How Much Freight Goes Through the Strait of Hormuz?

About 3,000 ships a month carried freight through the Strait of Hormuz before the 2026 closure

The Strait of Hormuz is framed as an oil story, but most ships in the strait were never tankers. Before the waterway effectively closed on February 28, 2026, roughly 3,000 commercial vessels a month (12-month pre-closure baseline through February 2026) — between 88 and 130 a day, depending on who's counting — moved through the 21-mile-wide channel between Iran and Oman, according to Lloyd's List Intelligence figures reported by CNN and the Congressional Research Service. That pace works out to roughly 30,000–36,000 ship transits a year through the world's most important energy chokepoint — container ships, bulk carriers, and vehicle carriers alongside oil tankers.

On the non-oil side, the container ports behind the strait — led by Jebel Ali, the world's ninth-largest — handle roughly 30 million TEU a year by our count (based on 2023–2024 audited port figures), about 3% of global port throughput. When the strait closed, the freight world found out what that number meant: about 10% of the global container fleet was caught in the backup within days, according to Ocean Network Express CEO Jeremy Nixon.

• ~88 vessels per day transited the strait in the year before the closure, per IMF PortWatch satellite AIS data. The figure counts only cargo ships and tankers above a size threshold.
• ~130 ships per day is the Congressional Research Service pre-conflict estimate counting all commercial transits (2026).
• 15.54 million TEU moved through Jebel Ali in 2024, making it the world's ninth-largest container port (Lloyd's List Top 100). About 65% of that volume transships onto feeder vessels serving other Gulf ports (CRS).
• Roughly one-third of global seaborne fertilizer trade transits Hormuz, including 46% of globally traded urea (Benchmark Minerals via the World Economic Forum).
• About half of global seaborne sulfur trade and about one-third of seaborne methanol trade move through the strait (Benchmark Minerals, 2026).
• ~40% of U.S. waterborne urea imports and ~40% of U.S. waterborne aluminum imports originate in Gulf countries behind the strait (CRS, 2026).
• 204,000+ TEU sat stranded across major carriers at the peak of the 2026 backup, with roughly 433 vessels anchored in the zone as of July 2026 (straits.live tracking of carrier reports and AIS data).
• 15 vessels transited on July 19, 2026 — about 17% of normal throughput, 144 days into the closure (IMF PortWatch via straits.live).

A normal day used to look like 100 ships. July 19 looked like 15.

Numbers in a table undersell what happened to this waterway, so here is the same fact in motion: ship traffic through the strait, before and after, drawn at a 7-to-1 ratio that matches the real decline.

Recovery has been wobbly rather than steady. The week ending July 12 saw 248 crossings (~35 a day); renewed attacks cut the following week to 127 (~18 a day), a near-50% drop in seven days (S&P Global via Business Standard). Traffic tracks insurance rates and missile risk more than demand.

Nobody counts Hormuz freight the same way

Ask three authorities how much freight moves through the Strait of Hormuz and you get three answers. None of them is wrong. They count different things.

The container ports behind the strait handle ~30 million TEU a year

Every container that enters or leaves a Persian Gulf port by sea passes through the Strait of Hormuz. There is no other sea route. So the cleanest way to size non-oil freight exposure is to add up what those ports actually handle. We pulled the latest audited full-year figure for each container port behind the strait:

Audited figures sum to 27.1 million TEU; adding conservative estimates for the smaller Kuwaiti, Iraqi, and Bahraini ports brings the total to roughly 29–30 million TEU a year — about 3% of global container port throughput, which runs roughly 850–900 million TEU a year per Drewry and UNCTAD.

Containers are only part of the picture. In the first days of the 2026 closure, 280 dry bulk ships were trapped inside the strait (CRS) — carriers hauling aluminum, cement, sulfur, urea, and grain. The Gulf produces about 9% of the world's primary aluminium and roughly 6 million tons a year of it (Gulf Cooperation Council figures via More Than Shipping).

What share of world trade squeezes through 21 miles of water

When the strait closed, these shares stopped being abstractions. Urea prices jumped 40% in the first half of April 2026 (IFPRI via International Crisis Group).

What the strait means for U.S. shippers

The Congressional Research Service published the most detailed accounting of U.S. exposure to non-oil Hormuz freight (R48903, 2026). The dependencies run in both directions:

The affected port list reads like a map of U.S. trade: New Orleans, Houston, Savannah, Norfolk, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, and Wilmington all move cargo that depends on the strait.

What 144 days of closure did to freight flows

The strait's importance was theoretical until February 28, 2026, when U.S. and Israeli military operations against Iran effectively shut it. The timeline, in numbers:

• February 2026 (pre-closure): an average of 129 daily transits across February 1–27 — a normal pace (farmdoc daily, citing UNCTAD).
• March 2026: 154 vessels crossed in the entire month — about 5% of pre-war traffic (Kpler via CNN). ONE's CEO reported ~10% of the global container fleet caught in the backup. Roughly 1,000 ships sat in holding patterns — 800 inside the Gulf waiting to exit, 200 outside waiting to enter (CRS).
• Carrier response: Maersk imposed surcharges up to $3,300/TEU on Arabian Peninsula routes; MSC and CMA CGM added $2,000/TEU emergency surcharges. Diverting around the Cape of Good Hope added ~10 days and ~30% cost per AFP reporting.
• Consumer impact: Temu and Shein warned of multi-day delivery delays; Amazon forecast longer. German cars, French cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, and Italian food exports to the Gulf all stalled (AFP, March 2026).
• April 8, 2026: Ceasefire announced. Iran declared a reopening April 17; only 187 vessels successfully transited between March 4 and late May (CSIS).
• July 2026: Traffic is limping. The week ending July 19 averaged ~18 transits a day, and S&P Global assessed only about one-third of crossings as compliant, with Iran-linked and sanctioned vessels dominating (Business Standard). On July 19, 15 vessels transited: 17% of normal.

Common questions about Strait of Hormuz freight

How many ships pass through the Strait of Hormuz per day?

About 88 to 130 commercial vessels a day before the February 2026 closure, roughly 3,000 a month. As of July 2026, traffic is running at 13–18 transits a day — under 20% of normal.

How many ships pass through the Strait of Hormuz per year?

Roughly 30,000–36,000 commercial ship transits a year, based on the pre-closure pace of about 3,000 a month (Lloyd's List Intelligence). Oil tankers were a minority; container ships, bulk carriers, and general cargo vessels made up most of the traffic.

Is most Strait of Hormuz cargo oil?

By value and tonnage, energy dominates: about 25% of global seaborne oil and 20% of LNG transit the strait. But by ship count, tankers are a minority — container ships, bulk carriers, vehicle carriers, and general cargo vessels made up most of the ~3,000 monthly transits.

What consumer goods move through the strait?

Everything routed through Jebel Ali's transshipment hub: electronics, apparel, fast-fashion parcels (Temu and Shein both warned of delays when it closed), appliances, and European exports — German cars, French cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, Italian food — bound for Gulf markets.

Can ships route around the Strait of Hormuz?

No. It is the only sea passage into the Persian Gulf. Pipeline bypasses exist for some oil (5.5–8M barrels/day of capacity against ~20M/day of flow), but there is no container bypass. Cargo either transits the strait or reroutes to ports outside it — Fujairah, Sohar, Salalah, Jeddah — and moves overland at higher cost.

How much container trade depends on the strait?

Ports behind the strait handle roughly 29–30 million TEU a year by our count — about 3% of global port throughput. Jebel Ali alone accounts for 15.54M TEU (2024), ninth-largest in the world.

What happened when the strait closed in 2026?

Traffic collapsed to ~5% of pre-war levels in March 2026, about 10% of the global container fleet was caught in the backup, carriers imposed surcharges up to $3,300/TEU, and urea prices jumped 40%. A ceasefire took effect April 8, but traffic remained below 20% of normal into late July.

Which U.S. ports are most exposed?

Houston and Savannah (cement, food exports), New York (aluminum), New Orleans and Portland (fertilizer imports), plus vehicle export flows through New York, Savannah, and Houston.

The strait is a container story wearing an oil costume

The oil market has strategic reserves, pipeline bypasses, and decades of contingency planning for a Hormuz disruption. Container freight has none of those. Roughly 30 million TEU of annual port handling sits behind a single 21-mile-wide channel with no alternative sea route, and 2026 proved it: one closure trapped a tenth of the world's container fleet, stranded 200,000+ TEU, and put delay warnings on Temu and Amazon orders within a week.

For journalists: the citable numbers are ~3,000 ship transits a month pre-closure, ~30 million TEU a year behind the strait, and traffic still under 20% of normal five months after the closure. For operators: if any part of your supply chain touches Jebel Ali transshipment, Gulf-origin aluminum, or Middle East urea, the lesson of 2026 is that the exposure was never priced in — and mostly still isn't.

Related research: For the Pacific-side chokepoint that carries most U.S. container imports, see our companion analysis of how much cargo goes through the Panama Canal.

How we built this

Transit counts come from IMF PortWatch (satellite AIS, cargo and tanker vessels above a size threshold), Lloyd's List Intelligence monthly counts, and the Congressional Research Service's pre-conflict estimate; we present the range rather than picking a winner because each counts a different vessel population. The ~30M TEU container figure is a 3PL Insider derivation: we summed the latest audited full-year throughput for each container port located inside the strait (mixed 2023–2024 reporting years, listed per port above) and added a conservative estimate for smaller Kuwaiti, Iraqi, and Bahraini ports. Transshipment double-counting and non-containerized cargo cut in opposite directions and are flagged in the body. Commodity shares come from UNCTAD, IEA, Drewry, and Benchmark Minerals Intelligence via the World Economic Forum. U.S. trade exposure comes from CRS report R48903. Closure-period figures are dated snapshots and understate true flows wherever AIS was disabled.

• Congressional Research Service — R48903: The Strait of Hormuz in Brief: Non-Oil Shipments and Effects on U.S. Shippers (2026)
• IMF PortWatch — chokepoint transit data and methodology (2026)
• CNN — How traffic through the Strait of Hormuz shrank to a trickle (April 2026)
• Lloyd's List Top 100 via PortNews — Jebel Ali 15.536M TEU (2025)
• World Economic Forum — Beyond oil: 9 commodities impacted by the Strait of Hormuz crisis (April 2026)
• UNCTAD — Strait of Hormuz disruptions: Implications for global trade and development (2026)
• International Crisis Group — The State of the Strait (May 2026)
• CSIS — The Strait of Hormuz in 8 Charts (2026)
• Reuters via AOL — ONE CEO on container fleet caught in backup (March 2026)
• Business Standard — S&P Global data on July 2026 Hormuz traffic (July 2026)
• AFP via Malay Mail — consumer impacts of the Hormuz shutdown (March 2026)
• farmdoc daily (University of Illinois) — Global trade dependency and the Strait of Hormuz (March 2026)
• AD Ports Group via The Maritime Standard — container throughput (2024)
• Container News — Iranian ports record volume growth in 2024 (2025)
• Gulf Times — Hamad Port 1.421M TEUs in 2024 (January 2025)
• Argaam — Saudi ports in Lloyd's List rankings (2024)
• straits.live — Strait of Hormuz live tracker (IMF PortWatch data) (July 2026)