TEHRAN: Iranian lawmakers have proposed a plan to impose tolls and taxes on ships passing through the strategic Strait of Hormuz, local media reported on Thursday.

Officials have said shipping conditions through the waterway will not return to those from before the Middle East war began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb 28.

“We in parliament are pursuing a plan under which countries will pay tolls and taxes to the Islamic republic if the Strait of Hormuz is used as a secure route for transit, energy and food security,” Tehran lawmaker Somayeh Rafiei was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.

“The security of the strait will be established with strength, authority and grandeur by the Islamic Republic of Iran, and countries must pay a tax in return,” she said. Traffic through the vital strait has been brought to a near-standstill since the start of the war.

Transit volumes through Bab el-Mandeb strait surges 280pc and 70pc through Suez Canal

Iranian forces have attacked multiple vessels, saying they failed to heed “warnings” against transiting the waterway.

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on Tuesday that maritime traffic would “not return to its pre-war status”.

In recent days, Iran has allowed some vessels from countries it considers friendly to pass, while warning it would block ships from countries it says have joined the “aggression” against it.

Maritime intelligence firm Windward said in an analysis on Tuesday that at least five ships exited the strait via Iranian waters on March 15 and 16.

A message from Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei also said “the lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must definitely be used”.

Bab el-Mandeb and Suez Canal routes

Shipping companies are carving out other ways to get their cargos through the region. Major shipping firm CMA CGM said it was moving freight across Gulf countries by rail and road to avoid the strait. “Gulf maritime traffic patterns indicate early signs of global rebalancing,” said marine intelligence group Windward in a report.

In recent days transit volumes through the Bab el-Mandeb strait off east Africa surged 280pc, and 70pc through the Suez Canal, it said, indicating that “shipping is adapting through alternative corridors.”

Just a trickle of cargo ships and tankers — most of them Iranian — have made it through the Strait of Hormuz since Iranian forces blocked the crucial trade route in the Middle East war.

Here are facts and figures about vessels that have passed through the 167-kilometre long strait since the war broke out with US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

95pc shipping drop

From March 1 to 19, commodities carriers made just 114 crossings, according to analytics firm Kpler — a decrease of 95pc from peacetime. Of these, 69 crossings were by oil tankers and more than half were loaded, Kpler data showed, with most travelling east out of the strait.

Traffic “is being led mostly by bulk carriers, tankers and container ships,” said Richard Meade, editor of leading shipping intelligence journal Lloyd’s List, in a briefing on Thursday. “But we have seen a bit of an uptick in gas carriers moving over the last week.”

Iranian, Greek, Chinese ships

Most of the ships passing the strait are owned or flagged in Iran, said Bridget Diakun, an analyst at data company Lloyd’s List Intelligence. After that, Greek ships accounted for 18pc of crossings and Chinese ones 10pc in recent days, she said.

“Although Iran is continuing to control the Strait and exit its own oil, everything else is largely still at a standstill,” said Meade.

35 sanctioned ships

Overall since the war started, around a third of the ships transiting the strait were under US, EU or UK sanctions, according to an analysis of passage data. Of the oil and gas tankers, more than half were under sanctions.

Since March 16 “anything heading westbound has been shadow fleet, gas carriers or tankers... they absolutely dominate the traffic going through,” Diakun told the Lloyd’s briefing.

Oil to China

Commodities analysts at JPMorgan bank said in a report released on Monday that most of the oil passing through the strait was headed for Asia, principally China.

Data in the report indicated it was receiving more than a million barrels day from Hormuz — far below the pre-war level of nearly five million.

Cichen Shen, Asia Pacific editor at Lloyd’s List, said there were indications online that Chinese authorities were working on “some sort of exit plan” for their big tankers stuck in the region.

1.3m barrels of Iran oil

The JPMorgan analysts said overall 98pc of the observable oil traffic through the strait was Iranian, averaging 1.3 million barrels a day “in early March”. A fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passes through the strait in peacetime.

Indian, Pakistani ships

“There are indications that some ships are transiting under Iranian ‘approval’, with some vessels following a route through the Strait closer to the Iranian coastline than normal,” including Indian and Pakistani vessels, marine consultancy Clarksons said in a note.

Meade of Lloyd’s List added: “Several governments, including China, but (also) India, Pakistan, Iraq, Malaysia, they’re all in direct talks with Tehran, coordinating vessel transits” with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2026