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The strait carries oil. It carries gas. It carries fertiliser. It also carries the salaries of nearly 40 million foreign workers whose families on the other side of the world eat from the remittance, not the farm.
Migrant workers make up between 76 and 95 percent of the labour force in Gulf countries. In the UAE and Qatar, foreigners represent roughly 87 to 88 percent of the population. In Kuwait, 70 percent. The construction sites, the hotels, the refineries, the hospitals, the delivery fleets, and the domestic households of the Gulf are staffed almost entirely by people from South Asia, Southeast Asia, and North Africa who wire money home every month.
Pakistan received $38.3 billion in remittances in FY2025. Over 54 percent, roughly $20.9 billion, came from the six GCC countries. Saudi Arabia alone accounted for $9.35 billion. The UAE contributed $7.83 billion. India received approximately $129 billion in 2024, the world’s largest recipient. The Philippines received $39.6 billion. Bangladesh recorded $30.3 billion. Nepal’s remittances were 26 percent of GDP.
The Hormuz crisis is not just disrupting commodity flows. It is disrupting the human flow that funds survival in a dozen countries.
A study by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics estimates that if the conflict persists, roughly 500,000 new workers may not be able to migrate to the Gulf in 2026, and a similar number of existing migrants could be forced to return home. Remittances to Pakistan could decline by $3 to $4 billion annually. That reduction alone would pressure the exchange rate, widen the current account deficit, and weaken the economic stability that was just beginning to solidify after years of crisis.
The mechanism is direct. Gulf economies slow when oil exports are disrupted, construction projects are paused, and security concerns halt civilian activity. When the Gulf economy slows, the sectors that employ the most migrant workers, construction, services, retail, and hospitality, contract first. Workers are laid off or see hours reduced. Remittances fall. Their families in Lahore, Dhaka, Manila, Cairo, and Kathmandu receive less money. Those families buy less food. The food was already becoming more expensive because the fertiliser that grows it and the freight that ships it both transit the same strait that disrupted the salary.
The remittance and the molecule travel the same corridor. Both are gated by the same 21 miles. When the strait closes, the oil stops, the gas stops, the fertiliser stops, and the monthly wire transfer that a construction worker in Dubai sends to his mother in Sylhet also stops. The mother does not track Brent crude or CBOT urea. She tracks whether the money arrived. This month it may not.
During the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, roughly 1.5 million workers and dependents fled within two months. The International Labour Organization documented the passage of hundreds of thousands through Jordan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. The entire remittance system took years to reorganise. Nepal’s airport has already seen stranded travellers unable to reach Gulf jobs since February 28.
Fifteen million people in the Gulf earn the money. One hundred million people in South and Southeast Asia depend on it arriving. The strait does not distinguish between a barrel of oil and a bank transfer. Both flow through the same geography. Both are gated by the same sealed orders. And both determine whether a family eats this month.
