The India-operated Chabahar Port has secured a six-month extension of the waiver from US sanctions on Iran, the relief coming amid the strain in bilateral relations under the Donald Trump administration.

The extension, which comes after a US threat to revoke the seven-year-old waiver, is effective from October 29.

Asked for a confirmation at the weekly briefing, external affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said: “Yes, I can confirm that we have been granted exemption for a six-month period on the American sanctions that were applicable on Chabahar.”

On September 18, the US state department had announced that Washington would revoke the exemptions from sanctions that the first Trump administration had granted to the Chabahar Port.

The US had in 2018 allowed the port exemptions from the Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act, keeping in mind the development of land-locked Afghanistan and Washington’s own interests in the strife-torn country following the war on terror.

Announcing the end of this exemption, the state department had said: “Consistent with President Trump’s maximum pressure policy to isolate the Iranian regime, the secretary of state has revoked the sanctions exception issued in 2018 under the Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act (IFCA) for Afghanistan reconstruction assistance and economic development, effective September 29, 2025.

“Once the revocation is effective, persons who operate the Chabahar Port or engage in other activities described in IFCA may expose themselves to sanctions under IFCA.”

Although the revocation was to come into effect on September 29, India had been given a month’s wiggle room after it requested discussions on the subject. The six-month extension has now come as a relief for New Delhi.

As a result of the exemptions granted in 2018, India had signed a 10-year contract with Iran in May 2024 to operate the Chabahar Port.

Under the agreement between Indian Ports Global Limited and the Port and Maritime Organisation of Iran, India is committed to investing $120 million in infrastructure development at the port’s Shahid Beheshti terminal and extending a $250-million credit line to Iran. Sanctions would have put all this in jeopardy.

Apart from being a trading route to Afghanistan that bypasses Pakistan, Chabahar is India’s answer to the China-built Gwadar Port in Pakistan’s Balochistan province.

Chabahar is also strategically crucial to India’s connectivity plans relating to not just Central Asia but Europe. It’s a key hub of the International North-South Transport Corridor — the 7,200km multi-modal transport network in the works since 2000 — for moving freight between India, Iran, Azerbaijan, Russia, Central Asia and Europe.

The waiver extension comes at a time when India faces a fresh set of US sanctions for buying Russian oil.

Asked whether India planned to seek a waiver in this matter, too, Jaiswal said the government was still assessing the implications.

He sidestepped the question whether India was considering counter-tariffs on the US, now that it wasthe highest-tariffed country by Washington after China’s rates were lowered following Trump’s meeting withPresident Xi Jinping in Seoul on Thursday.