Hormuz Risk Rises as Asia-Europe Container Rates Fall

The numbers

• $10,220 — Shanghai–New York spot per 40-foot container in the week of Oct. 8, up from $7,578 in the week ending July 30 (Home Textiles Today)
• $3,337 — Shanghai–Rotterdam in the same week, after 13 consecutive weekly declines on Asia-Europe (Home Textiles Today)
• about 255,000 barrels per day — Iranian oil exports in August, down from 1.85 million a day last spring (Home Accents Today)
• 2.508 million — US containerized import TEUs in July, up 4.5% on June but 4.3% below July 2025 (Home Textiles Today)
• -9.1% — the fall in US furniture and casegoods imports in the twelve months to 2026-03-01 — the demand side of every freight quote (FurniPulse analysis of U.S. Census International Trade API data)

The most important number for the furnishings trade this period is one that barely moved. Drewry's World Container Index opened the stretch at $4,255 per 40-foot container and closed it at $4,351 — a round trip, not a trend. Underneath that flat line, the two lanes importers actually buy on went in opposite directions: Shanghai–New York rose from $7,578 to $10,220, while Shanghai–Rotterdam fell from $4,677 to $3,337. Our read: the composite index has stopped being a usable instrument for anyone quoting an autumn program. Quote the lane, not the index.

That is the main thing that has changed since FurniPulse's 2026-03-26 report, which read the Strait of Hormuz as a single shock radiating through every cost line. That read still holds for anything made from a barrel of oil. It no longer holds for the box the goods travel in.

Two lanes, one index, opposite directions

Early August looked like the war's grip loosening. The index fell 3% to $4,255 for the week ending July 30, with Shanghai–Los Angeles down 2% to $5,739 and Shanghai–New York flat at $7,578, as Home Textiles Today reported. In the same report, several carriers were said to have introduced emergency fuel surcharges beginning in August; days later, Iran's Revolutionary Guard said it had struck two oil tankers attempting to pass Hormuz under US military aerial escort.

Trans-Pacific then climbed. By the week of Aug. 20 the index had reached $4,526, its high for the period, with Shanghai–New York and Shanghai–Los Angeles both up 9%, to $9,507 and $6,802, while August capacity on Asia-to-US East Coast routes fell 9% month over month, as Home Textiles Today reported.

Our read: Hormuz does not explain that move; Drewry put the increase down to capacity management and firm volumes, not the strait. The drivers were lane-specific and mundane: blank sailings and Panama Canal surcharges announced for September on Asia–US East Coast and Asia–Gulf Coast services, as Home Textiles Today reported, with volumes holding firm into August as Home Accents Today reported. Carriers took space out and prices followed it up.

Asia-Europe did the reverse, and the reason is the Suez rather than the Gulf. By the week of Sept. 25, Shanghai–Rotterdam was at $3,485 and Shanghai–Genoa at $3,835, with Suez transits up from 41 in week 37 to 48 in week 38, as Home Textiles Today reported. By the week of Oct. 8, Rotterdam was $3,337 and Genoa $3,696, and Asia-Europe rates had declined for 13 consecutive weeks as returning Suez services added effective capacity faster than carriers could blank it out, as Home Textiles Today reported on Oct. 12.

Our read: thirteen straight weeks of falling Asia-Europe rates is the longest run of relief a European buyer has had in the stretch we have tracked, and the saving comes from carriers returning to the Suez, not from anything resolved at Hormuz. A US buyer shipping to the East Coast is paying for the same war through a different mechanism — capacity discipline plus canal surcharges. Quote both markets off one freight assumption this autumn and you will be wrong in two directions at once.

Hormuz carries more oil and is no safer for ships

The strait's own arc over these ten weeks cuts two ways, and the split matters more than any single week's headline. On the oil side it improved. Iranian exports fell from 1.85 million barrels per day last spring to about 255,000 barrels per day in August, while non-Iranian exports through the region climbed to 8.4 million barrels per day in September — 10.8 million counting alternative routes, against roughly 14 million before the war — according to Kpler data cited by the Associated Press and reported by Home Accents Today. The same reporting credits a substantial US military presence for loosening Iran's grip on the waterway.

On the shipping side it did not improve. Only seven commodity vessels transited the strait on a Thursday in late August, half the previous day's count, per Kpler data cited by Reuters, and the US–Iran memorandum of understanding on Hormuz had expired without producing a lasting agreement. A month later, nine vessels made the passage on a Friday. This month Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it struck the NV Sunshine, a large liquefied petroleum gas carrier that Tehran said was taking an unauthorized route south of the strait; the IRGC said the vessel suffered a major fire in its engine room and propulsion system, according to Al Jazeera as reported by Home Textiles Today on Oct. 12. Iranian officials said IRGC naval forces act against vessels in the strait nightly when Tehran judges them to be breaking its transit rules.

For furnishings, the pass-through from all of that is not the container. It is the pellet. Polypropylene resin into Turkey still runs 45% above its pre-war level, and polyester chips, on a China domestic basis, run 41% above theirs (FurniPulse Materials tracker, https://www.furnipulse.com/materials). That is where our March read held: the oil-derived inputs under carpet, rugs, upholstery foam and home textiles are still well above their pre-war base — PP resin 45% and polyester chips 41% above it, even with PP 10% off its peak — and nothing in this period's Hormuz news brings them back to where they started. Where our March read did not hold is the container market, which has spent ten weeks answering to blank sailings, Golden Week and Suez transits rather than to the war.

What the trade priced in while Washington and Tehran talked

The more useful signal is what companies did without waiting for an agreement. Mud Pie put a new wholesale freight matrix in place on Sept. 1 that the gift and home décor brand said is expected to deliver estimated average savings of approximately 40 percent against current freight charges, although actual savings will vary by shipment and destination, as Home Accents Today reported. Read that as a scale play rather than a discount: a brand big enough to buy freight well is spending the advantage on its retail accounts instead of its own margin. Our expectation, not something Mud Pie has said: suppliers of comparable size will be asked for the same terms by their best accounts before the spring order season.

Demand, for its part, has held up better than the freight noise suggests. US containerized imports rose 4.5% in July to 2.508 million twenty-foot equivalent units, though they stayed 4.3% below July 2025, and the first seven months of 2026 ran 0.9% below last year while remaining 14.1% above the same period in 2019. Imports from China rose 7.2% month over month to their highest monthly level since July 2025, per the Aug. 17 Home Textiles Today report cited above. Jackson Wood, director of industry strategy at Descartes, said "July's import growth shows that demand remains resilient amidst a highly complex and challenging operating environment", pointing to shifting tariffs, Middle East maritime risk, Panama Canal draft restrictions and continued Red Sea disruption.

Set against that resilience is the floor under it. US furniture and casegoods imports totalled $22.5B in the twelve months to 2026-03-01, down 9.1% on the twelve months before (FurniPulse analysis of U.S. Census International Trade API data). A smaller pipe with a higher materials cost base is the operating condition for this autumn, and it stays the operating condition whether or not the strait reopens.

What we know, and what we don't

Established: the index ended the period close to where it began while the lanes diverged, Asia-Europe rates have now fallen for 13 consecutive weeks on returning Suez capacity, Iranian oil exports were down to about 255,000 barrels per day in August , the latest month for Iranian flows in the reporting cited above, while the same reporting carries September figures for non-Iranian flows — and resin and polyester feedstock costs sit 45% and 41% above pre-war levels. Still open is whether the strait reopens on terms anyone will underwrite. Iranian officials have signalled Tehran could restore navigation within seven days if the United States begins easing its naval blockade of Iranian ports, and President Trump said Washington is in "productive discussions" with Iran and would not launch further attacks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections — neither of those is an agreement, and both come from the reporting cited above rather than from any published text. We also do not know whether the Freight All Kinds increases carriers planned for the second half of October will hold against the faster-than-expected return of Suez services. Our read: of the variables in play, that contest between the October FAK increases and returning Suez capacity is the one most likely to move a European quote between now and the new year.

On the calendar

• 2026-10-14 — EXPO CIHAC, Mexico City, through 2026-10-17
• 2026-10-16 — DESIGNART TOKYO, Tokyo, through 2026-10-25
• 2026-10-24 — High Point Market Fall, High Point, through 2026-10-28

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FurniPulse analysis based on the reporting, filings and FurniPulse data cited above. It is not investment, legal or customs advice. Spot an error? Email contact@furnipulse.com — we correct openly.