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10:49 04.07.2026 •
Hundreds of ships blocked in the Persian Gulf are waiting for the Strait of Hormuz to open
Photo: Reuters
The U.S. and Oman are seeking to end Iran’s demand for tolls in the Strait of Hormuz, offering access to frozen funds, but Iran insists on control, The Wall Street Journal writes.
The U.S. and Oman are looking for ways to break Iran’s insistence on charging tolls for ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Their chief lever in indirect talks was a promise to unfreeze some of the $100 billion in Iranian funds held overseas.
So far, Tehran isn’t taking the bait. Its military leaders are responding with a fresh round of threats against ships passing through one of the world’s most trafficked waterways.
U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner traveled to Doha this week to talk with Qatari mediators about how to break the impasse and settle the implementation of last month’s initial agreement to open the strait. Both the U.S. and Iranian teams discussed recent fighting in Lebanon with Qatari mediators, a conflict that has added another wrinkle to the process, people familiar with the discussions said.
The U.S. diplomats offered a trade-off to Iran, the people said: Relinquish its claim to control the strait and renounce toll payments in exchange for billions of dollars of unfrozen funds.
Under last month’s pact with the U.S., Iran was set to get access to part of the $100 billion of its funds frozen abroad. Iran’s economy is badly in need of a fresh injection of foreign currency amid rampant inflation driven by years of sanctions.
Talks had initially been progressing toward the release of $6 billion held in Qatar but Iran’s decision to block the strait has set back the release, the people said.
On Thursday, Iran signaled the reward wasn’t enough to change its position. Upon returning from Doha, Iran’s negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, insisted Hormuz is “under Iran’s command,” not the U.S.’s.
Ultimately, Iran wants to charge fees for every vessel crossing the strait in exchange for services such as security, and hopes to get the bulk of the annual $40 billion a year they could generate. The demand has been rejected by the U.S. and its Gulf neighbors.
“Iran is trying to open the strait on its own terms and does not want to relinquish what leverage it has gained,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, a London think tank.
The deadlock has heavily disrupted traffic in the waterway. Last week, Iran resumed its attacks on shipping after Oman organized its alternative transit route without seeking Tehran’s permission, triggering another wave of U.S. counterstrikes before both sides agreed to stop fighting and restart talks.
Daily traffic through the waterway fell to 43 vessels by Wednesday from 75 a week earlier, according to Kpler. By contrast, more than 100 ships a day used to pass through the strait before the war, the commodities-data provider said.
European nations now believe some Hormuz fees are inevitable
Some leading European powers now accept that ships transiting the vital Strait of Hormuz will have to pay fees to Iran and Oman, according to people familiar with the matter. Privately, some Gulf Arab officials hold the same view, they said, though this is not necessarily the formal position of their governments, Bloomberg reports.
It’s unclear what type or amount of fees any nation would be willing to accept. The US and Gulf Arab countries, meanwhile, continue to insist Iran and Oman cannot impose charges of any kind for the Hormuz strait. Their concerns include the risk it creates a precedent for other countries to impose fees on different waterways.
While coming to terms with the idea of the additional costs, European countries have pressed Iranian and Omani officials not to discriminate against ships based on their nationality, the people said. The UK, France and other European nations are also pushing for an international maritime coalition to help with clearing mines in Hormuz, but its deployment will depend on US-Iran negotiations over a permanent peace deal progressing, they said.
Oman, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait either declined to comment or didn’t respond to requests for comment from Bloomberg.
Oman has told European officials there’s no way of going back to the pre-war status quo in the Strait of Hormuz, Bloomberg reported last week. Ships passing through the waterway — a critical chokepoint for energy supplies from the Persian Gulf — may be charged fees for services related to de-polluting the strait and navigation costs.
Gulf Arab countries, who came under heavy attack from Iran for weeks in the initial phase of the war, have indicated a willingness to tone down their reluctance to pay tolls in the name of de-escalation, the people said.
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