Strait of Hormuz Monitor

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How many ships passed through the Strait of Hormuz today?

As of 2026-07-25, about 12 commercial ships per day are transiting the Strait of Hormuz (IMF PortWatch 7-day average) — about 16% of the pre-crisis norm of roughly 74 transits per day. In the same period our live AIS feed detected 3 unique vessels in the Hormuz region, including 0 loaded oil tankers observed transiting eastbound (a lower bound — many tankers disable AIS near Iranian waters). This is roughly day 147 of the disruption that began 28 February 2026.

Overall the Strait of Hormuz is currently severely restricted — only a fraction of normal traffic is getting through (day 147 of the crisis).

As of · updated every 5 minutes · methodology · sources

Transits per day
~12
IMF PortWatch, 7-day average
Share of normal
~16%
vs the ~74/day pre-crisis norm
Latest single day
15 transits
PortWatch, 2026-07-19
AIS vessels (24h)
3
unique vessels in the Hormuz region (lower bound)
War-risk insurance
15×
Lloyd's premium vs peacetime baseline
Crisis pressure index
83/100
extreme band

What the daily ship count actually measures

The headline figure is the number of commercial ship transits through the Strait of Hormuz, reported by IMF PortWatch, which counts port calls and chokepoint transits from satellite AIS. We lead with the 7-day moving average (currently ~12/day) rather than a single day, because PortWatch publishes on a roughly weekly cadence and one-day numbers are noisy. Before the 2026 crisis, roughly 74 commercial vessels transited the strait every day; the strait normally carries about 20 million barrels of oil per day, around a fifth of global petroleum supply.

Alongside PortWatch we publish an independent, near-real-time count from live AIS feeds: the unique vessels our monitors detect inside the Hormuz region over the last 24 hours, and the loaded oil tankers observed transiting eastbound out of the Gulf. Treat the AIS figure as a lower bound. AIS is self-reported, and tankers operating near Iranian waters routinely switch off their transponders and “go dark,” so a genuinely busy day can still show a low AIS count. The two methods answer the question from different angles — satellite-derived transits versus live transponder crossings — and we show both rather than forcing a single number.

The gap between today's ~12 transits and the pre-crisis ~74/day is the disruption, in one number. This page is computed live and flips automatically as traffic changes — it is a measurement of observed movements, not a forecast. For the interactive map, direction and flag breakdowns, oil-price impact and war-risk insurance premiums, follow the links below.

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