ABSTRACT Purpose Imaging of venous vessels with advanced pulse sequences allows the assessment of important hemodynamic parameters. Previous work has measured venous transit time (VTT) and blood–brain barrier (BBB) water permeability in cortical tissue. This study aimed to measure VTT and BBB permeability in the deep brain through imaging in the straight sinus (SS). Methods Two studies were conducted. Study I measured VTT of the deep brain using a Venous‐transit‐time‐Imaging‐by‐Changes‐in‐T1‐Relaxation (VICTR) MRI sequence. The obtained VTT was used in study II to optimize the imaging parameters of Water‐Extraction‐with‐Phase‐Contrast‐Arterial‐Spin‐Tagging (WEPCAST) MRI pulse sequence, and the permeability‐surface‐area product (PS) was quantified in the deep brain. Test–retest reproducibility was assessed. Results SS VTT was found to be 2807.5 ± 349.5 ms, which was approximately half a second shorter than the SSS VTT (3365.0 ± 235.3 ms, p < 0.001). The SS VTT results were reproducible across repetitions, with a coefficient of variation of 2.8% ± 0.5%. The standard deviation of the VTT distribution in SS was 973.7 ± 48.1 ms, again shorter than the corresponding SSS values (1165.5 ± 37.2 ms, p < 0.001). The water extraction fraction, E , from the SS was 94.8% ± 1.9%, and the deep‐brain PS was 141.3 ± 20.2 mL/100 g/min. The PS values were slightly lower than the cortical PS of 152.9 ± 20.9 mL/100 g/min ( p = 0.039), and may reflect the lower vascularity in the deep‐brain region. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of the deep‐brain PS values from repeated runs was 0.863. Conclusion This is the first study to measure two parameters associated with deep‐brain physiology, specifically VTT and BBB water permeability, and provide their normative values.