The toll booth at the throat of world trade

In late February 2026, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz to foreign shipping. What began as a chaotic wartime closure has, in the past few days, hardened into something more consequential: an official sovereign toll regime, codified in Iranian law, and priced in cryptocurrency.

On May 18, Iran operationally launched the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, a formal state bureaucracy with its own internet domain (pgsa.ir), account on X, and contact email. Since then, Tehran has delineated a “management supervision area” across the strait and announced a transit-permit scheme that converts Hormuz from an international waterway into a vetted toll plaza.

Under the plan, which formalizes procedures that had developed over the previous several weeks, operators must apply to the Persian Gulf Strait Authority via email and submit a “Vessel Information Declaration” covering ownership, insurance, crew, cargo, and routing. They then will receive a transit permit after paying a fee of up to $2 million per voyage, though it appears some fee-less safe-passages can be negotiated bilaterally.

Read more at War on the Rocks