--- title: "Iranian lawmakers advance a bill to charge ships for passing through Hormuz" description: "A parliamentary commission has backed a draft law under which vessels from countries permitted to use the strait would pay Tehran for services. It is a draft, not a law, and it arrives as Washington says it wants to cut off Iran's remaining income." category: "World" category_url: https://newsparlor.com/category/world author: "Aisha Carter" published: 2026-08-24T01:35:36.000Z updated: 2026-08-24T01:35:36.000Z canonical: https://newsparlor.com/article/iranian-lawmakers-advance-a-bill-to-charge-ships-for-passing-through-hormuz tags: ["iran", "strait-of-hormuz", "shipping", "sanctions", "energy"] --- # Iranian lawmakers advance a bill to charge ships for passing through Hormuz A parliamentary commission has backed a draft law under which vessels from countries permitted to use the strait would pay Tehran for services. It is a draft, not a law, and it arrives as Washington says it wants to cut off Iran's remaining income. Iran's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission has backed a draft law under which, in the text's own words, "ships of countries permitted to pass through the Strait of Hormuz will pay for services provided by Tehran", [Al Jazeera's live coverage reports](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2026/8/24/iran-war-live-iranian-assembly-advances-plans-for-hormuz-service-fees). The measure has cleared a parliamentary commission. It is not law, and further legislative approval is required. ## Read the sentence carefully Two phrases in that quotation are doing the work. The first is "countries permitted". A service charge assumes an authority that decides who may pass, and the bill's wording asserts one. That is a claim about jurisdiction over an international waterway, made in the language of a utility bill. The second is "services provided". Coastal states do provide real things in busy straits: pilotage, traffic separation schemes, navigational aids, search and rescue. Charging for them is not by itself unusual. Framing a fee this way converts a matter of sovereignty and international law into a matter of invoicing, which is precisely why the framing has been chosen. We are describing the drafting, not judging it. Whether Iran may lawfully levy such a charge, and whether any shipowner would pay it, are questions this draft does not settle. ## The other half of the picture The same coverage reports that the US treasury secretary, Bessent, said Washington aims to "sever every economic lifeline" sustaining Iran, ahead of expected announcements of severe economic measures. Set the two together and the logic of the bill is visible. A state whose oil revenues are being cut off is looking at the one asset sanctions cannot reach, which is its geography. Roughly a fifth of the world's oil moves through the strait, and Iran sits along its northern shore. That does not make the fee likely to be collected. It makes it comprehensible. ## What happens next is not in the text A draft law says nothing about enforcement. The questions that matter are whether the full parliament passes it, whether the government implements it, what happens to a vessel that declines to pay, and how naval forces already operating in the Gulf would respond. None of that is answered here, and we will not speculate about it. ## What we could not establish We could not establish the proposed fee levels, which countries would count as permitted, the timetable for a full parliamentary vote, or the treasury secretary's full name and the setting of his remarks. This account comes from a single live blog entry rather than a full news report, and we verified it from that one publication. ## Sources - [Iran war live: Iranian assembly advances plans for Hormuz service fees](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2026/8/24/iran-war-live-iranian-assembly-advances-plans-for-hormuz-service-fees)