Exporting Food to Israel: A Foreign Producer's Guide

The purchase order from a Tel Aviv retailer makes this look like a shipping problem. It is a licensing problem. Israel does not regulate the producer in Lyon or Wisconsin at all. It regulates the person who brings the goods across its border, and that person has to hold a status granted inside Israel and answer to an Israeli regulator for what is in the box. Get the structure wrong and the penalty is specific and expensive: the consignment is not turned back at Marseille or Newark. It sits at Ashdod, accruing storage charges by the day, while somebody works out who the importer of record actually is.

So the first decision a foreign producer has to make is not about pallets or Incoterms. It is about who, on the Israeli side, will legally own the act of importing.

Israel regulates the importer, not the producer

Chapter D of the Protection of Public Health (Food) Law 5776-2015 governs food imports, and it opens with two flat prohibitions. Section 50 provides that no person may import food unless the requirements of the food legislation and of the Law are met. Section 51(a) provides that no person may import food unless they hold a valid registered importer certificate, and Section 51(b) adds that the food itself must meet the conditions set out in that certificate. A registered importer is defined as one holding a valid certificate attesting to registration in the Importers Registry kept under Section 102(b).

Read those provisions together and the consequence for a producer abroad is unavoidable. The certificate is an Israeli status. Nothing in the scheme lets a company in France or the United States act as the importer of record from outside the country. That is why the commercial structure has to be fixed before the first pallet moves, not discovered when the container is already on the water.

There are only two lawful shapes for the arrangement. Either you sell to an Israeli distributor who already holds a registered importer certificate, so the distributor becomes the importer and carries the regulatory liability, or you form your own Israeli entity and put it through registration so that it can import in its own name. Both work. They differ in cost, control and how much of the Israeli regulatory burden lands on you.

In Practice: Section 51(a) of the Protection of Public Health (Food) Law 5776-2015 bars any import of food without a valid registered importer certificate evidencing registration in the Importers Registry under Section 102(b), and the regulator throughout is the Director of Food Services at the National Food Service of the Ministry of Health. A producer abroad cannot hold the certificate. Registering a new Israeli entity onto the Importers Registry before it can lodge its first declaration typically takes three to six months, which is the lead time to build into any supply commitment.

Two tracks: sensitive food and regular food

Once you are past the gateway, the Law sorts food into two categories that carry very different burdens.

Sensitive food is food the Minister has declared sensitive under Section 59, or that the Director of Food Services has declared sensitive by temporary declaration under Section 62. Importing certain sensitive food requires prior approval under Section 64, granted to a registered importer before the goods arrive. This is the heavier track, and it is where lead times stretch.

Everything else is regular food, and for it the mechanism is a declaration rather than a licence. Under Section 74 the registered importer declares to the Registrar an intention to import a particular regular food, and Section 78 produces an online confirmation that the declaration has been received. No prior approval, no technical file for each shipment, far less friction.

The classification is not always obvious, and it is not yours to guess. A product that sits close to a sensitive-food declaration can move from the Section 74 declaration track to the Section 64 prior-approval track on a single ingredient or claim, and that shift can add months. It should be settled before you accept an order, because a producer who has promised delivery on a declaration timeline and then discovers the product needs prior approval has a commercial problem as well as a regulatory one.

The European shortcut most exporters miss

A producer inside the European Union has an advantage that a US or other non-EU exporter does not. The Law recognises a proper importer, registered in the Proper Importers Registry under Section 115(b), and Section 79E gives an online confirmation of receipt of a declaration for food imported by that route, measured against the European Union directives listed in Second Schedule A to the Law.

In plain terms, food that is lawfully manufactured and marketed in Europe under those directives can enter Israel on the strength of its European compliance rather than a fresh Israeli technical dossier. For a European exporter this is usually the single largest cost saving available, and it has a strategic consequence: the choice of Israeli partner should be made with registry status in mind, because a distributor registered as a proper importer unlocks the shortcut and one that is not leaves you on the longer road. A non-EU producer, by contrast, should assume the fuller Israeli technical route and price it in from the start.

In Practice: Regular food moves on a Section 74 declaration confirmed online under Section 78; sensitive food declared under Section 59 or Section 62 may need prior approval under Section 64; and an EU producer can use the proper importer route under Sections 115(b) and 79E against the directives in Second Schedule A. The distinction is worth real money: an EU compliance file accepted under Section 79E can remove weeks of Israeli technical review per product line, all administered by the Director of Food Services at the Ministry of Health.

Distributor or your own Israeli entity?

This is the decision that shapes everything downstream, and it is genuinely hard to reverse once trading has begun.

Selling to an established Israeli distributor is the fast route. The distributor already holds the certificate, carries the regulatory liability and knows the retail trade. The cost is margin and control: it is the distributor's product on the Israeli system, not yours, and switching later means finding a new importer and re-declaring. A distributor who merely promises to "handle the import" without confirming its registry status is not a shortcut at all but a hidden delay, because the moment a consignment is shipped against an unregistered importer it stops at the port.

Building your own Israeli vehicle gives you control of the registration, the label and the market, at the cost of the three-to-six-month set-up and an ongoing Israeli compliance footprint. Whether that vehicle is a branch or a subsidiary changes who bears the regulatory and tax liability, a choice we work through in our guide on choosing between a foreign company branch and an Israeli subsidiary. For a producer intending to own the Israeli market over the long term rather than test it, the entity route usually pays for itself.

Labelling, VAT and kashrut

Three practical costs arrive regardless of which structure you choose.

Labelling must comply with Israeli requirements in Hebrew, and the responsibility for it sits with the importer of record. That means the artwork has to be agreed in advance, not corrected at the port when a health inspector rejects a non-conforming label. For a foreign producer this is often the most underestimated task, because Israeli labelling rules do not map neatly onto US or EU packaging already in production.

Tax arrives on its own footing. Section 2 of the Value Added Tax Law 5736-1975 charges VAT on the importation of goods at 18%, so a consignment worth around EUR 50,000, roughly NIS 200,000, carries about NIS 36,000 of VAT before any product-specific customs duty. The importer accounts for it, and how VAT is handled between a foreign supplier and an Israeli customer is a recurring source of confusion covered in our note on invoicing Israeli customers and VAT for foreign companies.

Kashrut is a commercial gate rather than a legal one. It is not a condition of import under the Food Law, but no supermarket chain will list an uncertified product, so a producer aiming at Israeli retail should budget for certification as a cost of market entry from the outset.

What goes wrong at the border

Almost every serious problem we see traces back to a single unexamined assumption on the Israeli side.

Common Mistake: A foreign producer ships against an Israeli buyer's assurance that the buyer will "take care of the import", without verifying that the buyer holds a registered importer certificate under Section 51(a). When the consignment reaches Ashdod there is no valid importer of record, so the goods are held while the position is regularised, storage charges run daily, and perishable stock can be lost outright. The certificate is verifiable in advance through the Ministry of Health, and where duty or valuation is also disputed the authorities can reach back years, as explained in our answer on an Israeli customs demand for underpaid duty against a foreign importer.

Practical Checklist

• Confirm in writing that your intended Israeli importer holds a valid registered importer certificate under Section 51(a), and verify it rather than take it on trust.
• Classify your product against the sensitive food declarations early, so you know whether you are on the Section 74 declaration track or the Section 64 prior-approval track.
• If you produce in the EU, check whether your product qualifies for the Section 79E proper importer route and choose a partner registered to use it.
• Decide between a distributor and your own Israeli entity before committing to supply volumes, and allow three to six months if you register your own.
• Agree Hebrew-compliant labelling artwork in advance, not at the port.
• Budget for VAT at 18% on import and for kashrut certification as a condition of retail listing.

Speak With an Israeli Attorney

The structure you choose on the Israeli side decides whether your first shipment clears in days or sits at Ashdod for weeks. We verify whether your intended partner actually holds a registered importer certificate, classify your product against the sensitive food declarations, and where taking the import in-house is the better route we set up and register the Israeli entity to hold the certificate itself.

Contact us for a confidential initial consultation.