Mastodawn

Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet?

I built this because I was interested in the data. Didn't fully get it to what I wanted, but thought I'd share it nonetheless. Maybe someone has better data sources they could share!

Turns out live ship tracking APIs are expensive so I manually just copied the json from https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:57.4/cente... I'll probably have an ai agent do the same thing on some cron interval, if this gets any fanfare.

To actually know if the port is open without live ship tracking I found https://portwatch.imf.org/pages/cb5856222a5b4105adc6ee7e880a... which was perfect, except it has 4 day lag!

I also thought of adding news feed parsing or prediction market data to get a more definitive answer on if it's open right when you load it, but I spent a few hours and am gonna move on for now.

https://www.ishormuzopenyet.com/

MarineTraffic: Global Ship Tracking Intelligence | AIS Marine Traffic

MarineTraffic Live Ships Map. Discover information and vessel positions for vessels around the world. Search the MarineTraffic ships database of more than 550000 active and decommissioned vessels. Search for popular ships globally. Find locations of ports and ships using the near Real Time ships map. View vessel details and ship photos.

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foresterre 2d ago

According to the Financial Times (1), the straight is "open" but Iran is extorting fees for passing ships.

> "Iran will demand that shipping companies pay tolls in cryptocurrency for oil tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz, as it seeks to retain control over passage through the key waterway during the two-week ceasefire."

If they really will start doing so for all shipping, that would be odd since the straight itself is in Oman's territorial waters. Even so, the UNCLOS convention (2) requires free transit:

> Article 44
> Duties of States bordering straits
>
> States bordering straits shall not hamper transit passage and shall give appropriate publicity to any danger to navigation or overflight within or over the strait of which they have knowledge. There shall be no suspension of transit passage.

It would be unprecedented and unlawful, but I guess previous actions of Israel, the US and Iran have shown our world is beyond adhering to laws and agreements now.

(1) https://www.ft.com/content/02aefac4-ea62-48db-9326-c0da373b1...
(2) United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea: https://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unc...

Iran demands crypto fees for ships passing Hormuz during ceasefire

Country’s oil exporters’ union says toll to be paid in cryptocurrency and vessels monitored for weapons

Financial Times

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anonfunction

It's super hard to tell what's actually happening. Because I've seen other reports that Iran state media halted traffic earlier today, as reported by Washington Post[1]:

> With Trump and Iran each claiming victory, but still far apart on key issues, traffic in the Strait of Hormuz remained at a standstill Wednesday.

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/04/08/trump-iran-w...

Iran accuses U.S. and Israel of ceasefire violations, threatening truce

With Trump and Iran each claiming victory, but still far apart on key issues, traffic in the Strait of Hormuz remained at a standstill Wednesday.

The Washington Post