The United States has sanctioned Iran's state-backed marine insurance platform HormuzSafe, a second Iranian marine insurer and a network of shadow fleet operators and tankers, in a fresh move against the country's oil exports, the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said on July 29.

The action is the first to target the state insurance infrastructure Iran has built to keep its sanctioned oil trade moving, extending a campaign that had focused on vessels and their owners to the financial services underpinning them. Both Iranian insurers were established in 2026, as tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz collapsed and Western war-risk cover for Gulf transits dried up.

HormuzSafe Marine Services Authority, based in Bandar Abbas in Hormozgan province, and the Persian Gulf Marine Insurance Company were both designated under Executive Order 13902, which targets Iran's petroleum and petrochemical sectors. Both were listed as subject to secondary sanctions.

Iran's Ministry of Economy launched HormuzSafe in May, offering marine insurance policies settled in bitcoin for cargo ships transiting the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, a mechanism designed to bypass the Western financial system and sanctioned by the platform's own promoters as a tool of sovereign control over the chokepoint.

OFAC also designated 10 shipping and trading companies registered in Hong Kong and the Marshall Islands, along with eight tankers linked to them. The vessels, mostly crude oil tankers built between 2002 and 2007 and flagged to Barbados, Vanuatu, Mozambique and the Marshall Islands, were added as blocked property.

The designated companies include Billion Nexus Int'l Co, Confident Apex Limited, Nevada Spirit Company Limited and Qi Hang Ship Management Limited. The linked vessels include the crude tankers Al Salmi, Breeze V, Crystal, Lily, Natsumi, Nireta and Yehope, and the chemical and products tanker Well Sail.

The designations follow a naval blockade the US imposed on Iran on April 13 after the collapse of ceasefire talks, and come as fighting in the US-Iran war has resumed. Since President Donald Trump returned to office, his administration has sanctioned more than 180 vessels tied to Iranian petroleum shipments.