Oleh Purchase-Tax Benefit: How Much a New Immigrant Saves

A new immigrant (oleh) buying one home in Israel gets a reduced purchase tax (mas rechisha): 0% up to ₪1,978,745, then just 0.5% to ₪6,055,070, if bought within about 1 year before to 7 years after aliyah. On a ₪3,000,000 ($0.81M) apartment that is roughly ₪5,106 — versus ₪240,000 at non-resident rates.

What is the oleh purchase-tax benefit?

Purchase tax (mas rechisha) is the one-time tax an Israeli property buyer pays to the Israel Tax Authority, and it is normally the largest add-on cost on a purchase. A new immigrant (oleh chadash) who buys a home within a set period around their aliyah date qualifies for a reduced bracket schedule on one home. It is a genuine, sizeable saving — but it is time-limited, one-time, and hedged with conditions, and the rules were restructured on August 15, 2024, so much of the advice circulating online is now out of date. This page sets out the current brackets, the eligibility window, and a worked comparison against the resident and non-resident schedules at typical Tel Aviv prices.

The current oleh brackets vs resident and non-resident

The table below shows the oleh single-home schedule alongside the two standard schedules — all frozen in nominal shekels from 16 January 2025 to 15 January 2028. The oleh benefit applies to a single home worth up to ₪20,183,565; above that ceiling the benefit is lost entirely and the standard rates apply. Amounts are in shekels; convert at the indicative rates below the table.

*The non-resident/additional-home split is 8% up to ₪6,055,070 and 10% above. †Above ₪20,183,565 the oleh benefit does not apply as a marginal bracket — it is lost on the whole purchase and the standard schedule applies. Indicative FX: ₪3.70/$1, ₪4.00/€1, ₪4.75/£1 — currency figures move, treat as approximate.

Worked comparison: oleh vs resident vs non-resident at ₪3M and ₪5M

Because each schedule is progressive, the gap widens with price. The table runs the two oleh reference prices through all three schedules — computed directly from the bracket bands above — so you can see the saving at your own budget. All figures assume a single second-hand residential home bought inside the eligibility window.

On the ₪3,000,000 ($0.81M) example, an eligible oleh pays about ₪5,106 (≈ $1,380) — a saving of roughly ₪40,432 against the resident single-home charge and ₪234,894 (≈ $63,485) against the non-resident 8%. The oleh track is never worse than the resident single-home track on a single home under the current brackets, because both share the same 0% first band.

The oleh benefit on a typical Tel Aviv apartment

Our pipeline tracks the market a buyer is actually shopping in. The median asking price across all tracked Tel Aviv-Yafo listings is currently ₪4,850,000 ($1.31M), based on n = 1,037 tracked active listings, July 2026 (methodology). Run that median price through the schedules and an eligible oleh would owe roughly ₪14,356 (≈ $3,880) in purchase tax — against about ₪138,038 for a resident and ₪388,000 (≈ $104,865) for a non-resident. See how prices break down by area on our market data hub.

The eligibility window: ~1 year before to 7 years after aliyah

The reduced rate is tied to your aliyah date, not open-ended. It can be used on a qualifying purchase from about 1 year before you immigrate to 7 years after. Time served in Israeli military or national service is not counted against the 7-year clock. A pre-aliyah purchase generally qualifies only if the aliyah follows within a year, and off-plan purchases carry their own completion limits. Because the exact start and end depend on your recorded aliyah date and status, confirm your own window with a licensed Israeli real-estate lawyer before letting a deadline drive the decision.

Conditions and limits

• Single home only. Since the August 15, 2024 reform the reduced rate applies only when the property is the oleh's single (only) home — not an additional or investment apartment.
• One-time. The residential benefit can be claimed once.
• Value cap. It applies to a home worth up to ₪20,183,565 (≈ $5.46M); above that the benefit is lost on the whole purchase.
• Occupancy — disputed. Sources genuinely disagree on whether the oleh must actually live in the home: some read the rules to require residence (or a good-faith intention to reside), others say the post-reform test is only the single-home condition. Do not assume either way — get your case confirmed.
• Returning residents. A returning resident (toshav chozer) has generally not qualified for the oleh purchase-tax benefit; this is fact-specific and worth confirming with a tax lawyer.

Beware stale “0.5% / 5%” figures

The oleh residential track was restructured on August 15, 2024 from the old 0.5% / 5% schedule to the current 0% / 0.5% / 8%. Many web pages — including some dated 2026 — still show the old brackets, or confuse them with the separate reduced rate on one oleh business property (also 0.5% then 5%). If a source quotes 0.5% from the first shekel for a home, it is out of date. The figures on this page are the current frozen residential brackets, current as of July 2026; we will update them when the freeze ends or the rules change again.

Frequently asked questions

Where this fits in the buying guide

The oleh benefit is one lever among several. If you have not yet decided when to buy, weigh it in our rent-first-or-buy-after-aliyah guide; for the standard schedules and the resident-vs-non-resident gap, see purchase tax for foreign buyers; and for the financing side, mortgages for non-residents. The buying guide hub links every stage.

Explore Tel Aviv by neighborhood

Once the tax picture is clear, the next question is where. Our neighborhood pages report tracked asking prices, price per square metre, the room mix, and days on market for each area:

• Old North
• New North
• City Center
• Florentin
• Neve Tzedek
• Ramat Aviv

See every published neighborhood on the neighborhoods hub.