Regulators in US and India push back on carrier crisis surcharges as Hormuz costs mount

The Federal Maritime Commission has enforced the standard 30-day notice period for Middle East war-related surcharges, requiring carriers to wait until early April before implementing emergency fees on US-bound trades. In its “Commission Statement Regarding Strait of Hormuz Surcharges,” published on 11 March, the FMC confirmed it is “closely monitoring” surcharge filings and reminded carriers that tariff increases must comply with the Shipping Act, including the notice requirement under 46 CFR 520.8. Carriers may apply for Special Permission to reduce the waiting period, but the Commission reviews and votes on all such requests — and carrier advisory timelines suggest those applications have not been granted: Ocean Network Express, for example, applied its inland fuel premium on non-FMC trades from 23 March but delayed US and Canadian implementation to 16 April, a gap that appears consistent with the 30-day rule being enforced rather than waived.

India’s Directorate General of Shipping took a more direct approach, issuing Circular No. 15 of 2026 ordering carriers and their agents to “refrain from predatory, non-transparent and opportunistic pricing practices, including levy of exorbitant charges thereby taking undue advantage of prevailing geo-political issue.” War risk surcharges on India–Middle East trades have reached US$2,000 per teu for dry cargo and up to US$4,000 for refrigerated containers, according to the Federation of Freight Forwarders’ Associations of India (FFFAI), with some charges applied retroactively. UK law firm HFW flagged a related contractual risk in an advisory published in mid-February, warning shippers on index-linked contracts to verify whether their freight index already incorporates bunker cost movements before accepting additional emergency bunker adjustment factors — a structure that could result in carriers recovering the same cost increase twice. The two regulatory approaches — the FMC enforcing procedural compliance, India targeting pricing behaviour directly — reflect different legal frameworks but converge on the same concern: that carriers are using the crisis to extract surcharges beyond the cost of the disruption itself.

The surcharge environment adds a regulatory and contractual layer to a Hormuz crisis that CM has tracked since late February, with emergency fuel surcharges from Maersk, CMA CGM, MSC and ONE now stacked on top of war risk premiums, congestion fees and inland fuel levies across multiple trade lanes.