The SOHAR Port and Freezone is a modern, deep-sea commercial port and an integrated industrial free zone located in the Sultanate of Oman, near the city of Sohar. It is an institution managed by the Sohar Industrial Port Company (SIPC), a 50:50 joint venture between the Sultanate of Oman and the Port of Rotterdam. The port's conception began in 1995 under Sultan Qaboos bin Said to develop regional port infrastructure outside the Persian Gulf. The concession agreement was ratified via Royal Decree No. 80/2002, and physical port construction began in 2003. The port was established to solve the problem of over-reliance on the congested Strait of Hormuz, offering a strategic alternative gateway for trade.
The mechanism of the port involves operating three main industrial clusters: logistics, metals, and petrochemicals, with a fourth, the SOHAR Food Cluster, added later, featuring Oman's first dedicated agro-bulk terminal. The adjacent Sohar Free Zone was established in 2010 by Royal Decree No. 123/2010, covering a 4,500-hectare area. The Free Zone offers incentives like 100% foreign ownership, a corporate tax holiday of up to 25 years, and a One-Stop-Shop for clearances. The port connects to the wider Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations—including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar—via high-capacity road networks, enabling multimodal transit. It is also a vital logistics corridor for Indian exports, such as basmati rice, providing a resilient route that bypasses potential blockades in the Strait of Hormuz. Recently, the port has seen significant expansion, with a framework agreement signed in June 2026 with France's CMA CGM and Oman's Asyad Group to develop a new $400 million multi-purpose logistics terminal. This expansion, alongside a 52% jump in cargo throughput in the first half of 2026, reinforces its role as a strategic gateway for India to the GCC.