On May 18, 2026, Iran's Supreme National Security Council posted on X that “The official X account of the Persian Gulf Strait Authority is now live.” The PGSA, “a new body tasked with vetting and tolling vessels,” went operationally live that day, RFE/RL reported, and ships passing through the waterway were reportedly being sent regulations from a PGSA email address. Under the system described by The Maritime Executive, vessels must apply for permission and disclose their crew, cargo, ownership, insurance and past port calls; ships with ties to Israel are barred; and the fee could reportedly run up to $2 million per passage in Bitcoin or yuan. RFE/RL noted that it remains unclear who runs the PGSA's account or what entity oversees it.
The body formalizes tolls Iran had already begun collecting. On April 23, deputy parliament speaker Hamidreza Hajibabaei said “the first revenue from Hormuz transit tolls has been deposited into the central bank account.” The Institute for the Study of War said Tehran was introducing the tolls under the guise of maritime insurance policies, according to Newsweek. Before the war began on February 28, one-fifth of the world's traded oil and natural gas passed through the strait.
The announcement tested Trump's claims of control. On April 23 he wrote: “No ship can enter or leave without the approval of the United States Navy. It is 'Sealed up Tight,' until such time as Iran is able to make a DEAL!!!” The U.S. naval blockade of Iranian vessels and ports began April 13. The Independent reported in April that American ships had not been operating in the narrow passage because doing so would put them in range of Iranian drone or missile attacks. By May 20, the maritime intelligence firm Windward described “a contested and tiered access environment shaped by parallel US enforcement and Iranian administrative control.”
In April, State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had agreed that “no country or organization can be allowed to charge tolls to pass through international waterways.” Maritime lawyer Ian Ralby called Iran's permit and toll regime “flat-out illegal under international law,” and UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash said attempts to control the strait were “nothing but pipe dreams.” Istanbul-based maritime expert Yörük Işık told Newsweek: “Iran is encouraged from the failures and hyper-personalized foreign policy of the Trump administration and is really testing the limits of where it can push this.”
Correction (October 2, 2026): This entry previously attributed to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth an acknowledgment that U.S. ships were not operating inside the strait because of the drone and missile threat. That statement was The Independent's own reporting, not Hegseth's words. The entry also described the Rubio-Wang line as a joint statement; it was a State Department spokesperson's account of what the two agreed. Its title and summary called the blockade “failed” and said Iran had a “permanent revenue stream the U.S. has no working tool to stop,” which the sources do not establish. The title, summary and key facts have been corrected.