The Suez Canal’s recovery is being paid for by a closed Strait of Hormuz
August transit revenue reached $567.1m against $326m a year earlier. The rebound tracks the diversion of Gulf traffic, not the return of carriers to the Red Sea.
Suez Canal Authority Chairman Osama Rabie told Ahram Online on 20 September that August revenue was $567.1m, up from $326m in August 2025, with 1,358 transits against 1,070 — a 27% rise — and net tonnage of 68.3m tonnes against 45.2m. July had already posted $505m, up 42% year-on-year and the highest monthly total since December 2023, on 1,340 transits, according to CAPMAS figures reported by Bloomberg. Second-quarter revenue reached $1.26bn, 13% above roughly $1.1bn in the first quarter. Planning and Economic Development Minister Ahmed Rostom told Arab News on 5 October that canal revenue had rebounded 23% and that Egypt expects “the momentum of our growth for the next fiscal year, that we expect to reach at least 5.4 percent.” Rabie’s own full-year guidance, via Bloomberg, is $5.8bn to $6.0bn.
That guidance sits badly against what the Authority told an IMF mission in December 2025: $8bn in FY2026/27 and $10bn in FY2027/28. The gap between the two numbers is the measure of how provisional this recovery is. The driver is not Bab al-Mandab. Commercial transit through the Strait of Hormuz has been effectively closed since military escalation beginning around 28 February 2026, a disruption assessed to affect 10.7% of the global container fleet by TEU capacity. Congressional Research Service report R45281 records that on 7 April the United States and Iran agreed a two-week ceasefire with no mutually agreed text released, President Trump saying it was “subject to … Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz”; some ships transited before Iran halted traffic again in response to Israeli attacks.
Assessment: Two cautions for anyone trading on canal numbers. First, Ahram Online archive pages from previous years are currently rendering under October 2026 datelines — one gives $418.1m for October and $447.6m for August, the latter irreconcilable with Rabie’s confirmed $567.1m. Any October figure needs verifying against the SCA or CAPMAS directly. Second, and larger: Seatrade reported that a full carrier return to the Red Sea would release some 2.5m TEU into an oversupplied market, which is why lines have been discounting it. Egypt’s dollar earnings now depend on a chokepoint it does not control staying shut. That is the weakest possible foundation for a government saying it needs no IMF successor.