Arnona in Tel Aviv: What Municipal Tax Costs on an Apartment

Arnona is Tel Aviv-Yafo’s municipal property tax, billed per square metre to the occupant — usually the tenant, not the owner. The 2026 residential order runs ₪46.64–₪139.60 per sqm per year. On a typical apartment under 140 sqm, that is ₪46.64–₪112.99 per sqm, about ₪4,117–₪9,974 a year on our implied median 88 sqm tracked apartment.

The charge, and who the municipality actually bills

Arnona is the municipal property tax. Tel Aviv-Yafo’s council imposes it each calendar year on every property in the city, under ss.8 and 9 of the Arrangements in the State Economy Law, 5752–1992, and the definitions in s.269 of the Municipalities Ordinance. For a home the bill is a shekel amount per square metre per year. It is not purchase tax (mas rechisha), it is not land-appreciation tax, and it is not the building committee’s private fee. It is the city’s occupancy charge for municipal services.

The person who pays is the occupant (machzik), not “the owner” as a category. Section 8 of the Arrangements Law says the arnona is calculated per unit of area according to the type of property, its use and its location, and is paid by the occupant of the property. Section 269 then defines that occupant as the person who actually holds the property as owner, as tenant, or in any other manner — except a guest in a hotel or pension. In a let Tel Aviv apartment that person is almost always the tenant. A lease clause that shifts the cost to the landlord is a private reimbursement deal; the municipality still addresses the bill to the registered occupant and pursues that name if it goes unpaid.

How the 2026 tariff is built

The 2026 order, approved by the municipal council on June 16, 2025, splits residential Tel Aviv-Yafo into 5 geographic zones and then into building classes lettered אא through ה+ו. The class is assigned from the building’s description and year of completion — a newer building with a lift or central heating is typically a higher class than an older walk-up on the same street — and the class already encodes the zone (order §2.1). Zones 1 and 2 then split again at 140 sqm: villas of any size, and apartments that sit with a plot over 140 sqm, pay the higher cell; ordinary apartments at or under 140 sqm pay the lower one. Zones 3, 4 and 5 use a single rate for all apartment types.

We do not publish a neighborhood-to-zone map. The map that decides the zone sits in the municipal arnona office, boundaries run down the middle of the street unless the order says otherwise, and the order itself lists street-level and building-block exceptions (Hadar Yosef, Tzahala, parts of Jaffa, Kfar Shalem and others). Guessing a zone from a neighborhood name would be an invented number. The table below is the official tariff; the bill on a specific address is the only way to know which cell applies.

Across the whole residential grid the 2026 order runs from ₪46.64 to ₪139.60 per sqm per year. A residential unit inside a hotel building (symbol 102) is charged a flat ₪132.35 per sqm, regardless of zone. Private pools and shared playrooms or pools in a residential building are charged at the residential rate.

What that bill is on our tracked apartment

The tariff is a shekel-per-metre number. Our sale panel is a price-and-metre panel. Dividing the citywide median asking price of ₪4,850,000 ($1,310,811 / €1,212,500 / £1,021,053) by the apartment-scale median of ₪54,945 per sqm gives an implied median size of 88 sqm (950 sqft) — July 2026, n = 1,037 tracked active listings, per-sqm n = 987. That size sits under the 140 sqm split, so the relevant cells are the ordinary-apartment columns, not the villa / over-140 ones.

On those apartment cells the 2026 tariff is ₪46.64–₪112.99 per sqm. Times 88 sqm, the annual bill is about ₪4,117–₪9,974 ($1,113–$2,696; €1,029–€2,493; £867–£2,100). Against the citywide median asking rent of ₪10,500 a month (₪126,000 a year; n = 1,529, July 2026) that is roughly 3.3–7.9% of a year’s rent. Against the median asking price it is 0.1–0.2% of the sticker — a small fraction of the purchase, and a material slice of the 2.77% gross yield that page already warns is before arnona.

Two honesty notes sit on that table. First, the implied size is a ratio of two medians, not the municipality’s measured area on a named flat — walls, balconies and the 140 sqm split can move a real bill. Second, the villa / over-140 cells go as high as ₪139.60 per sqm, about ₪12,322 a year on the same 88 sqm, but that cell is the wrong one for a typical apartment-scale listing. We show it so the top of the published order is visible, not so it is used as a default.

The oleh discount Tel Aviv actually gives

English-language guides often repeat a 90% oleh arnona discount. That figure is the national ceiling, not Tel Aviv’s rate. The Arrangements (Arnona Discount) Regulations, 5753–1993, let a municipality grant an oleh a discount of up to 90% on the first 100 sqm for 12 months out of the 24 months from the date they are registered as an oleh. Tel Aviv-Yafo’s 2026 order, §6(6)(a), sets the municipal discount at 50% on those same 100 sqm, for the same 12-in-24 window. The municipality’s own English New Residents page states the same rule: 50% for up to one year during the first two years from aliyah, on up to 100 square metres.

On our implied 88 sqm apartment the whole area sits under the 100 sqm cap, so a qualifying oleh saves 50% of the bill for one year — about ₪2,058–₪4,987 ($556–$1,348) depending on zone and class. The discount is not automatic. The arnona account has to be in the occupant’s name, and the application is filed with the municipality (the English page sends olim to Ibn Gvirol 69). An oleh who leaves the bill in the landlord’s name has nothing for the benefit to reduce. The purchase-tax oleh track is a different statute and a different office; see oleh purchase-tax benefits.

When it is billed, and what the metre includes

The 2026 charge starts on January 1, 2026. The council set six bi-monthly due dates: 1 January, 1 March, 1 May, 1 July, 1 September and 1 November 2026. Instalments carry CPI linkage from the October 2025 index. A person who becomes the occupant after 1 January is charged in proportion to the days they held the property. Missing two instalments lets the municipality demand the rest of the year in one go.

Area is the space inside the unit, including a loft, covered space and balconies, and excluding external and internal walls. Covered parking used only for parking in a residential building is left out. Shared residential common parts are generally not charged, except energy and air-conditioning systems held by a management company or the building committee, which are charged in full and split between occupants. A fraction of a square metre is rounded to the nearest whole metre, with half a metre rounded down. Garden balconies and pergolas have their own coverage tests in the order; they are the usual reason two similar flats on one floor produce different bills.

What this page will not invent: va’ad bayit and insurance

Va’ad bayit is the building committee’s private charge for the lift, cleaning, garden and shared electricity. It is not municipal tax, it does not appear on the arnona bill, and our tracked listing panel has no field for it. A citywide average would be an invented number, so we do not publish one. The legal rules — owner pays, not the tenant; floor-area share; decisions that bind a later buyer — are on va’ad bayit in Tel Aviv. Ask for the building’s current monthly figure the same way you ask for the arnona bill — from the occupant or the committee — and treat any round number in a listicle as unsourced.

Home insurance is no longer an empty line. The official 1986 standard apartment policy (earthquake on unless waived; war and terrorist attacks excluded) is on home insurance in Tel Aviv. There is still no official shekel premium and no field in our panel, so that page also publishes no citywide monthly figure.

The parts we could not pin down

Three things we will not put a number to. The zone of any named neighborhood: the official map is address-level, with listed exceptions, and assigning Old North or Florentin a single zone would be a guess. A vacancy discount: national regulations allow a municipality to grant up to 100% for up to six cumulative months on an unused empty building; we did not find that discount enacted as a 2026 Tel Aviv figure in the order chapter we read, so we do not claim the city pays it. Lease-shift enforcement between the parties: the municipality bills the occupant; whether a tenant can recover from a landlord under a particular lease is a private-law question for that contract. All three are questions for the municipal account, or for a lawyer, about a specific address.

Frequently asked questions

Where this fits

Arnona is the holding-cost line the yield and rent pages leave as a caveat. It sits after the one-off purchase tax and closing costs, next to tax on rental income for an owner who lets, and before capital gains tax on the way out. The rent and yield figures it is measured against live on Tel Aviv rent prices and rental yield (methodology). The oleh track on purchase tax is a different page. The Hebrew term is in the glossary, and the cluster map is the foreign-buyer guide.