Syria Regulatory & Market Tracker: what is open, what is not (July 2026)

Direct answer first: as of July 2026, US and EU country-wide sanctions on Syria are gone, the Caesar Act was fully repealed in December 2025, and Syria's central bank has been delisted and has completed its first international SWIFT transfer since the war. What remains: the US State Sponsor of Terrorism designation, targeted sanctions on individuals and entities linked to the former regime, Iran, and Russia, and US export controls on certain goods, software, and technology. Investment is legal and happening at scale; diligence on counterparties and exports is still mandatory.

What changed

The FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act, signed December 18, 2025, repealed the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act — the secondary-sanctions regime that had kept foreign banks and investors out even after the June 2025 executive relief. Since then, the Central Bank of Syria has reopened an account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, reconnected to SWIFT, and begun rebuilding correspondent banking relationships. Foreign-issued Visa and Mastercard have started working at equipped merchants inside Syria.

What has not changed

Syria remains designated a State Sponsor of Terrorism, which carries financing and export consequences independent of the repealed sanctions. Targeted designations against specific individuals and entities remain in force — which is why we screen local partners and public associations as part of stakeholder mapping. US export controls on software, technology, and dual-use items also remain, and they affect cloud services and marketing technology stacks more often than investors expect.

The recurring event to watch

The Caesar repeal obliges the US President to certify to Congress every 180 days, for four years, that Syria's government meets specified conditions. Each certification window is a predictable moment of policy risk and media attention. We update this tracker on each development; the date in the title tells you how current it is.