Quick answer
FXMacroData serves 10 Israeli shekel series from the production catalogue, published by the Bank of Israel (BoI) and the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). They cover the Bank of Israel interest rate and a risk-free series derived from it, CPI, GDP growth, zero-coupon government bond yields at 2, 3, 5 and 10 years, the 10-year CPI-linked (Galil) real yield, and the shekel's real effective exchange rate.
For USD/ILS that covers the essentials: the policy rate, the inflation print that drives it, and the nominal and real yield curve that shows how markets price the path. Each release carries its announcement timestamp, including the CPI that lands in the Israeli evening.
This guide covers what is in the ILS catalogue, who publishes it, when it is released in Israel time and UTC, and how traders use the data in USD/ILS. The yields and the effective exchange rate are monthly series, so for intraday work the event-driven series are the policy rate and CPI.
Who publishes Israeli shekel data
Bank of Israel. The BoI's Monetary Committee sets the Bank of Israel interest rate at eight scheduled decisions a year, aiming at an inflation target range of 1 to 3 percent. The BoI also publishes the zero-coupon government yield curves, both nominal and CPI-linked, and the shekel's effective exchange rate. FXMacroData reads these from the BoI's statistical data service.
Exchange rate regime. The shekel floats, but the BoI has intervened in the currency market at times. It bought foreign currency for many years to slow shekel appreciation, and in October 2023 it announced a programme to sell up to USD 30 billion to stabilise the shekel. Reserve data are not part of the ILS catalogue, so intervention shows up here only indirectly, through the exchange rate and the yield curve.
Central Bureau of Statistics. The CBS publishes the consumer price index and the national accounts. For GDP, FXMacroData reads the CBS seasonally adjusted chained-volume level and computes the annualised quarter-on-quarter growth rate from it.
Each observation is stored with an announcement_datetime, and new releases typically reach the API within seconds of official publication (see release speed).
ILS indicators covered
These are the 10 series listed at /v1/data_catalogue/ils. The slug in brackets is the indicator value used in API calls.
Policy and rates
- Bank of Israel interest rate (
policy_rate): the policy rate, back to 1994. The BoI publishes the rate as a daily series by effective date; FXMacroData keeps the changes and dates each one to the Monetary Committee announcement. - Risk-free rate (derived) (
risk_free_rate): Israel publishes no separate official overnight benchmark comparable to SOFR or €STR, so this series is derived from the Bank of Israel interest rate and is identical to it wherever both exist. It should not be read as an independent market rate. - Government bond yields (zero-coupon) (2-year, 3-year, 5-year, 10-year): monthly points on the BoI's nominal zero-coupon government curve. The 2-year reflects expected BoI policy; the 10-year carries Israel's fiscal and geopolitical risk premium.
- 10-year CPI-linked (Galil) real yield (
inflation_linked_bond): the monthly real yield on CPI-linked government debt. The gap between the nominal 10-year and this real yield is a market-implied inflation expectation.
Inflation
- CPI inflation (
inflation): year-on-year change in the CBS consumer price index, with history back to the 1950s. It is the main input to BoI decisions.
Growth
- GDP growth (
gdp): quarterly real GDP growth, seasonally adjusted and annualised, from 1995.
External
- Real effective exchange rate (
trade_weighted_index): the BoI's monthly real effective exchange rate of the shekel against its trading-partner basket. Unlike the nominal BIS index served for most other currencies in the catalogue, this is a price-adjusted measure, so it should not be compared level for level with them.
ILS release timing
Times are Israel time (Asia/Jerusalem). Israel's daylight saving runs from late March to the last Sunday in October, so the UTC column shows summer time (IDT, UTC+3) first and winter time (IST, UTC+2) second.
| Release | Publisher | Local time | UTC | Typical schedule |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bank of Israel interest rate decision | Bank of Israel | 16:00 | 13:00 / 14:00 | 8 scheduled decisions a year; press briefing follows |
| CPI | CBS | 18:30 | 15:30 / 16:30 | Monthly, on the 15th of the following month (or the nearest working day) |
| GDP | CBS | 13:00 | 10:00 / 11:00 | Quarterly, about seven weeks after quarter end, with later revisions |
| Government and CPI-linked yields | Bank of Israel | Monthly | Monthly | Month-end values |
| Real effective exchange rate | Bank of Israel | Monthly | Monthly | Month-end values |
The 18:30 CPI release comes after the Tel Aviv market has closed, during the New York morning, so USD/ILS absorbs the surprise in offshore trading before local markets reopen. Upcoming dates are on the release calendar, and BoI statements appear in the ILS press release feed.
Worked example: the August 2026 CPI
The CBS published the August 2026 CPI on Tuesday 15 September 2026 at 18:30 Israel time. This request returns it:
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" "https://api.fxmacrodata.com/v1/announcements/ils/inflation?start_date=2026-09-01"The newest row in the response (abridged to the core fields):
{
"date": "2026-08-31",
"val": 1.5,
"announcement_datetime": 1789486200,
"previous_value": 1.5,
"previous_date": "2026-07-31"
}val is CPI inflation of 1.5 percent year on year for August, unchanged from July, and announcement_datetime 1789486200 is 15:30:00 UTC, which is 18:30 IDT. That puts inflation in the lower half of the BoI's 1 to 3 percent target range; set against the policy rate (/v1/announcements/ils/policy_rate) it gives the real rate the BoI is running, the starting point for any view on the next decision.
How traders use ILS data
CPI against the 1 to 3 percent target
The BoI's inflation target range is narrow, and each monthly CPI is read for its distance from the 2 percent midpoint. Inflation inside the range with a positive real rate gives the BoI room to cut; prints above 3 percent keep it on hold or tightening.
Rate differential with the US
USD/ILS responds to the gap between the Bank of Israel rate and the Fed funds target, and to the matching 2-year yields. When the BoI rate sits below the US rate, holding shekels costs carry, which leaves the currency more dependent on flows.
Market-implied inflation
Subtract the 10-year CPI-linked real yield from the 10-year nominal zero-coupon yield. A rising gap shows markets pricing higher inflation, which usually precedes a more hawkish BoI tone.
Risk premium in the long end
The 10-year nominal yield and the real effective exchange rate together show how much risk premium the market attaches to Israeli assets. Periods of geopolitical stress have typically seen long yields rise and the shekel weaken at the same time.
Institutional hedging flows
Israeli institutional investors hold large foreign equity portfolios and adjust their currency hedges as those portfolios change in value. That is why USD/ILS often moves inversely with US equities, a flow pattern that can outweigh the data on any given day.
