The Israel-UAE CEPA, signed May 2022 and in force since April 2023, eliminated tariffs on 96% of bilateral goods trade by value. The agreement text, tariff architecture, and regulatory bodies that administer it, not the trade results, which are covered separately.
The Israel-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, known as CEPA, was signed in May 2022 and entered into force in April 2023. It was the first comprehensive bilateral trade agreement Israel signed with an Arab country, and it remains the only such framework Israel has with a Gulf state. This piece covers the agreement's legal architecture and administration. For what the agreement has actually produced in trade volume and sector activity, see The UAE-Israel Bilateral: How Trade Grew from Zero to $3 Billion in Five Years, and for a three-year verdict on what it did and did not deliver, see The UAE-Israel CEPA at Three.
What Does CEPA Actually Cover?
Per Israeli Ministry of Economy and UAE Ministry of Economy publications, CEPA covers four substantive areas.
Goods trade tariff elimination. The agreement eliminated or substantially reduced tariffs on over 96 percent of bilateral goods trade by value. Specific tariff lines, phase-in schedules, and sensitive-sector exclusions are detailed in the agreement's public text.
Services trade architecture. The agreement established frameworks for cross-border services trade across professional services including legal, accounting, and consulting, alongside financial services, telecommunications, and additional services categories.
Investment protection. The agreement established cross-border investment protection mechanisms providing structural support for direct investment flows in both directions.
Intellectual property protection. The agreement included structural IP-protection components supporting the bilateral technology, defense, and broader IP-intensive commercial activity documented in Olam's defense, AI, and cyber coverage.
What Tariff Schedule Does the Agreement Use?
CEPA does not eliminate tariffs uniformly across every product category. The agreement's phase-in schedule reduces or removes tariffs on the large majority of goods immediately or within a defined transition window, while carving out a smaller set of sensitive-sector tariff lines that remain subject to slower phase-down schedules or exclusions. The full schedule, including product-level tariff codes, is published in the agreement's official text by both governments rather than summarized here, since the line-item detail changes as phase-in windows close.
Which Regulatory Bodies Administer CEPA?
CEPA operates within several regulatory layers rather than a single joint authority.
- The Israeli Ministry of Economy and the UAE Ministry of Economy handle bilateral coordination on the agreement itself.
- Israeli Customs and UAE Customs administer tariff classification and collection.
- The Israel Securities Authority and the UAE Securities and Commodities Authority coordinate on financial-services provisions.
- The Israel Ministry of Defense, through SIBAT, and UAE counterpart entities handle defense export licensing, which sits partly outside CEPA's civilian trade framework.
- The Israel Innovation Authority and UAE strategic-investment entities, including Mubadala, ADQ, and EDGE Group, coordinate on technology cooperation frameworks that CEPA's investment-protection provisions support.
What Was the $10 Billion Target and Where Does It Stand?
CEPA set a target of 10 billion dollars in annual bilateral trade within five years of entering into force. Bilateral trade has grown substantially since the agreement took effect but had not reached that target as of the most recent published figures. Year-by-year trade figures, sector-by-sector growth, and the post-October 7 trade pattern are covered in full in the companion piece tracking bilateral trade growth rather than restated here, since those figures update on a different cadence than the agreement's legal terms.
Source: Israeli Ministry of Economy CEPA public materials; UAE Ministry of Economy publications; CEPA agreement public text.
