The U.S.—Panama Trade Promotion Agreement

General Information

The United States-Panama Trade Promotion Agreement (TPA) entered into force on October 31, 2012.  On this day, over 87 percent of U.S. industrial goods exports to Panama became duty-free including information technology equipment, agricultural and construction equipment, aircraft and parts, medical and scientific equipment, environmental products, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, and agro-chemicals.

Other benefits of the TPA include:

  • More than half of U.S. exports of agricultural commodities to Panama became duty-free, including high-quality beef, frozen turkeys, sorghum, soybeans, soybean meal, crude soybean and corn oil, almost all fruit and fruit products, wheat, peanuts, whey, cotton, and many processed products.
  • Stronger protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in Panama.
  • Increased access to Panama’s $20.6 billion services market, including in priority areas such as financial, telecommunications, computer, distribution, express delivery, energy, environmental, and professional services.
  • Significant infrastructure opportunities in the ongoing $5.25 billion Panama Canal expansion project, as well as through the almost $10 billion in other significant infrastructure projects, including construction of a highway between Colon and Panama City, the expansion and modernization of the Tocumen International Airport, and a mega-port project for container ships on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal.

Learn about industry specific business opportunities derived from the U.S.-Panama TPA at Doing Business in Panama.

If you wish to find tariff information on specific products, please go to the "FTA Tariff Tool”, a search engine, to display tariff rates and how they will be phased-out under the TPA.  It also provides industry sector or product snapshots, indicating how they are treated under recently concluded TPAs.  This tool produces information on trade and tariff profiles on all U.S. TPAs.

Qualifying for TPA Preferential Treatment

To know whether your product might qualify for TPA preferential treatment, please see How to Qualify my Good for U.S.-Panama TPA.

What You Need to Know Before the Goods Ship

To learn how to determine whether your goods qualify for preferential treatment; what is necessary to claim that preference; the responsibilities of the importer/exporter; and filing a correction and other information, please see Documenting Origin.

Here are some additional links that will help you get full value from the TPA:

If you have a question or if you need help please email a trade agreement specialist at tic@trade.gov.