Among Iran's foreign trade figures for the year 1404 (which ended in March 2026), one number differs fundamentally from the rest: according to the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration, about 20,516,000 tonnes of goods transited Iranian territory. Iran sold none of them.
The difference from export figures is subtle but decisive. In exports, a country sells something it then no longer has: oil, steel, pistachios once sold are not back in the warehouse. In transit, no resource leaves the country at all. Other people's goods come in, cross Iran's roads and railways, and go out again, and Iran is paid for that passage.
Put differently, transit is the only part of foreign trade in which Iran sells its geographic position instead of its natural resources. Unlike oil, geography does not run out. But as the same year's data and the events of Mordad 1405 (July 2026) show, geography does not run out yet it can be blocked.
Background
The annual number on its own is misleading. The path to it matters more. According to the Trade Promotion Organization of Iran, in a report carried by the Mehr news agency on 26 Bahman 1404 (15 February 2026), foreign transit in the first 10 months of 1404 reached 17.6 million tonnes, a 4.63 percent decline on the same period a year earlier. For the first seven months of that year, a separate Mehr report on 2 Azar 1404 (23 November 2025) put the figure at 12.5 million tonnes.
In other words, the year that closed at 20,516,000 tonnes was a year in which transit shrank rather than grew. An asset that is supposed to be inexhaustible was, in practice, underused.
For a sense of scale, a comparison with the main pillar of foreign trade helps. As set out in Sahmino's earlier analysis of the value of each exported tonne, Iran exported about 150,508,000 tonnes of non-oil goods worth 51,657 million dollars in 1404. By weight, transit is roughly 13.6 percent of export tonnage. Small, but with one essential difference: almost all of its value added stays inside the country.
The numbers
| Indicator | Value | Period and source |
|---|
| Foreign transit, full year | 20,516,000 tonnes | 1404, Iran Customs |
| Foreign transit, 10 months | 17.6 million tonnes (down 4.63 percent) | 10 months of 1404, Trade Promotion Organization |
| Foreign transit, 7 months | 12.5 million tonnes | 7 months of 1404, Mehr news agency |
| Non-oil exports (for comparison) | 150,508,000 tonnes | 1404, Iran Customs |
| Parvizkhan crossing (second nationally) | 2,360,000 tonnes | 2 Esfand 1404, Mehr news agency |
| West Azerbaijan, destination transit | 1,147,674 tonnes worth 4,207 million dollars | 10 months of 1404, Mehr news agency |
| Shahid Rajaee port, foreign transit and oil exports | more than 7,924,000 tonnes | 7 months of 1404, Mehr news agency |
Why Iran's geography is valuable
A glance at the map is enough. The International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) connects Russia and Central Asia through Iran to the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, and from there to India; the traditional alternative runs through the Suez Canal, at considerably greater distance and time. The East to West corridor links China and Central Asia overland to Türkiye and Europe. And Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Afghanistan are all landlocked, with the shortest route to open water for many of them running through Iran.
Chabahar holds a special place here, because it is Iran's only oceanic port and reaching it requires no passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Under this year's conditions, that detail has turned from a geographic advantage into a strategic question.
Drivers: why the number should have been larger
Against Iran's potential geographic capacity, 20.5 million tonnes is a middling figure. Several bottlenecks explain the gap between capacity and reality.
1. Incomplete rail infrastructure. Bulk transit is most economic by rail. Rail links to some ports and border crossings are still unfinished, and parts of the network are single track. Road haulage costs more and takes longer.
2. An ageing fleet. The average age of the country's heavy transport fleet is high. That raises fuel consumption and lowers the reliability of delivery times. In international trade, predictability of delivery is sometimes more important than cost itself.
3. Financial and insurance constraints. Access to international cargo insurance and smooth banking settlement is difficult. A foreign logistics company, even if it judges the Iranian route cheaper, may forgo it on compliance risk.
4. Regional competition. Alternative routes are being developed, including corridors linking Central Asia to Türkiye across the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus. Every delay in Iranian infrastructure transfers market share to those routes.
5. And this year, a fifth bottleneck: the sea route. This is a variable that carried nothing like today's weight in earlier years' analyses. According to data from the tracking firm Kpler reported by Sahmino on 5 Mordad 1405 (27 July 2026), traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has fallen below 10 ships a day, with only seven vessels crossing on Sunday 26 July 2026. At the same time the shipping line Maersk, on 31 Tir 1405 (22 July 2026), imposed an emergency charge of 1,000 dollars on every container transiting Hormuz. Overland routes have not been spared either: a roadside bomb on 4 Mordad 1405 (26 July 2026) blocked the Zahedan to Khash transit road.
Bottlenecks one to four are investment problems and are solved with budget. The fifth is not.
Outlook
There is movement on the other side of the ledger. The Road Maintenance and Transportation Organization said on 8 Mordad 1405 (30 July 2026) that a draft comprehensive transit memorandum between Iran and Armenia has been prepared, a document which, according to Reza Akbari, deputy roads and urban development minister, focuses on infrastructure development, removing obstacles at border crossings, reducing or eliminating road tolls, and increasing capacity to handle transit fleets. On 4 Mordad 1405 (26 July 2026), the first foreign transit consignment through the Khosravi crossing was recorded, bringing one of the country's least used gateways into the transit network.
Provincial data for 1405 have not stopped either: according to a Mehr report on 12 Khordad 1405 (2 June 2026), customs formalities were completed for 299,000 tonnes of goods worth about 456 million dollars under the foreign transit procedure in Kurdistan province during the first two months of this year.
For equity investors, growth in transit bears directly on rail and road transport companies, shipping lines and port services, and indirectly on the steel and cement industries that benefit from infrastructure projects. But the usual rule holds: a macro story does not automatically become profit at a particular company. Realising this capacity depends on the development budget, on investment and on regulatory stability, and all three have been volatile variables in recent years.
Conclusion
The 20,516,000 tonnes that crossed Iran in 1404 are a reminder of a simple fact: Iran holds an asset that is not extracted, does not run out, and is not lost when it is sold, namely its position on the map. But geography alone generates no income; geography becomes income only when rail, ports, fleet, regulation and the sea route make it usable.
If one thing should stay with the reader, it is this: the 1404 figure was neither a record nor a failure, but an early warning. Transit shrank 4.63 percent within that very year, and that contraction happened before Hormuz was locked. The distance between "a good location" and "an active corridor" is exactly the size of the investments that have not yet been made.
What to watch
- Publication of the four month 1405 transit figures by Customs and the Trade Promotion Organization, and whether the 1404 downtrend has continued.
- Finalisation of the Iran and Armenia transit memorandum and full activation of the Iran, Armenia and Georgia corridor.
- Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and emergency container freight rates, which bear directly on the appeal of the Iranian route.
- Rail's share of total transit, as the real indicator of infrastructure improvement.
- The reopening and safety of transit routes in the south east of the country.
Related commodity prices can be followed on the commodity market prices page.
This analysis is based on officially published statistics and is not investment advice.
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