Whenever a big new railway gets signed in Central Asia, our desk gets asked the same question: can I ship on it yet. For the Trans-Afghan corridor in 2026 the honest answer has two halves. The railway that grabs the headlines, the Uzbekistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan line, is years from carrying a container. But a multimodal road-and-rail version of the same corridor already exists, and that is the part a shipper can actually use, when the Afghanistan-Pakistan border is open. GetTransport.com moves freight across the CIS and Central Asia, so this is the operational read on what is bookable today, what is still a plan, and how to position for the corridor that will connect Central Asia to the Indian Ocean.
What was actually signed, and what it is not
On 17 July 2025 Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan signed a trilateral framework agreement in Kabul to develop the UAP railway, running from Termez through Mazar-i-Sharif and the Afghan interior to the Kharlachi crossing into Pakistan and onward toward Peshawar. Uzbek President Mirziyoyev decreed the formal procedures on 4 February 2026, and the project's feasibility study is expected to complete by the end of 2026. One correction worth making up front, because trade press gets it wrong: the widely cited $10 million feasibility study due around March 2026 is a different project, the Herat to Mazar-i-Sharif section of a separate Iran-Turkey-Afghanistan corridor, not the UAP line. Keep the two apart.
The physical scope is real but the numbers are still soft, so treat them as ranges. The new line is roughly 570 to 650 km depending on how the Afghan build is counted. The cost estimate has a wide and unresolved spread, from about $4.6 billion on the Uzbek side to $8.2 billion on the Pakistani side, and it is trending upward: in June 2026 Uzbek Deputy Transport Minister Jasurbek Choriyev put it at over $7 billion. Uzbekistan's Ministry of Transport says construction could take about five years. No construction has started as of mid-2026; only feasibility work is underway. The political targets cite 2027 to 2030 and a much-repeated 2028, but with the study finishing at year-end 2026 followed by a financing decision and a five-year build, an operational date after 2030 is the defensible planning assumption. Treat 2028 as the optimistic banner, not a delivery date.
What is usable now: the multimodal corridor
Here is the shippable product in 2026, with one live caveat. A road, rail and sea multimodal Trans-Afghan corridor exists, launched in August 2024 by Kazakhstan's KTZ Express with Pakistan's National Logistics Corporation, and the two signed a further memorandum in April 2026 to develop it. The documented pilot ran from the Pavlodar special economic zone to Karachi, about 4,900 km in 20 days, then loaded to a feeder vessel that reached Jebel Ali in Dubai, for an end-to-end delivery of roughly 20 to 25 days. The caveat is that the route only moves when the Afghanistan-Pakistan border is open, and as of mid-2026 the main crossings were closed again, so treat the service as usable in open-border windows rather than continuously. The reverse leg, Karachi to Baku across Afghanistan and the Caspian, ran 4,820 km in 21 days, which proves the route works in both directions.
The reason it is multimodal and not pure rail is the middle. Rail carries the cargo on the Central Asian side, from Kazakhstan through Uzbekistan down to Termez, and across the border on the Hairatan to Mazar-i-Sharif line, a 75 km link operational since 2011 that is the current rail terminus inside Afghanistan. From Mazar-i-Sharif through Kabul to the Pakistan border there is no rail, so that stretch moves by truck. That is precisely the leg the UAP railway is meant to replace. On the Pakistan side, cargo runs to Karachi or Port Qasim, with Gwadar available at lower volumes, and then by sea to Gulf and global lanes. This corridor is a natural complement to the routes we cover in our Baku-Tbilisi-Kars guide and our Caspian crossing guide, except that it reaches the Indian Ocean rather than Europe.
Why the corridor matters, and the risk that comes with it
The structural case for the Trans-Afghan corridor is geography. It is the shortest overland link from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean, via Pakistan's Karachi and Gwadar, and it bypasses Iran entirely. For a landlocked Central Asian or CIS shipper trying to reach the Gulf, South Asia or global sea lanes, it is the only major corridor that is both non-Iran and short-to-sea. The Middle Corridor runs east to west toward Europe, not to the Indian Ocean, and the Iran-based alternatives through Chabahar carry US-sanctions exposure that many shippers cannot take. That is the corridor's real advantage.
The offset is Afghanistan transit risk, and it is not theoretical. Pakistan shut all Afghan crossings in October 2025 after border clashes, and that roughly three-month closure did not reopen until 13 January 2026, with traders estimating losses above $4 million a day while it lasted. The volatility did not end there: by mid-2026 the crossings had closed again, with Torkham and Spin Boldak shut and Afghan traders reporting losses approaching $200 million a month. In other words the corridor is intermittently unusable rather than reliably open, and bilateral trade has fallen accordingly, from $2.46 billion in 2024 to $1.77 billion in 2025. On top of the security exposure, transit under the Afghanistan-Pakistan trade agreement carries friction, including per-carrier bank-guarantee fees of roughly 100,000 to 150,000 Pakistani rupees and slow customs clearance. Any plan on this corridor has to price episodic disruption as the base case, not the exception, and to assume open-border windows rather than continuous service.
What shippers should do now
The corridor is a position-now, do-not-bet-volume-yet play. The move is to build capability and optionality without committing a primary artery to a politically fragile route:
- When the crossings are open, pilot small, real cargo on the KTZ Express and NLC multimodal service to build your own transit-time and reliability baseline, using the roughly 20 to 25 day benchmark to Jebel Ali as the number to test against, but hold the pilot while the border is shut rather than assuming continuous service.
- Keep the alternatives on your radar, because the same volatility is driving new routings such as the Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan line and a China-Kyrgyzstan corridor, which may prove steadier for some flows.
- Pre-map the two friction points and line up partners at each: the Termez and Hairatan rail-to-road transshipment, and the Afghan trucking leg from Mazar through Kabul to the border. Secure Afghan transit operators and Pakistani forwarder relationships before you need them.
- Price transit risk as an explicit line, not a footnote. The Afghan trucking and Khyber Pass legs raise insurance and haulage costs, and border closures can strand cargo for months.
- Treat the corridor as a diversification lane, and hold your volume commitment until the UAP feasibility study completes at the end of 2026 and a financier and final investment decision are named. That is the first hard signal the railway is real.
- Remember the gauge break stays even after the rail opens: Uzbekistan runs 1,520 mm, Pakistan 1,676 mm, and Afghanistan's standard is undecided, so transshipment at the breaks will persist and needs to stay in your transit-time model.
Lock in the operator relationships now so you can scale fast if and when the rail lands, which realistically means after 2030. For the broader Central Asian rail build-out feeding this corridor, our Kazakhstan rail overhaul guide sets the context.
Frequently asked questions
Can I ship on the Trans-Afghan railway yet?
Not the railway itself. The Uzbekistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan line was agreed in July 2025, its feasibility study is due at the end of 2026, and no construction has started, so a realistic operational date is after 2030. What you can use, when the Afghanistan-Pakistan border is open, is the multimodal road-rail-sea corridor launched in August 2024 by KTZ Express and Pakistan's NLC, which reaches Jebel Ali in roughly 20 to 25 days. As of mid-2026 the main crossings were closed again, so the service runs in open-border windows rather than continuously.
How much faster will the railway be?
The projections, not yet measured, put rail transit at 3 to 5 days against about 35 days today, with transport costs cut by more than 40%. Treat these as targets. Even once built, a gauge break between Uzbek, Afghan and Pakistani track means transshipment will remain, so the real-world saving will be somewhat less than the headline.
Why use this corridor instead of the Middle Corridor or Iran?
Because it is the shortest overland route from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean and it bypasses Iran. The Middle Corridor runs toward Europe, not the Gulf, and the Iranian alternatives through Chabahar carry sanctions exposure. For reaching Karachi, Gwadar and onward sea lanes from Central Asia, the Trans-Afghan corridor is the only major option that is both non-Iran and short-to-sea.
What is the biggest risk?
Afghanistan transit disruption. Pakistan closed all Afghan crossings for roughly three months from October 2025 to January 2026, costing traders more than $4 million a day, and cross-border tensions persist. Price episodic closures, higher insurance on the Afghan trucking leg, and transit-agreement friction such as per-carrier bank guarantees into any plan on this route.