Boi Economic Data

BOI Economic Data

Instructions

Step 1: Identify the Data Type

Ask the user what economic data they need:

Step 2: Fetch Data from the BOI and CBS APIs

The Bank of Israel serves public data from its "new series database" (Fusion Edge Server) using the SDMX 2.1 REST API. Two data paths are live and return the same observations:

https://edge.boi.gov.il/FusionEdgeServer/ws/public/sdmxapi/rest/data/{DATAFLOW}/{series}
https://edge.boi.gov.il/FusionEdgeServer/sdmx/v2/data/dataflow/BOI.STATISTICS/{DATAFLOW}/1.0/{series}

Both accept format=csv as well as the default SDMX-XML. Observations arrive as <Obs TIME_PERIOD="..." OBS_VALUE="..." RELEASE_STATUS="..."></Obs> elements, with the series metadata as attributes on the enclosing <Series>. Always send an explicit User-Agent. The canonical endpoint reference is references/boi-api.md.

Bound every query. A bare dataflow query with no date filter returns every series in the dataflow with its full history: .../data/EXR/ is roughly 20 MB across 35 series going back to 1948. Name the series, or add startPeriod / endPeriod, or use lastNObservations. A date-bounded dataflow query is genuinely useful when you want every currency at once (.../data/EXR/?startPeriod=2026-08-26 returns that day's 16 series in a few kilobytes: 14 per-currency RER_<CUR>_ILS rates plus the two trade-weighted basket series NER_ILS_BSK_PCT and NER_ILS_BSK_IDX, which are not per-currency rates, so filter on the RER_ prefix if you only want currencies).

Exchange Rates (Sha'ar Yatzig): representative rates live in the EXR dataflow as per-currency series RER_<CUR>_ILS (e.g. RER_USD_ILS, RER_EUR_ILS):

GET .../data/EXR/RER_USD_ILS?startPeriod={date}&endPeriod={date}

Interest Rate: the Bank of Israel policy rate (ribit Bank Israel) is the BR dataflow, daily series MNT_RIB_BOI_D:

GET .../data/BR/MNT_RIB_BOI_D?startPeriod={date}

Do NOT use the BIR dataflow for this. BIR is "ריביות וביצועים - לא לדיור", commercial-bank credit rates excluding housing loans. It resolves and returns data, so querying it fails silently by answering a different question.

CPI: the headline index comes from the CBS index API, not from the BOI. See Step 4.

Fetching only the latest value: use lastNObservations=1. Do NOT use lastNPeriods, which the BOI server accepts, answers HTTP 200 for, and silently ignores, returning the entire series back to 1948.

Use scripts/fetch_boi_rates.py for all three data types.

Step 3: Process Exchange Rate Data

BOI publishes representative exchange rates (sha'ar yatzig) daily:

Key points:

• Representative rate published once per business day, Monday to Friday: Monday-Thursday at approximately 15:30, Friday at approximately 12:30. No rate is published on Saturday or Sunday (the Israeli financial week moved to Monday-Friday in January 2026, so Sunday is no longer a publication day and Friday now is)
• Used as official rate for tax calculations, contracts, financial reporting
• Weekend and holiday rates use last published rate
• For intraday rates, use forex platforms (BOI rate is indicative)

Step 4: Analyze CPI Data

The headline Consumer Price Index (Madad HaMchirim LaTzarchan) is published by the CBS and is available from its index API as index id 120010 ("מדד המחירים לצרכן - כללי"):

GET https://api.cbs.gov.il/index/data/price?id=120010&format=json&last=6

The response carries, per month, the index value, its base period (baseDesc), the monthly change (percent) and the year-on-year change (percentYear).

Validate the payload, not the status code. This API answers HTTP 200 with "month": null for an unknown index id, and HTTP 200 with an HTML error page for an undefined path. A caller that checks only the status code will treat both as success.

The BOI PRI dataflow is not the headline CPI. PRI carries BOI price-index and analytical series on different bases and scopes; its CP000000 series is not the published מדד. Use the CBS API for any figure a user will rely on.

CPI components tracked by the CBS include housing (דיור, the rent component rather than home prices), food (מזון), transport (תחבורה), education and culture (חינוך ותרבות), health (בריאות), and clothing and footwear (הלבשה והנעלה). Basket weights are revised periodically; read them from the CBS basket publication rather than assuming.

CPI uses:

• CPI-linked bonds (Galil): Index-linked government bonds adjust by CPI
• Rent adjustments: Many Israeli leases are CPI-linked (tzmud madad)
• Tax brackets: Updated annually by CPI
• Alimony and legal judgments: Often CPI-linked

Linkage (hatzmada) has conventions that change the answer. Before computing any adjustment, settle three things:

• Madad yadua or madad bagin? Madad bagin month X is the index for X, published around the 15th of X+1. Madad yadua on a given date is the last index published by then. Contracts name one; using the other shifts the base by a month or two.
• Which base period? The current CBS base is the 2024 average. An index quoted on an older base cannot be divided by one on the current base without the CBS linking coefficient.
• Is there a floor clause (taniyat ritzpa)? Many Israeli linkage clauses do not reduce the payment when the index falls. The raw formula yields a negative adjustment; the contract may not allow it.

Note: CPI is typically published around the 15th of the following month; verify against the CBS release calendar.

Step 5: Track Interest Rate Decisions

BOI Monetary Committee sets the interest rate:

The policy rate is not the borrower's rate. Variable-rate ("prime" / פריים) mortgages and most consumer credit are priced at the Bank of Israel rate plus a fixed spread set by banking convention, and then plus or minus the borrower's own margin. Never quote the policy rate to a user as the interest they pay. Read the current prime from the bank's published prime rate, and state the policy rate only as the thing prime moves with. This skill deliberately does not hardcode the spread, because it is a convention rather than a published BOI series and it can be changed.

For the current rate and the dates it last changed, run python scripts/fetch_boi_rates.py --interest, which reads the daily BR/MNT_RIB_BOI_D series and prints each change point. The Monetary Committee's reasoning, and the accompanying minutes, are on the BOI press-releases / monetary-policy pages (see Reference Links).

Step 6: Combine Data for Analysis

Cross-reference multiple data points for comprehensive analysis:

1. Mortgage planning: Interest rate + CPI trend + exchange rate outlook
2. Business planning: Exchange rate + CPI for cost projections
3. Investment analysis: Bond yields + inflation expectations
4. Import/export pricing: Exchange rates + CPI for contract negotiations

Examples

Example 1: Current Exchange Rate

User says: "What is today's dollar-shekel exchange rate?" Actions:

1. Run python scripts/fetch_boi_rates.py --currency USD
2. Display representative rate (sha'ar yatzig) with date
3. Note: rate published Mon-Thu ~15:30 and Fri ~12:30; before that (or on Sat/Sun), the last published business-day rate applies Result: Current USD/NIS representative rate with context

Example 2: Interest Rate Impact

User says: "What is the current BOI interest rate and how does it affect mortgages?" Actions:

1. Run python scripts/fetch_boi_rates.py --interest
2. Show the current rate and the dates it changed (both come from the BR series)
3. Explain: variable-rate (prime) mortgages move with this rate, but the borrower's actual rate is prime, which is the policy rate plus the banks' fixed spread plus the borrower's own margin. Point the user at their bank's published prime rather than quoting the policy rate as their rate
4. Note: Fixed-rate mortgages set at time of signing, not affected by changes Result: Interest rate with mortgage impact analysis

Example 3: CPI Trend for Rent Adjustment

User says: "My lease says rent adjusts by CPI. How much did it go up?" Actions:

1. Determine: Lease start date and adjustment period
2. Confirm the convention: does the lease say madad yadua or madad bagin, and which base period does it name?
3. Fetch: python scripts/fetch_boi_rates.py --cpi for recent readings; use the CBS API with a wider last value for an older base index
4. Calculate: Percentage change = (CPI_current - CPI_base) / CPI_base * 100
5. Apply: New rent = original_rent * (1 + percentage_change / 100), unless a floor clause blocks a decrease Result: CPI adjustment computed on the convention the lease actually names

Bundled Resources

Scripts

• scripts/fetch_boi_rates.py -- Fetches representative exchange rates (--currency USD, add --latest to skip calendar gaps), the BOI policy rate (--interest, widen the change-point scan with --interest-days), and the CBS CPI (--cpi, reach an older base month with --cpi-last N). --json carries the quotation unit alongside the observations, so a per-100 currency cannot be misread. Transient connection resets are retried before it gives up. Exits non-zero when a source is unreachable or returns no observations, so it never presents placeholder numbers as data. --example prints clearly-labelled sample output. Run: python scripts/fetch_boi_rates.py --help

References

• references/boi-api.md -- Bank of Israel API endpoints (SDMX format), authentication, rate limits, and data structure. Consult when building integrations or troubleshooting API calls.

Reference Links

Gotchas

• Agents often query BOI exchange rates for Saturday or Sunday, but the representative rate (sha'ar yatzig) is only published on business days (Monday-Friday, since the Israeli financial week moved to Mon-Fri in January 2026). Use the last available Friday rate for the Saturday-Sunday weekend. Agents trained on pre-2026 data may still assume a Sunday-Thursday week and wrongly fall back to Thursday.
• The BOI SDMX API returns XML by default. Add format=csv for a flat table; the observation values are identical either way.
• Agents routinely reach for the BIR dataflow for the BOI interest rate because of the name. BIR is commercial-bank credit rates; the policy rate is BR/MNT_RIB_BOI_D. Both return HTTP 200, so the mistake surfaces as a plausible wrong number rather than an error.
• lastNPeriods looks like it works on the BOI API and does not: the server returns HTTP 200 and the full series back to 1948. Use lastNObservations.
• The CBS index API returns HTTP 200 for an unknown index id (with "month": null) and for an undefined path (with an HTML body). Agents that branch on the status code will treat a failed CPI lookup as a success.
• api.cbs.gov.il intermittently resets the connection under repeated automated requests (curl exit 56, no HTTP status at all). This is transient, not a dead endpoint. Retry with a short backoff rather than concluding the API is gone or switching to a different index id.
• Agents may confuse the BOI representative rate (indicative, published once per business day, Mon-Thu ~15:30 and Fri ~12:30) with real-time forex rates. The BOI rate is not suitable for intraday trading decisions.
• CPI data from CBS lags by about 6 weeks: January's CPI is published around February 15th. Agents may try to fetch current-month CPI that does not exist yet.

Troubleshooting

Error: "BOI API returned empty data"

Cause: the date range covers only non-publication days (a weekend, or a Jewish holiday), so the series exists but has no observation in the window. Solution: use lastNObservations=1 to get the most recently published value without modelling the calendar at all. That handles weekends and the Tishrei holiday cluster alike. (Note the opposite failure too: a dataflow query with no date filter does not return nothing, it returns the entire dataflow history.)

Error: "CPI data not yet available"

Cause: CBS publishes CPI around the 15th of the following month, so the current month's index does not exist yet. Solution: use the latest published index. If the API returned HTTP 200 but "month" is null, the index id is wrong rather than the data being late; the headline index is 120010.

Error: "Connection reset by peer" from api.cbs.gov.il

Cause: the CBS index API intermittently drops connections under repeated automated requests. It returns no HTTP status, so this is not a 4xx or 5xx you can branch on. Solution: retry with a short backoff. The endpoint recovers on its own; forcing HTTP/2 has also succeeded when HTTP/1.1 was resetting. Do not treat it as a permanent failure and do not substitute a different index id.

Error: "Exchange rate seems stale"

Cause: Using representative rate before daily publication time Solution: BOI representative rate is published Monday-Thursday at approximately 15:30 and Friday at approximately 12:30 Israel time. Before that (or on Saturday/Sunday), the last published business-day rate is the official rate. For intraday indicative rates, use bank or forex feeds.