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The Lloyd’s List reported that, during a meeting of ship-owners organized by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) held in London in the third week of March, it was disclosed that Iran had collected US$2 million from a ship-owner for transit through the Strait of Hormuz when it was officially closed.
That single transaction is likely to set the benchmark for Iran and Oman, which are planning to charge a transit fee from every vessel passing through the Strait of Hormuz for reconstruction purposes. The $2 million transit fee, combined with high war-risk insurance, will create an estimated burden of $4 million to $6 million on a single voyage.
This one incident of a US$2 million payment is now haunting every shipper across the globe, and deliberations in the boardrooms of shipping lines are underway on viable options – pay a toll on a politically unstable waterway, or treat this crisis as the proof of concept to consider Pakistan’s regional connectivity, seriously.
The volume of transshipment cargo handled at Karachi ports surprised everyone, including the Pakistani authorities themselves.
The Accident That Became a Strategy
Karachi ports didn’t plan for this, nor did shipping lines intentionally choose Pakistan. They were pushed here when the strait became impassable. But in those first 24 days of March 2026, Pakistan’s ports absorbed more transshipment cargo than in the entire preceding year. The surge was accidental. What happens next is a choice that Pakistan’s government appears, for the first time, to be making deliberately.
A high-level committee constituted by the Prime Minister, led by Federal Minister for Maritime Affairs Muhammad Junaid Anwar Chaudhry, has moved faster than most observers expected.
The government has formally authorized bulk and break-bulk transshipment, Roll-on/Roll-off vehicle cargo, and Less than Container Load operations: three cargo categories that were previously legally restricted. These approvals represent a formalization of capabilities that should have existed years ago.
The Toll That Won’t Go Away
The critical question being asked of every logistics director is not whether the Strait of Hormuz is currently open, but whether it will stay open, and at what permanent cost?
Iran and Oman are expected to levy a formal transit fee during the ceasefire period, with revenues earmarked for regional reconstruction. The mechanism will be framed as temporary, but it certainly will not be because this approach is inspired by successful chokepoint monetization examples – the annual revenue of transit fees from the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal is approximately $7-8 billion and $4-5 billion, respectively.
Reconstruction in the region will take years. A fee structure established in the coming weeks will be cited as precedent in every subsequent negotiation, and a toll booth, once legitimized by ceasefire terms, becomes a recurring revenue stream that both countries want to be reverted in the future.
The Two-Week Window
Unlike oil markets, the global shipping lines react much more slowly. A two-week ceasefire is hardly enough for a mega-vessel to complete its voyage from Asia to Europe. The shipping lines will likely remain highly cautious until a permanent agreement is signed, most probably after the upcoming talks scheduled in Islamabad.
Insurance Premiums Won’t Vanish Instantly
Even with the Strait officially reopened by Iran, underwriters will not slash those 1% to 5% war-risk premiums back to baseline overnight. The geopolitical situation remains incredibly fragile, especially with Israel stating the ceasefire does not apply to Lebanon, and Iran already threatening to pull out of the truce over ongoing Israeli strikes. Insurers will likely wait to see if the ceasefire holds before drastically reducing rates, meaning the financial pain of the Hormuz route persists in the short term.
Pakistan’s Strategic Profile Just Skyrocketed
Pakistan is no longer just offering alternative port capacity; it is now the central diplomatic bridge that brokered the ceasefire. By hosting the upcoming US-Iran delegations in Islamabad and proving it can navigate the region’s most volatile security crisis, Pakistan has significantly boosted its credibility.
For global logistics companies, this makes utilizing Karachi port, Port Qasim, or Gwadar look much less like a desperate backup plan and more like a strategically sound, long-term pivot to a stabilizing regional player.
Compare that calculus to Pakistan’s present offer: no toll, naval escorts already positioned, and a port system that just demonstrated that it can absorb surge volumes.
The Structural Gap Pakistan Cannot Ignore
The honest analysis requires confronting what Pakistan cannot yet offer. The new policy approvals address what Pakistan is now willing to handle, but it doesn’t address whether Pakistan can handle it consistently with the current governance structure at scale, under pressure, especially when Dubai will respond with aggressive pricing to reclaim diverted traffic.
Although Pakistan has improved its ranking from 35th on the Linear Shipping Connectivity Index 2026, it has not surpassed India, which is at 9th, the UAE, at 16th, and Sri Lanka at 20th. Similarly, the UNCTAD reported that Pakistan’s merchant fleet is roughly 22 vessels as compared to India, which has 1,200-plus, and the UAE’s approximately 1,600.
No transshipment hub can sustain without the feeder vessels and port technology to match the volumes. Pakistan Port documentation remains heavily paper-dependent, and integration with Pakistan Single Window is incomplete.
Converting a wartime measure into a permanent advantage is an entirely different challenge that requires investments, not emergency policy announcements.
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The Question That Matters
Will the shipping line executives evaluate whether the Strait of Hormuz, now burdened with transit fee, elevated geopolitical risk, and a ceasefire that every analyst privately considers fragile, as a single point of dependency?
Their answer will decide whether the surge at Karachi ports was merely a wartime anomaly or proof that Pakistan’s ports have achieved what its policymakers failed to do for decades.
