A 40ft container from China to Iran now costs about $13,600 in ocean freight. Before the war the same box moved for $2,700 to $2,800. The figure comes from Peiman Sanandayi, who chairs the transport commission at the Tehran Chamber of Commerce, in a briefing that also covered more than 4,000 trucks and tractor units held at Iran’s Turkish borders and the continuing problem at Shalamcheh.
The headline rate only becomes useful once you divide it by the cargo. A 40ft container at full cube carries roughly 60 cbm and up to 27 tonnes. At today’s rate that is about $227 per cbm, or close to $0.50 per kilo. Before the war the same arithmetic gave about $46 per cbm and a little over $0.10 per kilo.
| Unit | Pre-war rate | Current rate |
|---|---|---|
| 40ft container | $2,700–2,800 | about $13,600 |
| Per cbm (full cube) | about $46 | about $227 |
| Per kilo (27 t payload) | about $0.10 | about $0.50 |
Those are ocean-freight figures. Customs clearance, storage and inland haulage sit on top, and for a lot of import portfolios freight is now the largest single line in the landed cost rather than the goods themselves.
What pushed the ocean rate up fivefold
The naval blockade and the closure of legal trade routes have cut the capacity available to Iranian ports. Sanandayi puts the sea share of Iran’s cargo at 70–75%, which is why a disruption on this leg sets the price floor for every other mode; road and rail get compared against it rather than against their own costs.
Capacity is also being allocated in a stated order: essential goods first, then medicine, then factory inputs. If your cargo sits outside those categories you are further back in the queue for space and for a loading window. For the cost side of a specific shipment, start with our land freight cost guide and the FCL container page.
The road option is congested too
Bazargan, Sarv and Razi, the three northwestern crossings into Turkey, are holding more than 4,000 trucks and tractor units. Vehicles wait on the far side, per-truck rates climb, and delivery dates stop being predictable.
The same briefing names Shalamcheh as the only Iraqi crossing still disrupted, and export traffic to Pakistan as suspended, with Iranian containers stuck in Pakistani ports and being chased through the foreign ministry and the chamber. Direct flights are also affected, which has hit imports of some medicines.
Our reading: when ocean rates spike, pressure moves to road and rail, and their spare capacity fills within weeks. A truck that could be loaded two weeks out a few months ago may now wait three. On the road freight page that congestion shows up directly in transit planning.
Rail is daily now, but the advertised transit time is not the real one
Reports published last week put China–Iran rail volumes at roughly ten times the pre-war level, with departures moving from one train every three or four days to one a day. Part of that is credited to three rail routes being activated. Trains run through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and enter Iran at Sarakhs.
The published transit time on that corridor is 14 to 16 days. A Chinese freight company told DW that actual delivery on the main route from western China to Tehran is running 50 to 60 days under current conditions, against 22 to 25 days by road on a comparable route. The gap between 14 and 60 belongs in the sales contract, not the brochure.
Two technical bottlenecks sit underneath that. Gauge transfer at Khorgos, and again at Sarakhs where the 1,520 mm Central Asian network meets Iran’s 1,435 mm, takes time and turns into a queue at peak. The Khorgos–Tehran and Alashankou–Tehran corridors behave differently at customs and in transshipment capacity, so check them separately.
The second layer is financial. On 1 October the US Treasury sanctioned three Iranian railway companies. For an importer the practical effect shows up somewhere else: a bank or an insurer may not handle a rail shipment as readily as before. Before you book rail space, get the insurance cover and the payment route confirmed in writing. We covered that file in the sanctions analysis.
Qom’s export train matters to importers too
Late last week the first container export train left Qom for China. In the same round, 460 tonnes of sodium chlorate went from Semnan to Turkey in five wagons, which the North-East Railway’s director general said replaces 20 to 30 trucks.
On the surface that is an exporter story. For an importer it has one practical consequence: a two-way corridor turns wagons and boxes around faster, which raises the odds of finding empty equipment at the Chinese end. The capacity is still thin. A block train carries 50 to 55 containers; a vessel carries several thousand. Rail complements sea and does not replace it. The structural comparison is in our piece on the first block train.
Matching cargo to corridor
| Cargo type | Corridor | What should carry weight in the decision |
|---|---|---|
| Medicine, urgent spares, trade samples | Air, where flight capacity exists | High value per kilo; time matters more than the rate |
| Production line components and factory inputs | Rail or road | A stopped line usually costs more than the rate difference |
| Bulky raw material on thin margins | Sea on a 60–90 day horizon, or a smaller order | A fivefold rate removes the margin entirely |
| Multi-supplier mixed cargo in small volume | LCL | The container rate is split across several shippers |
One thing we see constantly in rate requests: rail and road get compared with ocean freight alone, when they should also be weighed against the cost of a stopped line or of capital sitting in goods in transit. An importer buying $1 million of inputs a month needs more working capital when transit stretches from 30 to 45 days, even with no change in the freight rate.
What to do this week
- Get rates in writing with a validity window. In this market a phone quote is stale within days.
- Ask about war risk cover separately. A standard marine policy usually excludes war and strikes.
- Split the shipment. Two smaller lots on two corridors reduces the risk of a full stop.
- Close the paperwork and the tariff question before booking. Check the customs tariff reference against the final HS code, not the supplier’s verbal description.
- Quote 45 to 60 days to your own customers and plan the cash cycle on that basis.
For cargo that has to reach the buyer’s warehouse, the combined routing and clearance options are on the door-to-door and customs clearance pages. If the goods are restricted or prohibited, read import regulations before you request a rate.
The ocean rate and the border situation come from Tejarat News reporting the Tehran Chamber of Commerce briefing; the daily train count and the Qom export train come from WANA.
None of these corridors absorbs the others’ volume. The decision this week is which corridor has a delivery date you can put in front of a customer, and the cheapest quote in this market usually does not come with one. Send us the actual cargo and we will price the realistic set.