DUBAI — Iran has exempted commercial ships from four countries — India, China, Iraq and Qatar — from the transit restrictions it imposes in the Strait of Hormuz, a senior Iranian lawmaker has said, in the first named carve-out Tehran has described since the waterway became the choke point of its war with the United States and Israel.

Source: PTI, Dubai, Nov 4, 2026

"We have currently exempted four countries — India, China, Iraq and Qatar — from transit restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz. Ships from these countries pass freely, and the Americans do not intercept them either," Amir Hayat-Moghaddam, deputy chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, told the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) in an interview on Tuesday, November 3.

Source: Amir Hayat-Moghaddam to ISNA, via PTI, Nov 4, 2026

The exemptions were granted for specific reasons, the lawmaker said. India's was arranged so Iran can keep importing medicines from India; China's was intended to secure Beijing's political support, alongside the financial benefits of the relationship. Qatar — the Gulf state mediating between Washington and Tehran — gets the freest terms of all.

Source: PTI, Nov 4, 2026; Zee News English, Nov 4, 2026

The four flags do not travel on equal terms. Iran collects transit fees from Indian and Chinese vessels, Hayat-Moghaddam said, while Qatari ships pass without charges. He did not say whether Iraqi vessels pay fees, and he gave no details of how eligibility is checked, how long the exemptions last, or which authority — the Iranian government or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which polices the strait — enforces them.

Source: Anadolu Agency, via Safety4Sea, Nov 4, 2026

Delhi's answer: no official word, no change on the water

New Delhi, however, says it has received nothing official. Tehran has not communicated any such exemption to India, and there has been no change in the existing procedures for Indian ships transiting the waterway, sources told The Hindu BusinessLine. "There is no clarity on the matter of exemption from navigation restrictions, and it is not known under what authority that statement was made. According to the Indian Mission (in Tehran), apparently there is no change in the current procedure," a source said. Whether the Iranian government or the IRGC has endorsed the lawmaker's claim is also unclear.

Source: The Hindu BusinessLine, Nov 4, 2026

Background: the strait at the centre of the Trump–Iran war

The United States and Israel launched their war on Iran on February 28, and the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow mouth of the Gulf through which about a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas normally flows — has been restricted and fought over ever since. Ship transits have dropped by more than 90 per cent since the crisis escalated, according to shipping data cited by the Inter Press Service, and vessels are still being hit: a tanker reported two projectiles striking its engine room off Limah, Oman, on November 3, and Iran's Revolutionary Guards claimed on November 4 that four more tankers had struck mines south of the strait — claims the US side has repeatedly disputed or rejected in earlier rounds.

Source: Inter Press Service (UN Bureau), Nov 4, 2026

The exemption claim came on the same day Iran's Guards announced their latest tanker-mine claim in the strait. Read: IRGC says four tankers hit mines south of Hormuz

Oil markets are reading the exemptions as one more sign that Tehran is sorting the world's shipping into friends and others rather than reopening the strait to everyone. Brent crude closed at $103.60 a barrel on Tuesday, its lowest in about four weeks, and fell further to $101.85 on Wednesday as Democrats won control of Congress in the US midterms — but it remains far above its pre-war levels in the $60s and $70s, because a selective exemption for four flags does not restore the roughly one-fifth of global supply the strait normally carries, yaani a fifth of the world's oil trade still has to run a gauntlet of mines, blacklists and seizures.

Source: DailyForex market report, Nov 4, 2026; Awaaz Punjab market reporting, Nov 4, 2026

For India, and for the lakhs of Punjabi and Indian workers across the Gulf states, the practical stakes are direct. India imports the bulk of its crude through or around this waterway, Indian seafarers crew a large share of the tankers still attempting the crossing, and two Indian nationals have died in the Riyadh airport attack claimed in this same war. A working Indian exemption would ease medicine exports to Iran and give Indian-flagged cargoes a safer lane — but with Delhi itself saying nothing has formally changed, shipping companies are likely to wait for written Iranian confirmation before treating the lane as open.

Source: PTI, Nov 4, 2026; The Hindu BusinessLine, Nov 4, 2026

What happens next

Three tests will show whether the exemption is real: an official Iranian government or IRGC statement confirming it; any Indian foreign ministry response beyond the current 'no communication received'; and actual transits — whether Indian, Chinese, Iraqi and Qatari ships visibly move through the strait in larger numbers in the coming days. The announcement also lands while mediator Qatar steps up efforts to avert a renewed US–Iran escalation, with Washington and Tehran still far apart on a deal to end the war, according to a senior Iranian official quoted by Reuters on Tuesday.

Source: The Hindu BusinessLine, Nov 4, 2026; Reuters via BusinessWorld, Nov 4, 2026