Charges for services in Hormuz approved in Iranian parliament

Article 3 of the Strategic Action Plan

The Sunday meeting of parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission cleared Article 3 of the Strategic Action Plan to Ensure Security and Progress in the Strait of Hormuz, a step spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said had been skipped in the previous session. The article enumerates six categories of services that Iran now intends to monetize: maritime services, environmental services, fueling under special conditions, insurance, safety, and "other services that we provide." The wording is broad enough to give Tehran wide discretion over what qualifies, and the bill leaves the fee schedule undefined in public reporting so far. That vagueness is itself a negotiating lever: shipowners and insurers must now price Iranian discretion into every transit.

The commission's framing matters as much as the text. By bundling safety, environmental, and insurance services into the fee regime, Iran is recasting routine passage as a bundle of paid services rather than a free right under customary international law. Even before any fee is published, the optics shift Hormuz from "international waterway" to "Iranian service zone," a narrative Tehran has pushed for years but never before codified through parliamentary procedure with such specificity.

Oman's 1982 sovereignty declaration

Qashqavi anchored Iran's legal case in the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, then immediately cited Oman's political declaration issued upon ratification. Muscat's declaration insisted that UNCLOS provisions must not override its national sovereignty or security. Qashqavi's invocation is pointed: it positions Iran alongside Oman as a littoral state whose sovereignty claims over the Strait predate and override generic freedom-of-navigation language in UNCLOS. The argument is that the waterway is governed not just by treaty but by the political reservations of the states that border it.

This framing is calibrated to a specific audience. Iran's Gulf Arab neighbors, particularly Oman and the UAE, are the regional parties most directly affected by any new fee regime. By borrowing Oman's own 1982 reservation as legal cover, Tehran signals it does not intend to act unilaterally in a way that alienates Muscat. The same framing also pre-empts Western criticism that Iran is violating the law of the sea: the article tells critics that Iran is not breaking the convention but invoking the sovereignty clauses that every littoral state has asserted.

Rial-denominated collection and the littoral rights frame

The commission specified that fees will be collected "in rials or any other currency desired by the Islamic Republic of Iran." The dual-currency option is a quiet but significant financial lever. Collecting in rials forces foreign shippers into Iran's banking system, with all the compliance friction that brings for sanctions-exposed Western and Asian banks. Permitting payment in any currency Iran chooses, by contrast, lets Tehran set the terms to favor allies or punish adversaries — for example, accepting yuan from Chinese vessels while demanding dollar settlement from others.

Qashqavi wrapped the policy in the language of "rights of the littoral states" and the need to respect their security and sovereignty. That vocabulary echoes the broader messaging from Iranian officials who, in recent weeks, have framed the country's posture as defensive rather than coercive. Whether Western governments, Gulf monarchies, and major oil importers read it that way will determine whether Article 3 functions as a revenue measure or as a tripwire for the next Hormuz standoff.