Live status
Is the Strait of Hormuz open?
It’s complicated
Ships are still crossing — but at roughly 33% of normal traffic. Iran calls the strait closed; the US says it’s escorting convoys through. Reality on the water: contested.
PortWatch derives transit counts from satellite tracking on a ~4-day lag and refreshes weekly (Tuesdays), so “data as of” trails today by design — it’s the freshest reliable figure available, not a stale page.
The short version
Why this needs a whole website
The Strait of Hormuz is a 33-kilometre gap between Iran and Oman that roughly a fifth of the world’s oil squeezes through every day. So every few months, when tensions flare, someone announces it’s closed, someone else insists it’s open, oil futures do a little dance, and the rest of us are left refreshing the news trying to figure out which.
This page exists to answer the only question that matters — can ships actually get through right now? — without the geopolitics, the hot takes, or the paywall. We don’t take Tehran’s word or Washington’s. We count the boats.
Right now the answer is genuinely in the middle. After the July 2026 ceasefire between the US and Iran wobbled and renewed strikes followed, tanker owners got nervous and traffic dropped hard — but it never went to zero. Iran has re-declared the strait closed; US Central Command says it has escorted hundreds of vessels through. Both can be “true” at once, which is exactly why the big word above says it’s complicated.
How we decide
Three states, one honest rule
We take the 7-day average number of vessels transiting the strait and compare it to its normal baseline of about 96 crossings a day. Then it’s just arithmetic.
Traffic is at or near normal. Tankers are sailing, insurers are calm, the world’s oil is moving.
≥ 70% of baseline
Ships are still moving but well below normal. Rerouting, convoys, spiking war-risk premiums — open in theory, tense in practice.
30% – 70% of baseline
Transits have collapsed to near-zero. Whatever the official statements say, the water tells the story.
< 30% of baseline
Sources & caveats
Where the number comes from
The transit count is from IMF PortWatch, an open platform that estimates daily vessel crossings at 28 major maritime chokepoints using satellite AIS positioning. The Strait of Hormuz is chokepoint6 in their dataset. The baseline of ~96 transits/day is PortWatch’s 2024 average for the strait.
Two honest caveats. First, the data has a processing lag of a few days, so “data as of” will always trail today’s date — we show both. Second, during conflict there are documented reports of GPS jamming and AIS spoofing, so vessel counts are a strong signal, not gospel. When Tehran and Washington disagree, so can the satellites.
- Transit data: IMF PortWatch — Daily Chokepoint Transit Calls (chokepoint6).
- Chokepoint background: U.S. Energy Information Administration — ~20 million barrels/day, ~20% of global oil.