{"id":34277,"date":"2026-03-24T18:24:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T18:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/34277\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T18:24:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T18:24:07","slug":"irans-2m-pay-to-pass-fees-reportedly-emerge-in-strait-of-hormuz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/34277\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran’s $2M \u2018Pay-to-Pass\u2019 Fees Reportedly Emerge in Strait of Hormuz"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIran may not be able to officially close the Strait of Hormuz<\/a> even as its military launches attacks on vessels<\/a> in the conflict-ridden waterway, but the country appears to be setting up an unofficial toll system for ships to pass.<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to multiple members of Iran\u2019s parliament, the Islamic republic has started charging transit fees on some commercial vessels passing through the critical artery, which harbors roughly 20 percent of the world\u2019s supply of oil and liquefied natural gas.<\/p>\n

\n\tAladdin Boroujerdi, a member of the Iranian parliament\u2019s national security commission, told U.K.-based, Farsi-language television news outlet Iran International on Sunday that the country is charging as much as $2 million per passage through the Hormuz strait.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the time, he said the measure had already been implemented and reflects a new \u201csovereign regime\u201d in the waterway.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNow, because war has costs, naturally we must do this and take transit fees from ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz,\u201d Boroujerdi said.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt least two vessels transiting the strait have paid Iran for safe passage, maritime shipping publication Lloyd\u2019s List reported on Monday.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe payments are being sought on an ad hoc basis, according to Bloomberg. It is unclear which vessels made payments, or the mechanism used.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Iranian Embassy in India contradicted Boroujerdi\u2019s initial comments Monday, saying the claims were \u201cunfounded\u201d and reflected his views, rather than the official position of Iran.<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, on Tuesday, parliament infrastructure commission member Maryam Abdollahi backed up Boroujerdi\u2019s comments, telling Iran International of the country\u2019s goal to \u201clegally pursue the matter of collecting maritime tolls.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Strait of Hormuz has been largely off limits for most commercial vessels since the start of the war in Iran, with reports of at least 17 attacks on vessels including oil tankers, bulk carriers and container ships throughout March.<\/p>\n

\n\tIranian drone and missile attacks on neighboring countries throughout the war have also put ships at risk even if they are not traversing the strait, and instead idling in the neighboring Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lack of safety guarantees for vessels has caused major ocean carriers<\/a> to avoid the trade conduit<\/a> and suspend all bookings<\/a> to the Persian Gulf. While the global container shipping<\/a> industry has been largely free from operational disruption<\/a>, the attempted blockade has caused a spike in oil prices and removed capacity from various services. This has ultimately contributed to increasing freight rates and spurred congestion at ports in South and Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n

\n\tEight vessels crossed the Strait in total Monday, marking a tie for the most in a single day since March 2\u2014two days after the military offensive began\u2014according to analysis from ship tracking intelligence platform MarineTraffic.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMovements remain uneven, with no clear evidence of a sustained recovery in transits,\u201d said Ana Subasic, trade risk analyst, MarineTraffic, in an update Tuesday. \u201cTraffic continues to include both standard fleet and sanctioned\/shadow segments, suggesting that while passage is ongoing, conditions remain constrained and operator behavior is still being shaped by elevated risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Tuesday, the St. Kitts and Nevis-flagged container ship Selen was turned back from passing through the Strait of Hormuz by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy due to \u201cfailure to comply with legal protocols and lack of a permit,\u201d IRGC Navy Commander Alireza Tangsiri said in a post on X.<\/p>\n

\n\tSelen departed the U.A.E.\u2019s Sharjah Port late Monday, and was scheduled to reach Karachi Port in Pakistan by Saturday.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAny vessel through this waterway requires full coordination with Iran\u2019s maritime authority,\u201d said Tangsiri.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne of the vessels that was previously struck in the channel<\/a> on March 11, the Thailand-flagged bulk carrier Mayuree Naree, has been escorted through the Strait of Hormuz in the days after, the Iranian embassy in Bangkok said in its own X post Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe news out of Iran mirrors the reports released during the Red Sea<\/a> crisis, when a U.N. panel alleged that Yemen\u2019s Houthi militia collected roughly $180 million monthly in illicit fees for safe maritime passage through the waterway.<\/p>\n

\n\tHouthi representatives denied the claims at the time, and the panel had never been able to independently verify the claims.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Houthis stopped their attacks<\/a> on Red Sea shipping after last fall\u2019s Israel-Hamas ceasefire, but the Iranian proxy has elevated its threats again in the wake of the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe U.S.-designated terrorist organization threatened Saturday that it would enter the regional conflict in support of Iran, again warning that it plans to U.S. naval assets in the Red Sea and its chokepoint, the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait.<\/p>\n

\n\tOcean carriers have largely dropped their plans to return to the Red Sea as the conflict lingers.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the two-week period ended March 22, 43 container ships transited through Suez Canal, down 33 percent from 64 transits in the two-week period ended March 8, according to data from Drewry. Of the 43 container ships, 19 were owned by China- and Hong Kong-based shipowners, with Drewry indicating that these vessels are \u201cable or willing to risk sailing in this risky region.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iran may not be able to officially close the Strait of Hormuz even as its military launches attacks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[3676,102,3679,1000,101],"class_list":{"0":"post-34277","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-strait-of-hormuz","8":"tag-container-shipping","9":"tag-hormuz","10":"tag-ocean-carriers","11":"tag-red-sea","12":"tag-strait-of-hormuz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116285555568429590","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}