Ireland's Occupied Territories Act, Explained

What is the Occupied Territories Act?

Since 15 September 2026, bringing a crate of dates or a pallet of wine from an Israeli settlement in the West Bank into Ireland has been a customs offence. That is the whole of what Ireland's Occupied Territories Act does, and it's less than campaigners spent eight years asking for. If you're new to the background, start with our Palestine learning hub.

The Occupied Territories Act is the Irish law that bans the importation of goods originating in Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. It does this by adding settlement goods to the list of prohibited imports under the Customs Act 2015, so Revenue enforces it at the border like any other banned product.

Official name and number

Nobody calls it by its real name. The law is the Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Act 2026, Act No. 35 of 2026. It started life as Bill 57 of 2026, sponsored by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. The name "Occupied Territories Bill" belongs to Senator Frances Black's earlier private member's bill from 2018, and it stuck to the Government's version too.

Key dates

From Cabinet approval to commencement took under four months.

• 26 May 2026: Government approves the text of the Bill.
• 29 May 2026: Bill initiated in Dáil Éireann.
• 7 July 2026: Bill passes its final stage in the Dáil.
• 15 July 2026: Bill passes all stages in Seanad Éireann.
• 23 July 2026: President Catherine Connolly signs it into law.
• 15 September 2026: Minister McEntee signs the commencement orders and the ban takes effect, two days after Donald Trump's visit to Ireland ended.

What does the Occupied Territories Act ban?

It bans one thing: importing goods that originate in a settlement postcode designated by the Minister. Selling settlement goods that are already in Ireland isn't a separate offence under the Act, and neither is providing or buying services from settlements. That narrowness was a deliberate choice (more on that below).

Goods from designated settlement postcodes

Section 5 of the Act prohibits "the importation of goods originating in a postal code to which this Act applies". Section 3 lets the Minister for Foreign Affairs designate those postcodes by order, after consulting the Minister for Finance.

How settlement goods are identified

Ireland didn't build a new list. It borrowed the EU's.

The EU already denies settlement goods the lower tariffs Israeli exports get under the EU-Israel Association Agreement, and the European Commission publishes a list of Israeli postcodes that don't qualify. Under section 3, a postcode can only be designated if it appears on one of the Commission's lists. Revenue's guidance confirms these are "the same postal codes" the EU already uses for tariff checks.

This is also where the gaps are. A Department of Foreign Affairs official told the Oireachtas committee in July 2025 that the postcode system can catch goods shipped directly from settlements, but identification is harder when goods are routed through a third party (Oireachtas Library & Research Service).

Exemptions: personal baggage and mixed postcodes

There are two. First, section 5(2)(a) exempts non-commercial goods in your personal baggage that are for your own use. A tourist coming home with a bottle of olive oil isn't committing an offence.

Second, some postcodes cover areas partly inside Israel and partly inside occupied territory. Under section 6, an importer bringing goods from one of these can apply to Revenue for an exemption certificate. A customs officer must check whether the goods came from land brought under Israeli administration since June 1967. If they did, or if the officer can't tell, the certificate is refused. Refusals can be appealed to the Revenue Commissioners.

What are the penalties?

The Act doesn't set its own fines. Instead, importing banned settlement goods becomes an offence under section 14 of the Customs Act 2015, and Revenue says enforcement includes the "search, seizure and forfeiture of prohibited goods".

Section 14 of the Customs Act, as enacted in 2015, carries a fine of €5,000 or up to 12 months in prison on summary conviction. On indictment, the fine is up to €125,000 (or three times the value of the goods where that value exceeds €250,000), or up to five years in prison, or both. You may see "€250,000 and five years" quoted online. That was the penalty in the 2018 Bill, not the law now in force.

What the Occupied Territories Act does not cover: services

Services are the fight that didn't end in July. A settlement winery can no longer ship its bottles to Dublin. A holiday let in the same settlement can still be advertised on international booking platforms, and the Act doesn't touch that.

Why the Government excluded services

The Government's case rests on two points. The first is legal. Trade with non-EU countries falls under the EU's common commercial policy, where the EU has exclusive competence, so Ireland needs an EU-law basis for any national ban. The Government found one for goods (more below) but said a services ban raised "more complex legal and implementation issues", according to the Oireachtas Library & Research Service briefing. The Attorney General gave confidential advice on services, which the Government confirmed receiving on 13 January 2026.

The second is practical and economic. In the Dáil on 26 May 2026, the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, described services as "intangible", said a ban would be "impossible to implement" and warned of risks "in terms of jobs in this country and potential attacks on multinationals that are based here".

Why IHREC, Trócaire and Al-Haq say it falls short

The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade had already studied this. Its pre-legislative scrutiny report in July 2025 strongly recommended extending the ban to services, and most of the more than 770 submissions it received backed the same thing.

The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission argued on 26 May 2026 that the ICJ's opinion draws no line between goods and services. Its Chief Commissioner, Liam Herrick, said: "Any operational difficulties can be addressed through phased commencement provisions."

Trócaire, the day the Bill cleared the Seanad, said leaving out services left a significant gap. Its example was homes built on confiscated Palestinian land being rented out through international tourism platforms. It also wants a ban on investment in settlement-linked companies.

The Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq welcomed the law as an initial step but said excluding services undermines its practical effect, since services make up about 70% of Ireland's trade with Israel and the occupied territory by its estimate. Frances Black has cited the same 70% figure.

Why Ireland passed it: the ICJ's 2024 advisory opinion

On 19 July 2024 the International Court of Justice gave its advisory opinion on Israel's policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. It found Israel's continued presence there unlawful, and by 12 votes to 3 it set out obligations for every other state, including not rendering aid or assistance in maintaining that situation (Just Security).

Paragraph 278 is the passage the Act rests on. It says states must "take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel" in the occupied territory. The Act's long title copies that wording almost exactly.

Settlements were illegal long before 2024. Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention bars an occupying power from transferring parts of its own civilian population into territory it occupies. What the ICJ changed was Ireland's legal calculation. In October 2024, Micheál Martin (then Tánaiste) said the Attorney General had advised that the context had changed after the opinion. For how occupation law applies beyond the West Bank, see is Gaza still occupied?

From the 2018 Occupied Territories Bill to the 2026 Act

Frances Black's Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018 was initiated in the Seanad on 24 January 2018 and passed there on 5 December 2018. It then stalled in the Dáil. In January 2019 the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney, said the Government would oppose it because the Attorney General had advised it would breach EU law. The 2026 Act is the Government's own, much narrower, replacement. The public support behind both is covered in why Ireland supports Palestine, and the dates sit on our timeline.

Is the Occupied Territories Act compatible with EU law?

The Government says it is, but no court has ruled on it yet. The Government relies on Article 24(2) of the EU's Basic Import Regulation (2015/478), which lets member states ban imports on grounds of public policy. Its own legal adviser warned that the EU Court of Justice has read "public policy" narrowly in the past.

Two things favour Ireland. The EU's own diplomatic service said in a July 2025 options paper that member states could "decide to block imports from the settlements at their respective national level for public policy reasons". And the Government's regulatory impact analysis notes that the Commission hasn't started infringement proceedings against any member state that has banned settlement goods. Slovenia, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands have all agreed bans, and Spain's is already in operation (Oireachtas L&RS).

How much trade does the settlement goods ban affect?

Very little, in money terms. Central Statistics Office figures put all goods imported to Ireland from the Occupied Palestinian Territory at €214,204.50 in 2024 and €682,337 in 2025, mostly vegetables and fruit. Revenue estimated that goods from Israeli settlements specifically were worth €189,008 in 2024, based on the EU postcode list. All three figures are in the Oireachtas Library & Research Service briefing.

Nobody has reliable figures for services, which is the point the Act's critics keep returning to. The Government's own impact analysis still warned that the law could draw responses from Israel and the US with "a potentially significant adverse impact on Irish economic interests and operators".

What happens next?

On commencement day, Minister McEntee urged the European Commission to propose an EU-wide ban on trade with settlements under the Common Commercial Policy.

Next, services. Frances Black told The Irish Times in July that she planned to bring a new bill covering services when the Oireachtas returned in September, with backing from NGOs and trade unions.

Finally, legal challenge. The Commission could bring infringement proceedings, or an importer whose goods are seized could go to the Irish courts. If you want to push for a services ban, our action page lists ways to contact your TD, and the resources page collects the primary documents. For common claims about the law, see myths and facts.