Update, July 14: The 20% transit fee was withdrawn roughly 24 hours after it was announced, replaced with trade and investment commitments from Gulf states. The blockade of Iranian ports is proceeding as planned. Nothing below has changed. The surcharge stack is identical, the water is more dangerous than it was Monday, and your invoice did not move. That was the point of this piece, and it got proven faster than we expected.
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Fourteen ships crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday. A week earlier, it was 37. Before the war, it was well over 100 a day. That is the baseline you are shipping against right now.
On Monday, the U.S. announced a plan to charge a 20% fee on all cargo shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, described as a reimbursement for providing security in the waterway. The process would begin immediately. No implementation detail has been released.
We are not going to litigate the policy. Our job is narrower and more useful to you: what it costs, who ends up paying, and what you should have modeled before the answer arrives.
Nobody knows what the 20% is 20% of
This is the part that matters, and it is unresolved. The figure could mean 20% of the value of the goods moved, 20% of the cost of naval escort, or a share of security costs allocated across vessels. No clarification has been issued.
The spread between those readings is enormous. Shippers typically pay carriers 2% to 3% of cargo value in freight and related fees. A charge levied on cargo value at 20% would be roughly 10 times a shipper’s entire freight bill as a share of the goods’ value.
Model both ends. If the charge lands on cargo value, Gulf-linked freight stops being economic for a large share of cargo, and your sourcing decision changes. If it is treated as a cost allocation, it behaves like another line item and is absorbed into your all-in rate. Those two scenarios call for completely different responses. Run them now, not when the mechanism is announced.
The charge, if it comes, lands on a surcharge stack that is already stacked
This is the trap. Shippers are still reading base rates and treating them as the number.
Look at what carriers already published on Gulf lanes this year. Hapag-Lloyd’s war risk surcharge: $1,500 per TEU for standard boxes; $3,500 per container for reefers and special equipment. CMA CGM’s emergency conflict surcharge: $2,000 per TEU and $3,000 per FEU on dry cargo; $4,000 per FEU on reefers. MSC landed in the same range. Emergency fuel fees from CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd, and Maersk added $300 to $400 per FEU on top.
Do the arithmetic. A 40ft dry container on an affected lane is carrying roughly $3,000 in emergency surcharges before you get to base freight and standard fuel. A reefer runs to $4,000. Those charges apply to bookings already issued and cargo already on the water.
A transit fee would sit on top of that stack. It would not replace any of it.
And there is a decision above yours. Reinsurers canceled war risk coverage for the Middle East Gulf earlier this year, and carriers cannot enter waters they cannot insure at any price. You can be willing to pay and still have no vessel.
What to do this week
Quantify your Gulf exposure. Not just origin and destination ports. Inputs too. The Persian Gulf accounts for a large share of global urea and ammonia exports. If you buy anything downstream of those, you have exposure you have not booked yet.
Audit all-in cost, not base rate. Pull 90 days of ocean invoices and separate base freight from surcharges. If you cannot produce that split in under an hour, you do not know what you are paying.
Price the alternatives before you need them. Cargo is already loading and discharging at Red Sea ports and at the UAE’s Gulf of Oman ports, Fujairah and Khor Fakkan, which sit outside the strait. Cape routing adds 3,500 to 4,000 nautical miles and 10 to 14 days. Know the dollar and day cost of each option now, so the call is arithmetic later instead of panic.
Read your contract on government-imposed charges. Who absorbs a transit fee, you or your carrier, is a contract question. Most shippers have never read that clause. Read it before it becomes an invoice.
The line that matters
Twenty-two ships crossed the strait on July 9. The day before the war began, it was 147.
A fee appeared and disappeared inside a day. Vessels are still being attacked. Insurers are still pricing that risk. Carriers are still passing it to you. The number on your invoice did not care about any of the news.
That is why you audit the invoice and not the headline.
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If you haven’t modeled your Gulf exposure and your full surcharge stack, we can help you do it. Reach out, and we’ll walk through where the cost is hiding.
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