2026, was meant to reopen the Strait of Hormuz toll-free for 60 days and end the US naval blockade of Iran, but the ceasefire frayed within days and the reopening did not hold. 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. Brent closed near $95.63 on September 2 and traded near $95.50 on September 3. Passage is cut off again: transit has been disrupted by fresh attacks on shipping in the strait, so commercial traffic has not returned while the June 17 framework is in dispute. Roughly 330 ships are holding position away from berth inside the Gulf rather than under way, sea mines have yet to be cleared, and war-risk insurance remains around 10% of hull (versus about 0.25% in peacetime). Prediction markets price "Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by September 15?" at <1% on Polymarket (closes 15 September 2026). The Escalation Forecast reads 52 (elevated).
What we’re watching.
Leading signalsReopening odds
<1%
closes 15 September 2026 · Polymarket
7-day avg transits
4.3
vs 60 to resolve · IMF PortWatch
Escalation forecast
52
Forecast · elevated
Carriers stopped
4/9
must fall to confirm
Days closed
188
since 28 Feb 2026
Distance to resolution.
The number the markets settle on7-day average · daily transit calls
4.3
55.7 below the 60 threshold · as of 2026-08-30
Not on track at the latest published daily pace (6/day, 2026-08-30)
The dominant Polymarket reopening contracts resolve YES when IMF PortWatch publishes a 7-day moving average of daily transit calls at or above 60 for the strait. Kalshi’s ladder reads the same series but requires the average to go above 60, so exactly 60.0 pays Polymarket and not Kalshi. This chart is that exact series, so the gap between the line and the rule is the distance between today and the markets paying out. PortWatch publishes weekly, and its newest record carries a roughly two-day lag, so the freshest Hormuz day is about two to nine days old depending on where you are in the publish cycle.
Market-implied reopening curve
Kalshi · PortWatch 7-day average →3%
by Oct 1
7%
by Nov 1
13%
by Dec 1
22%
by Jan 1
45%
by Apr 1
57%
by Jul 1
65%
by Jan 1
70%
by Jul 1
73%
by Jan 1
Probability that the 7-day average goes above 60 before each date, per Kalshi contract prices. Later dates include every earlier path, so the curve normally rises. Each date is its own order book and nothing forces it to: where a later date is priced no higher than an earlier one, the window between them shows 0%, which means the market gives it no room, not that it is ruled out.
Your call
When does the 7-day average cross 60?
Pick a window. Come back and see how your call is aging against the market and the other readers who called it.
Know the moment this answer changes.
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Why reopening takes time.
A framework was signed, but it did not hold. The Islamabad Memorandum, signed June 17, 2026 and brokered primarily by Pakistan (with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt as facilitating parties), was meant to open the strait toll-free for 60 days, end the US naval blockade of Iran, and extend the ceasefire by 60 days. Within days the ceasefire frayed, Iran moved to re-assert control over the strait, and commercial traffic stalled again. A signed agreement and a functioning strait are not the same thing; the full sequence since is below.
Physical normalization is a separate, slower process. Iran mined large segments of the strait during the crisis; clearance takes time and requires coordinated demining operations. Roughly 330 ships are holding position away from berth inside the Gulf rather than under way, and only a handful of vessels have transited since June 17. War-risk insurance sits around 10% of hull versus roughly 0.25% in peacetime, and underwriters reprice slowly once they have sustained confidence that mines and interdiction threats are gone.
The world’s largest container carriers and insurers remain on the sidelines, and the breakdown of the June 17 ceasefire has pushed a durable reopening further out. A full return to normal traffic is expected to take months, not weeks, and now depends first on the hostilities stopping for good. President Trump called off a planned attack on Iran on August 2 and says talks on a deal that would open the strait resumed the next day; Tehran says it is not negotiating with Washington and is talking to Oman instead, nothing has been signed, and tankers were still being hit off Oman during the stand-down. The market-implied odds and the PortWatch transit average below are the live measures of that progress.
How the reopening broke down.
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. The fee question runs alongside the corridor question. Oman has put a regional funding mechanism on the table, modelled on the Strait of Malacca, under which the ships that use the strait would contribute voluntarily towards navigational safety, pollution protection and search and rescue rather than pay a toll to anyone. Washington objects to any charge Iran would control, and a US official has said any war deal would carry no fees or tolls for passage at all, though that account rests on one unnamed source.
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.
By late July the war had spilled beyond the strait. US bombing ran through a thirteenth straight night, reaching coastal military sites and a power substation near the Bushehr nuclear plant, Iran answered with missile attacks on US bases in Kuwait and Jordan, and President Trump threatened to extend the strikes to Iranian bridges and power plants. On July 23 Yemen's Houthis attacked two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea with missiles and drones, putting the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint at risk alongside Hormuz; Trump warned of "major military punishment" and said Washington would hold Iran responsible for any further Houthi attacks. Brent crude settled above $100 a barrel on July 23 for the first time since May. The southern corridor stays contested: Iran's Revolutionary Guard said a tanker that tried the route off Oman caught fire after an explosion and two vessels behind it turned back, even as a few supertankers slipped out of the Gulf.
In the last week of July the strikes stopped for three nights. The thirteen-night bombing run ended, US and Iranian forces held fire, and President Trump said he was giving diplomacy space. Oman is mediating: Bloomberg reports Iran and Oman are negotiating a restart of Hormuz shipping, Iran has opened a parallel channel with Saudi Arabia on strait security, and the Jerusalem Post reports, on sourcing it does not name, that the two sides are close to a deal to reopen. Tehran presents the Oman track as unrelated to Washington and still rules out direct talks with the United States, and its Revolutionary Guard says it turned back six ships, so on Iran's account the strait stays shut. Crossings are down about 90% and what traffic remains has shifted almost entirely to the Iranian route. Brent gave back the war premium over those days, falling from above $100 on July 23 to a one-week low in the mid $80s. The second front has not closed: Houthi forces claimed a strike on Saudi oil infrastructure, Red Sea tanker traffic sits at a multi-month low, and some Asia-bound cargoes are routing through Suez instead.
The pause broke on July 28. Iran's Revolutionary Guard fired ballistic missiles at US forces in Jordan that evening, aimed at the Muwaffaq Salti air base and at US Central Command's headquarters there. Accounts of the number differ: CNN reported four missiles, and Jordan's military said its air defences intercepted five. Central Command says the attack failed and that every missile was intercepted, and no casualties have been reported. The launch came hours after President Trump met Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House. The same day the diplomatic track stalled in the open: Oman handed Iran a regionally backed plan to manage the strait jointly, funded by voluntary contributions on the model of the Strait of Malacca and leaving Iran without sole control, and Iran rejected it on national-security grounds. Tehran countered with a plan that puts one lane wholly inside Iranian waters and gives Muscat part, but not all, of the other, and says the strait stays shut unless Oman accepts that arrangement. Brent, which had settled around $87, rose again after hours on news of the attack.
The United States answered on July 29, striking sites in Iraq alongside Saudi forces that Central Command says Tehran-backed militias had used to launch recent attacks. Iraq's Popular Mobilisation Forces say at least 20 of their members were killed and 32 wounded. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Navy claims it stopped three tankers in the strait after they ignored repeated warnings, an account carried by Iranian state media and not independently confirmed; the strait's traffic remains far below normal either way.
Overnight into July 30 the United States carried the response to Iran itself, in what Central Command called a heavy wave of strikes answering the missile attack on its forces in Jordan. Iranian state media say one strike killed a couple and their two-year-old child in a village on Qeshm Island, near the strait. The same day a drone hit two liquefied natural gas vessels docked at Damietta port on Egypt's Mediterranean coast, the first time the war has touched Egypt; no one has claimed the attack, and Iran's foreign minister denied involvement and warned against what he called false-flag operations. Saudi Arabia announced a Maritime Defense Alliance to protect shipping routes, with 14 countries backing it. Traffic, though, has begun to return: a QatarEnergy LNG tanker exited the strait on July 29, the first Qatari LNG transit in nearly three weeks, with Iranian media saying it had complied with Iran's transit rules, and market analysts estimate throughput has recovered to roughly a third of pre-war levels. Brent briefly topped $93 on the resumed strikes, then eased to around $90 as flows improved. Tehran still says the strait is closed and has vowed to punish what it calls the aggressor.
On August 1 the shipping war returned to the strait itself. The UK Maritime Trade Operations centre reported two separate tanker incidents off Oman near the strait within hours of each other, one of them a vessel carrying natural gas; a tanker was struck by what was described as an unknown projectile. Kuwait said it intercepted Iranian drones aimed at a US base on its territory. Yemen's Houthis said they forced eight Saudi oil tankers to turn back, and several Saudi cargoes are now routing around Africa rather than through the Red Sea. Iran's top security official said continued US military pressure would tighten the closure of the strait and could extend it to other waterways. President Trump threatened further strikes to force the waterway open. The United States military publicly rejected Iran's claim that the strait is shut, saying ships are still transiting and putting the number rerouted at about 30. The physical picture is therefore contested: Tehran calls the strait closed, Washington calls it open, and the independent transit count that would settle it lags by more than a week.
On August 2 the war paused again, this time before the strikes rather than after them. President Trump called off a planned attack on Iran, said it would have been the biggest attack since the Second World War, and credited Gulf leaders, among them Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with asking him for a deal instead. He said the outline of one had been agreed, covering the immediate and complete opening of the strait and an end to what he called Iran's nuclear threat, and that talks would resume on Monday afternoon. Tehran contradicted him within hours and again on August 3. Its foreign ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, said Iran is not negotiating with the United States at this time, that its talks are with Oman over a temporary route, and that the strait will in no way return to the state it was in before February 28. Iran's acting defence minister called the stand-down psychological warfare. Iran says the Oman talks are in their final stage and that it wants a lane that is neither the northern nor the southern one, but it also says an agreement with Muscat alone cannot reopen the strait. Nothing has been signed, and Al Jazeera reported no breakthrough. The attacks on shipping did not stop for the pause: the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre reported a tanker struck by an unknown projectile off Oman's Musandam peninsula, its engine room damaged and the vessel left not under command, and a second tanker reporting a large explosion in the water close by, with no casualties and nobody named as responsible. Iran's Fars news agency, which is tied to the Revolutionary Guard, said ships were stuck in the northern corridor over the weekend. Brent fell about seven dollars across the two days, from $90 on August 1 to the low $80s, its steepest fall since the fighting resumed in July.
In the first days of August the diplomacy moved, though only on the Iran and Oman side. Tehran says its talks with Muscat are in the final stage of drafting: the two countries have agreed the geographic coordinates of a transit route running partly through Iranian and partly through Omani waters, entry and exit points included, and a joint statement is being drafted. Iran's deputy foreign minister said understanding had been reached on almost all issues, Al Jazeera reports the route would run for roughly two to four months with the existing temporary corridors closing, and President Trump said a deal could be announced within the week. The unresolved part is Washington. Iran says the strait will not open until the United States ends its blockade; the United States has ruled out any arrangement that cements Iranian control of the strait; and reports citing unnamed sources say the draft would require Gulf-bound ships to coordinate with Tehran, which is the kind of control Washington rejects. Shipping industry groups warned against any transit fee regime that might come with the deal. So a deal is close on paper, and each side still needs the other to back down. US Central Command says its blockade of Iran's navy has so far redirected 48 commercial vessels, disabled two and boarded two. The second front kept burning: Yemen's Houthis claimed their eighth attack on a Saudi tanker on August 5 and said they struck another with a ballistic missile in the Gulf of Aden a day later. Brent kept falling on the deal hopes and slipped below $80 on August 6, per our own feed.
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. Nobody was hurt, Egypt condemned the attack, and Iran has not admitted to it. A day later a Liberian-flagged crude tanker, the Mt France C, was struck in the strait with five Indian crew aboard. While ships were being hit, Iran put a price on reopening: it set out a list of conditions and passed them to Washington through foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, with outlets differing on whether there are five or six. The Revolutionary Guard said the strait stays shut until the United States meets every one. Iran's foreign minister added that the deal with Oman, which both sides still call close, does not by itself reopen the waterway, and Tehran says no talks with Washington are under way. So the week ends with a deal near on paper, further off in practice, and tankers still being struck while it is argued over. Brent gave back its fall, trading near $83.55 on August 9 after slipping below $80 three days earlier, per our own feed. The Guardian reported crews who have been stuck in the Gulf since February.
On August 10 and 11 the price of reopening became the whole story, and the two sides told it differently. Iran's foreign ministry said the strait will not reopen while the United States keeps its naval blockade in place, and Reuters reported that Iran's security council had confirmed the closure holds until Washington meets Iran's conditions. Iranian officials set those conditions out publicly for the first time, and reporting puts sanctions relief and war reparations among them. Al Jazeera said both governments arrived at the Hormuz talks with new conditions. Against that, one outlet reported the two sides were nearing a deal, and Pakistan said they were close to some form of agreement, an account carried by Iranian state media; neither is confirmed, and the market read the day the other way, with traders calling the reopening hopes faded. The shooting did not pause for the argument. The Wall Street Journal reported that US forces fired on a Panama-flagged ship that tried to cross the blockade of Iranian ports. The UK Maritime Trade Operations centre logged an incident involving a container ship and military forces in the Gulf of Oman on August 11, and a separate report of a vessel hit by a missile in the same waters rests on one Indian outlet and is not confirmed. Four crew were killed in a Houthi attack on a ship at Bab el-Mandeb, keeping the second chokepoint in the war. Traffic stayed near its floor: news counts put six or seven vessels in the strait, and the last complete day IMF PortWatch had published at that point, August 8, held 8 crossings against a pre-crisis 73. Barrels are still moving around the closure rather than through it, with Bloomberg counting about a dozen ships transferring oil ship to ship outside the strait. Brent rose back above $89 as the deal hopes faded, trading near $88.60 on August 11, about five dollars above where it sat two days earlier, per our own feed. Uniper's chief executive told Reuters gas prices stay high for as long as the strait is shut.
By mid-August the attacks were outrunning the diplomacy. gCaptain reported two more tankers struck on August 14, while the United Arab Emirates expanded a shuttle of escorted oil runs through the strait and Iranian attacks pushed what traffic remains toward the route Tehran controls. On August 15 the UAE said Iran had attacked another of its ADNOC vessels inside the strait, its second such accusation in a week, and the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre was notified of a projectile striking the hull of a bulk carrier. Washington hardened its line the same day, vowing to cripple Iran's economy, and President Trump said the strait would become US territory "pretty soon" and posted an AI-generated image of himself seizing an Iranian-flagged tanker. Iran's deputy foreign minister answered that the strait "has been Iranian, is Iranian, and will remain Iranian." Underneath the exchange the Oman track kept moving: Bloomberg reported Iran and Oman closing in on a deal on how the strait is run, with the route question that had stalled the talks largely agreed, and foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said on August 16 that the talks continue but that reopening depends on the United States upholding the memorandum signed in June. A report that a new shipping route has been agreed outright rests on one outlet and is not confirmed. Iran separately claims Qatar is holding three of its missing pilots, an Iranian claim relayed by wires and not independently confirmed. IMF PortWatch's most recently published day at that point was August 9, holding a single crossing against a pre-crisis 73. Brent held in the high $80s, near $88.50 on August 16, per our own feed.
The 60-day window for a deal expired on August 18 with nothing signed, and the day it lapsed brought another hull hit. On August 17 President Trump threatened to bomb Oman if it impeded the United States and Iran talks on the strait, and Iran seized a UAE-owned tanker near Qeshm Island. On August 18 the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre said a vessel was struck by a projectile as it left the strait; accounts of the casualties differ, with The Times reporting a crew member injured and IranWire reporting one dead. President Trump marked the expiry by labelling a map of the strait "new US territory", which Tehran mocked as delusion and over which an Iranian diplomat warned him. Iran restated its price rather than moving it: Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said the strait will not reopen until Washington lifts its blockade, ends oil sanctions and releases frozen Iranian assets, an account carried by Reuters, TRT World and Iranian state media alike. The mediation widened even as it stalled, with Qatar saying regional efforts are focused on reopening the waterway and reviving the June memorandum, and the Egyptian and Omani foreign ministers discussing the same. One trade-press report on August 18 put war-risk cover for a transit at around 10% of hull value, a single-source figure. Brent crossed $90 as ceasefire hopes dimmed, trading near $91.20 on August 18, about ten dollars above where it sat on August 6, per our own feed.
On August 19 and 20 the argument moved from what the two sides will sign to what is actually crossing. President Trump called the naval blockade "extremely effective", said a lot of boats are coming through the strait, dismissed Iranian drones as a nuisance, said harsher sanctions on Iran may follow, and repeated that no talks with Tehran are planned. Reuters, reading the transit data on August 20, found Hormuz shipping unchanged through the stalemate. What traffic remains keeps moving to the Omani side: CNN reported tankers shifting toward the Oman route, and gCaptain reported three Chinese tankers turning back inside the strait on August 19. Iran says it turned one of them back and that it still holds the UAE-owned tanker it seized on August 17, both Iranian accounts relayed by the trade press rather than independently confirmed. The chief executive of Flex LNG told TradeWinds he expects the strait to stay shut through 2026. Axios reported that the United States is quietly running its own tanker corridor through the southern strait: 15 to 20 tankers a night in fixed convoys along the Omani coast under fighter cover, 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, so the scale stays unconfirmed. IMF PortWatch has since published through August 16: that week runs between one and eight crossings a day against a pre-crisis 73, and its newest day, Sunday August 16, holds one, which is the low day of that series rather than a fresh collapse. Brent kept climbing, from $91.72 at the close on August 19 to $94.50 by midday on August 20, up about 3% in twenty-four hours, per our own feed.
In the days after August 20 the pressure shifted from strikes to economics. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on August 20 that the United States would unveil what he called its toughest sanctions package on August 24, pairing it with the naval blockade as a "one-two punch" and telling allies they are either with Washington or against it; the UAE is reported to be preparing phased trade and financial restrictions on Iran in parallel, and Iran's foreign ministry condemned the coming package as extraterritorial. Iran's central bank governor conceded the squeeze is biting, saying oil exports face restrictions and that counterparts told him revenue had fallen to zero. President Trump went further on the strait itself, saying on August 21 that he views it as "an American territory right now". Tehran answered on two tracks that contradict each other. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of its Supreme National Security Council, said on August 22 that the strait stays closed despite American claims and will not open until Washington corrects its behaviour, warned that any country joining the economic blockade will face consequences, and said that if the blockade persists not a single drop of Persian Gulf oil will move, a statement carried by IRNA and relayed by wires. The same day Iran granted a number of Iraqi oil tankers permission to transit after repeated requests from Baghdad, whose president said the closure had left Iraq unable to pay salaries; that report also originates with IRNA, but Reuters and Al Jazeera carry it and Iraq's president is on the record separately. So Tehran restates total closure while licensing named cargoes through it. The Oman channel reopened a notch: Oman's foreign ministry said foreign minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi and Iran's Abbas Araghchi spoke by phone on August 21 about navigation through the strait and the conditions for resuming dialogue, which is contact about talks rather than talks. The traffic picture also firmed up from outside our own feed. CNN, reading UK Maritime Trade Operations figures on August 22, counted 103 vessels entering and 89 leaving over the week, up 27% on the week before and about 20% of the pre-war average; that is a count of vessels reporting to UKMTO, not IMF PortWatch's AIS-derived daily crossings, and the two cannot be divided against each other. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the Navy has helped move more than 15 million barrels of oil and products out of the strait, with 5 million more by pipeline, which matches the scale of the Axios corridor account. The second chokepoint stayed live too: on August 20 the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre reported a tanker boarded by armed men about 136 nautical miles east of Mukalla and diverted toward Somalia, identified in maritime reporting as the sanctioned shadow-fleet product tanker Sibu 1, with the crew's safety unconfirmed. Brent ended the week at $94.39 at the Friday close on August 21, per our own feed.
The week of August 24 brought the sanctions package, another attack and the first Iranian claim of a deal. Washington unveiled the campaign it calls "Economic D-Day" on August 24, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the United States could still strike targets around the strait. Tehran answered on the water. It blacklisted 45 tankers it says broke its transit rules and threatened them with fines, detention and confiscation of cargo, an escalation Reuters reported and which caught at least one Korean-owned vessel, and it approved a schedule of service fees for the ships it does authorise. The second chokepoint stayed live: Yemen's Houthis attacked a Saudi vessel in the Red Sea on August 24, which the kingdom's national shipping company confirmed. The cost of a crossing is now openly priced. TotalEnergies' chief executive put moving oil through the strait at about $20 million a cargo, and said his company is shipping through it very quietly. On August 25 a projectile struck and disabled a Greek-owned tanker off Oman, logged by the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre and confirmed by Lloyd's List, with the crew reported safe. President Trump said the same day that the US Navy had cleared every mine from the shipping lane and that any Iranian ship laying more would be destroyed at once; Al Jazeera, reporting the claim a day later, noted that owners and insurers still treat the strait as high risk. The International Maritime Organization put the six-month toll at 68 incidents and 20 dead. Traffic went with it, to a three-month low for commodity vessels. Diplomacy moved further in these three days than in the fortnight before them. Oman and Iran floated a joint temporary shipping lane paired with a de-mining project, Pakistan pressed both sides in Tehran and reported progress, and on August 26 Iran's military said it had reached a revenue-sharing agreement with Oman covering the strait. Read that as a claim rather than a settlement. It originates with Iran and its Revolutionary Guard, Oman has said only that its foreign minister hopes a temporary corridor can be announced soon, Israeli outlets reported the same day that gaps remain and that Qatar has joined the mediation, and the Guard's own spokesman restated that the strait stays closed until Washington meets Iran's conditions. So the pattern of the past month held once more: an agreement announced from Tehran, a closure restated in the same breath, and nothing signed. The market took the hopeful half. Brent fell to a two-week low on the reopening headlines, trading at $86.59 late on August 26, down 0.78% over the day, per our own feed. The Jerusalem Post reported, on a single source, that Saudi Arabia is weighing cheaper war-risk cover to draw shipping back.
On August 27 and 28 the mine question and the attacks ran side by side. The head of US Central Command declared the strait's shipping lanes cleared of Iranian sea mines and called it a major milestone; hours later the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre issued an attack warning for the strait near Khasab, with maritime reporting identifying the vessel as the Kuwaiti tanker Al-Salam II, struck by a projectile above the waterline, a small fire put out by the crew and nobody hurt. An Iranian official answered the mine-clearing declaration by saying no vessel crosses the strait without the armed forces' permission, an Iranian account. The diplomacy thickened without settling. Qatar's prime minister flew to Tehran to meet foreign minister Abbas Araghchi about de-escalation and reopening, Iran's top security official said Iran and Oman had agreed to open a temporary shipping corridor, and Tehran said it is preparing a list of conditions for opening the strait, while an Iranian lawmaker told state media the US naval blockade must be lifted before any Iran-Oman arrangement takes effect. Washington said it is not talking to Iran. As with the revenue claim two days earlier, the corridor agreement is an Iranian account that Oman has not confirmed, and nothing is signed. The cost of the closure now shows most clearly in freight: spot earnings for the biggest crude tankers reached a record near $647,000 a day on August 28 as the war squeezed the supply of ships willing to load, per gCaptain and moneycontrol. Transit-data reports counted five commodity vessels through the strait on August 28 against a ten-day average of fifteen. Brent traded near $89.30 late on August 28, up from its two-week low two days earlier, per our own feed.
The lull broke overnight into August 31. US forces struck Revolutionary Guard rocket launchers on Larak Island inside the strait, their first strike on Iranian forces in about a month; a US official said the launchers were being readied to fire rockets carrying sea mines into the shipping lanes, and the Guard said the strike killed and wounded fighters and civilians. Iran answered within hours with missile attacks on US bases in Jordan and on US military assets in the United Arab Emirates, and the Guard claims it shot down a US MQ-9 drone over the strait, an Iranian claim with no US confirmation. The mine question reopened the same morning: the Guard's navy said a supertanker caught fire after striking two sea mines in the strait, days after US Central Command declared the lanes cleared, while Lloyd's List reported the vessel struck by a projectile, so the cause is contested and the mine account is Iranian. President Trump posted an AI-generated video showing Iran's Kharg Island export terminal in ruins; Reuters reported no evidence of any attack there. Brent jumped on the strikes, trading near $91 by midday on August 31, up about 3% in twenty-four hours, per our own feed.
The exchange ran on into September 1. US Central Command rejected the mine story outright, saying no ship has hit a mine in the strait, an Iranian military source in turn denied that Iran had mined it, and Tehran dismissed the Kharg video as fabrication while saying the Larak strikes killed two people. President Trump called the strait "in extremely good shape" and said 30 ships a night are passing through, even as US strikes continued against Iranian missile sites near the strait. The attacks on shipping did not pause either way. On the evening of August 31 two supertankers carrying Saudi oil were struck within minutes of each other as they left the strait off Khasab on the Omani side, per Reuters, Lloyd's List and a UK Maritime Trade Operations advisory: the Bahri-operated Sidr, and the Korean-operated Senegal Prosperity, which UKMTO said was hit by three projectiles with its crew safe. Transit counts stayed in single digits, with five commodity vessels through on August 31. Brent held above $90, trading near $91.96 at midday on September 1, per our own feed.
By September 2 the exchange had a death toll at sea and a longer strike list. Bahri, the Saudi national shipping company, said two of its seafarers, both Filipino nationals, died aboard the Sidr in the August 31 attack, giving no cause, and Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry condemned Iran for targeting the tanker. US Central Command said its forces struck Revolutionary Guard air-defence sites, radars, maritime assets, mine-laying capability and communications sites from midday on September 1; Axios, citing one US official, reports the wave took in two Iranian government-owned tankers under what it called a "tanker for tanker" policy, an account no named official has confirmed. President Trump called the strikes "large and powerful", retaliation for the mine attempt and for eight missiles fired at the US base in Jordan, said the United States now has "almost total control" of the strait, and denied he was trying to force Iran to the table. Iran says a US strike hit a house during a wedding in Sirik county in Hormozgan province; Al Jazeera's own analysis of imagery and munition fragments supports a strike on a residential building, while the death toll of four or five is Iran's figure and Central Command says it never targets civilians. President Masoud Pezeshkian said in a statement from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek that Iran would "immediately take reciprocal action" if the United States returned to its commitments under the June memorandum, and warned that pressure and threats risk derailing diplomacy; Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf repeated that Washington must act first before Iran takes steps to reopen the strait. The Revolutionary Guard claims two more tankers hit mines on September 2 and were "handed over to American agents", an Iranian account that runs against Central Command's standing position that no ship has hit a mine in the strait. Peru broke off diplomatic relations with Iran on September 1, citing the disruption of trade through the strait. Reuters reports Qatari and Emirati LNG cargoes being transferred ship-to-ship outside the strait, a pattern Bloomberg first tracked in mid-August. Kpler's preliminary count put four commodity vessels through the strait on September 1, down from ten the day before and below a ten-day average near thirteen, while US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said more than 17 million barrels of oil and products crossed on August 31, the most since the war began, a figure Kpler's vessel count for that day does not support. Brent rose to about $94.23, up about 2% on the day, at 13:45 UTC on September 2, per our own feed.
Into September 3 the shooting slowed to statements and the shipping numbers stayed flat. Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry statement on the Sidr also condemned Iranian strikes on Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait, and Al Jazeera and CNBC reported Iranian missiles aimed at Kuwait and Bahrain as well as Jordan in the exchange that followed the Larak strike. President Trump asked on Truth Social whether the strait should be renamed the "Trump Strait", then told reporters in the Oval Office he was "just throwing that out", and in an interview taped on September 1 said US forces had "taken out 28 ships" the night before; he warned that further attacks on US forces or shipping would draw a response at a "much harder and higher level". The Institute for the Study of War assessed on September 2 that the US strikes have probably degraded Iran's mine-laying and surveillance capacity near the strait significantly, and read the Guard's mine claims as messaging rather than reports. Iran's Persian Gulf Strait Authority added 11 vessels to its transit blacklist on September 2, taking it to 56 from the 45 listed on August 24, per Reuters and the authority's own website. Mitsui O.S.K. Lines chief executive Jotaro Tamura said on September 3 it is hard to see Hormuz operations resuming in any form by the end of the year, dropping the company's earlier guidance of a restart from October, per gCaptain. Lloyd's List insurance editor David Osler put war-risk claims since the outbreak at around $2 billion across more than 70 claims. Splash247 reported that Jebel Ali, Dubai's main container port, handled about 374,000 TEU in the second quarter, down more than 90% on the year, and fell from tenth to 32nd in the global port rankings. No new UKMTO advisory was issued for September 2 or 3 and no talks were reported. Brent closed near $95.63 on September 2, touched $97.61 during September 3 and traded near $95.50 at 19:30 UTC, per our own feed.
Frequently asked.
FAQWhen will the Strait of Hormuz reopen?
The Islamabad Memorandum, a Pakistan-brokered US-Iran framework signed June 17, 2026, was meant to reopen the Strait of Hormuz toll-free for 60 days and end the US naval blockade of Iran, but the ceasefire frayed within days and the reopening did not hold. 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. Brent closed near $95.63 on September 2 and traded near $95.50 on September 3. Passage is cut off again: transit has been disrupted by fresh attacks on shipping in the strait, so commercial traffic has not returned while the June 17 framework is in dispute. Roughly 330 ships are holding position away from berth inside the Gulf rather than under way, sea mines have yet to be cleared, and war-risk insurance remains around 10% of hull (versus about 0.25% in peacetime). Prediction markets price "Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by September 15?" at <1% on Polymarket (closes 15 September 2026). The Escalation Forecast reads 52 (elevated).
What are the odds the Strait of Hormuz reopens soon?
A public prediction market currently prices "Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by September 15?" at <1% implied probability, resolving 15 September 2026. The figure drifts with each escalation and de-escalation.
Is the Strait of Hormuz reopening now?
No. The Islamabad Memorandum (June 17, 2026) was signed and briefly lifted the US naval blockade, but the reopening did not hold: transit has been disrupted by fresh attacks on shipping in the strait, so passage is cut off again while the framework is in dispute. 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. Brent closed near $95.63 on September 2 and traded near $95.50 on September 3. Only a handful of ships have transited and the largest carriers and insurers have not returned. We track the PortWatch 7-day moving average as the leading signal of sustained throughput.
How do prediction markets decide the strait has reopened?
Both venues settle on the same number: the IMF PortWatch 7-day moving average of daily transit calls for the Strait of Hormuz. Polymarket's contracts resolve YES at or above 60; Kalshi's require the average to go above 60, so an average of exactly 60.0 pays out on Polymarket and not on Kalshi. The average currently reads 4.3 as of 2026-08-30, 55.7 below the threshold.
What has to happen for the Strait of Hormuz to reopen?
The Islamabad Memorandum (signed June 17, 2026, brokered by Pakistan) opened a 60-day toll-free window and briefly lifted the US naval blockade, but the ceasefire frayed within days and collapsed entirely in early July. 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. Brent closed near $95.63 on September 2 and traded near $95.50 on September 3. A durable halt to US-Iran hostilities is now the first thing that has to hold. Beyond that: sea mine clearance, war-risk insurance falling back below about 4x the peacetime rate, the roughly 330 ships now holding position away from berth clearing the backlog, and the major container lines resuming regular Hormuz transits. Daily PortWatch transit counts returning toward the roughly 85/day pre-crisis baseline are the lagging confirmation. Full normalization is expected to take months, with mine clearance alone likely to run for weeks.
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Strait of Hormuz reopening outlook per prediction-market odds (Kalshi and Polymarket) and the IMF PortWatch 7-day transit average the markets resolve on, as surfaced by straits.live. Source: https://straits.live/when-will-the-strait-of-hormuz-reopen
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September: $10 in against about $83 out
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