Persian Gulf Strait Authority

The Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA) is an Iranian state body established on 5 May 2026, one day after USS Truxtun and USS Mason made the first armed escort transit of the Strait of Hormuz under sustained IRGC fire. It requires vessels to register, submit formal documentation, and pay a transit toll before receiving clearance to enter a designated corridor. Deviation triggers declared military intervention. The naming is deliberate: by calling itself a 'Persian Gulf' rather than 'Strait of Hormuz' body, Iran rejects the international-waterway designation that UNCLOS Article 38 attaches to the strait, guaranteeing transit passage without prior authorisation for ships of all flags.

Lloyd's List confirmed on 7 May 2026 that vessels were paying up to $2 million per ship in Chinese yuan to obtain PGSA transit clearance, routing toll payments outside the US dollar correspondent-banking system. The yuan denomination removes OFAC's principal enforcement lever. European P&I clubs have not yet modified their war-risk cover suspensions. The authority rests on the legal foundation of the 2 May Majlis Hormuz sovereignty law. MARAD issued Advisory 2026-004 acknowledging the PGSA regime, the first written US-government recognition that Iran has produced an institution Washington cannot reconcile with its own posture.

By mid-May 2026, the PGSA had evolved a two-track passage regime: the formal yuan-toll track for most vessels, and an informal bilateral state-to-state track under which Iraq negotiated transit for a Very Large Crude Carrier of approximately 2 million barrels and Pakistan secured passage for two Qatari LNG vessels, neither paying yuan tolls, with Tehran accepting political engagement in lieu. Foreign Minister Araghchi publicly codified the distinction: 'The Strait of Hormuz is open to friendly nations, and restrictions apply only to adversaries.' The two-track model extends the PGSA's institutional reach: favoured states participate without paying yuan, creating a patronage network that is harder for sanctions to unwire than a simple toll mechanism.

On 16 May 2026 Majlis National Security Committee chairman Ebrahim Azizi publicly announced via X that Iran had 'prepared a professional mechanism' to manage Hormuz traffic with 'necessary fees' on cooperating vessels, explicitly excluding 'the so-called freedom project'. The Azizi declaration converted the PGSA's operational practice into a named parliamentary position: four Iranian institutions (SNSC, IRGC, PGSA, and the Majlis National Security Committee) are now publicly on record backing the same Hormuz toll architecture simultaneously.

The Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, digitally signed on 15 June 2026, does not dissolve the PGSA. The 14-point MOU text, published on 17 June, bans the Hormuz "toll" by name but invokes UNCLOS Article 26(2) to recast the charges as "maritime navigation services", hands joint management to Iran and Oman, and makes the charge-free window 60 days only, running to approximately mid-August 2026. FM Araghchi stated explicitly: "charges for services provided will be collected." The PGSA continues operating under this renamed legal framework; what changes is the label, not the institution.

On 20 June 2026, the PGSA moved to make UNCLOS Article 26(2) operational rather than merely cited. It mandated compulsory marine insurance on every Strait of Hormuz transit, supplied free of charge for now by Iranian-approved underwriters. The PGSA explicitly reserved the right to levy fees once the MOU's 60-day window closes around 17 August 2026. Lloyd's List reported that the mandate 'defies UNCLOS' for vessels routing through Oman's territorial waters, and that shippers in the standard international channel face a sanctioned-insurer choice: accepting cover from an IRGC-linked underwriter or sailing without P&I. The insurance mandate is architecturally significant: it converts the 60-day charge-free window from a diplomatic concession into an enrolment period. Every vessel that accepts Iranian-provided cover during the window is logged in PGSA systems before fees resume. The PGSA is not standing down; it is building the administrative infrastructure for the post-August regime.

Following the IRGC drone strike on M/V Ever Lovely on 25 June 2026, the PGSA suspended the Oman-IMO evacuation corridor, stranding approximately 11,000 seafarers who had been using it to exit the Hormuz transit zone. The suspension demonstrates that the PGSA holds effective veto power over the humanitarian safety valve the MOU established.

On 12 July 2026, following the IRGC Navy's strike on the Cyprus-flagged container ship GFS Galaxy, the PGSA posted that passage through the strait was "not possible", its most assertive closure act yet and a sharp escalation from the corridor suspensions and insurance mandates of June. The declaration aligned the PGSA with the IRGC's "closed until further notice" order the same day, even as CENTCOM flew a third strike wave of the week and insisted the strait remained open to lawful traffic.