Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA): Rules and Blacklist

The PGSA is a government agency based in Tehran that Iran presents as the only office through which a ship can arrange passage through Hormuz. Iran’s state broadcaster announced it on May 5, 2026 as a “single window” between shipowners and the Revolutionary Guards’ navy, which polices the strait.

It grew out of Iran’s wartime push to charge for passage. In late March 2026, lawmakers advanced a bill to make ships pay to cross and to bar vessels of the United States, Israel and countries that joined sanctions on Iran. Parliament’s security committee approved a further article in August, but no final vote or Guardian Council approval has been confirmed, so the authority rests on government decision rather than a finished law.

The US Treasury says the PGSA “works with the IRGC and IRGC Navy to coordinate traffic” and that the money it raises goes to the Guards. Iran’s own terms name its website, pgsa.ir, and the address info@pgsa.ir as the only channels for applications. Other websites use the PGSA name, but Iran’s terms say only pgsa.ir handles applications.

A ship applies online, waits up to 48 hours and, if approved, gets a permit for one crossing within five days. The authority’s published terms say no vessel may pass without a valid permit, and each application is sorted as approved, incomplete or prohibited.

The application is a “Vessel Information Declaration” of more than 40 questions: the ship’s name, number and any previous name, where it comes from and where it is going, the nationalities of its owners, operators and crew, its insurance and its cargo. A permit covers a single transit and lapses after five calendar days, so every voyage needs a new application.

The route is fixed. An Iranian notice to mariners, issued on the Guards’ navy’s instructions, sets inbound and outbound lanes one nautical mile wide that pass near Larak Island, inside Iranian waters. The master gets final routing by radio or online call within 24 hours of departure, and any other route counts as a violation, with the owner and master liable for “any damages, fines, or accidents”.

Every ship must also carry insurance approved by the PGSA. For now, the terms say, that cover is free and paid for by Iran, but the authority reserves the right to charge for it later.

Iran has published no tariff. Its terms mention no transit fee, only insurance that is free for now and may be charged later. Shipping-industry accounts since May describe payments of up to about $2 million for a single crossing, settled in Chinese yuan, but Iran has not confirmed any amount.

For most shipowners, US sanctions settle the question before the price does: Washington treats any payment to the authority, in any form, as a violation.

The blacklist, which the authority calls its Non-Compliance List, names ships it says crossed Hormuz without its permission, and it now holds about 240 vessels. Listed ships “shall face restrictions on future passages, including fines, detention, or confiscation,” the authority says, and any ship that works with a listed one, through a ship-to-ship transfer for example, can be added too.

The list has grown fast. The first names came out on August 24 with about 45 ships; by mid-September there were 77. On October 27 the authority accused South Korea’s Sinokor of “the highest number of passage violations over the past three months,” and on November 2 it added 114 ships at once. After that update, 72 of the listed ships belonged to Gulf state-owned companies, among them the Kuwait Oil Tanker Company, Saudi Arabia’s Bahri, the UAE’s ADNOC and Qatar’s Nakilat.

Ships can get off the list. Owners can ask for removal by email, and some ships have been taken off. On November 11 the authority said ships with past violations could get milder terms if they admit the violation by email; it said the two bulk carriers caught with forged documents had accepted its conditions and were not listed. It did not name them.

Not under the law of the sea. The UN convention says no state may suspend transit passage through an international strait (Article 44) and that ships may not be charged simply for passing through (Article 26). Iran signed the convention in 1982 but never ratified it, and it argues that only innocent passage, which a coastal state can regulate more tightly, applies to it. We set out both readings in Who Controls the Strait of Hormuz?.

Iran’s neighbors reject the authority outright. On May 22, 2026, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia issued a joint statement at the International Maritime Organization’s Maritime Safety Committee rejecting it, with the UAE saying its latest announcement “claims to include the territorial waters of neighboring States, including the UAE.” On June 25, US and Gulf ministers meeting in Manama rejected “any tolls, fees, or attempts to assert control” over the strait. Oman, which shares the strait with Iran, did not sign the May statement and has kept talking to Tehran; on August 25 the two agreed on a temporary navigation corridor and joint mine clearance.

Silent Dossier’s position, set out in For Saudi Arabia, an Open Hormuz Must Also Be Toll-Free, is that a strait open only on Tehran’s terms and at Tehran’s price is still closed. The PGSA is the machinery of those terms. Passage through an international strait is not Iran’s to sell.

Yes. The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated the PGSA on May 27, 2026, under the counterterrorism order E.O. 13224, for supporting the Revolutionary Guards. Treasury called it “an Iranian-controlled scheme that flagrantly violates international law and U.S. sanctions,” and any PGSA property under US jurisdiction is now blocked.

The designation built on a May 1 alert warning that paying Iran for passage in any form, including digital assets, goods or donations to Iranian-linked charities, could bring sanctions on US and foreign firms alike. On July 29 the Treasury added two linked bodies: the Persian Gulf Marine Insurance Company, which writes the mandatory cover, and the HormuzSafe Marine Services Authority, set up under Iran’s economy ministry. An updated alert on August 24 said that even dealing with the three, including accepting their insurance, carries sanctions risk.

That leaves shipowners with two bad options. Applying to the PGSA exposes them to American penalties; sailing without it puts them on Iran’s list in a strait where ships are still being struck, as our count of Iran’s mine claims in Hormuz shows.