Israel Customs, a department authorized to enforce those regulations, is in charge of reviewing export documents, imposing export restrictions, paying tax refunds, issuing temporary license, and allowing temporary export.
Israel’s trade-related laws mainly include the Standards Law, the Trade Tax Law, the Customs Act, the Free Import Order, and the Consumer Protection Law. Pursuing a free trade policy, Israel has signed free trade agreements with some countries and regions including the United States, the European Union.
Israel’s industrial products trade is highly liberalized. For safety reasons, only 7.8% of all HS commodity categories are subject to import license management. Domestic taxes on imported goods are the same as that on home-made products.
At present, Israel imposes import restrictions mainly on the following products: agricultural products, food, medical products, chemical products, and security-related products. The restrictions include high tariffs, seasonally regulatory tax (mainly on fruits and vegetables), various import taxes and fees, safeguards, tariff quotas and quantity limitation, permits, health and plant quarantine, security, environmental protection, and technical standards.
As a members of the World Customs Organization (WCO), Israel implements the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (HCDCS), an internationally standardized system of names and numbers maintained by the WCO for classifying traded products. Israel is also a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO). According to the WTO, the customs value is based on the price paid by importers. The amount of tax to be paid is usually expressed as a percentage of the customs value. For a small number of goods, a fixed tax or a combination of the above two methods is applied. Israel Customs conducts inspection of imported goods and levied duties based on the country of origin and the customs tariff code. The import duty regulations are formulated by the Department of Customs and VAT under the Ministry of Finance, and the customs clearance business is conducted by the customs offices at the port of entry.