Home and utilities

Watch the clock here

• Claim your arnona (municipal tax) discount

  A 90% discount for 12 months, which you must use within your first 24 months. It is opt-in and never automatic.

• Use your purchase tax (mas rechisha) benefit before it lapses

  The reduced oleh rate applies to a home bought from 1 year before aliyah to 7 years after. On a NIS 3M apartment the gap is roughly NIS 181,000.

  Worth roughly ₪181,000 if you use it

• Pay your purchase tax within 60 days of signing

  Once you sign a purchase contract the mas rechisha clock is separate and much shorter than the 7-year eligibility window: payment is due to the Israel Tax Authority within 60 days.

• Plan your shipments around the 3-in-3 customs allowance

  You may bring three tax-exempt shipments within 3 years of aliyah. How you split them decides whether the exemption holds.

Your plan turns these into real dates counted from your aliyah day.

The steps in this domain (6)

• Solve the arev (guarantor) problem

  The single biggest rental blocker for olim. Landlords want an Israeli co-signer with local credit history, and you have no one to ask.

• Your local municipality

  Claim your arnona (municipal tax) discount

  A 90% discount for 12 months, which you must use within your first 24 months. It is opt-in and never automatic.

• Israel Tax AuthorityIn person

  Use your purchase tax (mas rechisha) benefit before it lapses

  The reduced oleh rate applies to a home bought from 1 year before aliyah to 7 years after. On a NIS 3M apartment the gap is roughly NIS 181,000.

• Israel Tax AuthorityIn person

  Pay your purchase tax within 60 days of signing

  Once you sign a purchase contract the mas rechisha clock is separate and much shorter than the 7-year eligibility window: payment is due to the Israel Tax Authority within 60 days.

• Set up electricity, water, gas and internet

  Mostly doable by phone or online, which makes this one of the few genuinely easy steps. The gas safety inspection is the exception.

• Israel CustomsIn person

  Plan your shipments around the 3-in-3 customs allowance

  You may bring three tax-exempt shipments within 3 years of aliyah. How you split them decides whether the exemption holds.

Resources (11)

• GuideExternal

  Purchase tax (mas rechisha) explained

  How the reduced oleh rate works on a home purchase, and the seven-year window it sits inside. The largest single sum at stake anywhere in the aliyah process.

  By Buyitinisrael · checked 2026-07-21

• GuideExternal

  Mortgages for olim

  Loan-to-value limits available to new immigrants, and how foreign-currency income is treated in underwriting.

  By Mizrahi-Tefahot · checked 2026-07-21

• GuideExternal

  Renting without an Israeli guarantor

  The three real workarounds when you have no local credit history: a guarantee company, a bank guarantee, or rent paid in advance. Compare the cost of each before conceding on rent.

  By Easy Aliyah · checked 2026-07-21

• GuideExternal

  Customs benefits and the three-shipment rule

  What you may bring tax-exempt, and how splitting a shipment can quietly cost you an exemption.

  By Nefesh B'Nefesh · checked 2026-07-21

• GuideExternal

  Arnona: the reduced municipal tax for olim

  A national benefit most olim never claim, usable within your first 24 months. Each municipality runs its own deadline, so the date is local.

  By Nefesh B'Nefesh · checked 2026-07-21

• GuideExternal

  Planning a pilot trip

  How to structure a scouting visit so it answers the questions you actually have. Also carries the ETA-IL travel-approval requirement introduced for most travellers in January 2025.

  By Nefesh B'Nefesh · checked 2026-07-27

• DirectoryExternal

  Community guide: where olim actually live

  Profiles of the main olim destinations. Depth varies a lot between cities, and NBN is explicit that it does not endorse specific places.

  By Nefesh B'Nefesh · checked 2026-07-27

• GuideExternal

  Shipping your lift: what it really costs

  The best sourced cost page found anywhere for the container move, including the daily port-storage meter that catches people whose paperwork is not ready.

  By Nefesh B'Nefesh · checked 2026-07-27

• GuideExternal

  Aliyah flight luggage rules

  Allowances, prepay prices and the cap of five suitcases per passenger. Olim are not exempt from overweight or oversize fees, which surprises people at the desk.

  By Nefesh B'Nefesh · checked 2026-07-27

• GuideExternal

  Rental assistance and the periphery uplift

  One of the few sources that separates the rules before and after March 2024, and the only one found with single-parent figures broken out. The periphery rate is roughly three times the standard one.

  By Nefesh B'Nefesh · checked 2026-07-27

• OrganisationExternal

  Absorption centres (merkaz klita)

  There are 18 centres, but 13 serve Ethiopian olim specifically, so only about five general centres take roughly 2,000 olim a year. Places are far tighter than the headline number suggests.

  By The Jewish Agency for Israel · checked 2026-07-27