Housing Ministry Rent Assistance: Who Qualifies and How to Apply

Israel’s Ministry of Construction and Housing pays part of the monthly rent for people who are “housingless” (own no home and have owned none in the last 10 years) and who either live on a qualifying National Insurance allowance or are a working family under the ministry’s income ceiling. You first apply for an eligibility certificate (תעודת זכאות, te’udat zakaut) online for free or through a registration company for ILS 40, then sign a lease on the private market and present it to the company. The payment depends on your household, the number of children and the kind of locality, and it can never be more than 95% of the rent in your lease. The rules below come from the ministry’s procedure 08/04, “Participation in rent payment”, in its edition effective 3 May 2026, and from the ministry’s gov.il service pages, checked on 29 October 2026.

The Hebrew name of the programme is סיוע בשכר דירה (siyua b’schar dira, rent assistance). It is run by the ministry’s Housing Assistance Administration, and almost every step goes through one of three private registration companies that work for the ministry. In practice the order matters: the eligibility certificate comes first, the lease comes second, and payment starts only after the company has your lease.

Rent assistance is not the same as public housing (דיור ציבורי, diyur tziburi), where you rent a flat from the state’s public-housing stock instead of getting a payment toward a flat you rent privately. You request both with the same gov.il form and through the same registration companies, but the ministry says that stock is very small and meant first of all for people in economic and functional distress, and approved applicants wait in a queue until a flat falls vacant. Our guide to public housing in Israel: who qualifies and how to apply covers the groups that qualify, the waiting list and the larger rent payment for people waiting for a flat.

How this differs from rental assistance for olim

New immigrants have their own route. Ordinary olim rental assistance is paid automatically after the ministries check the conditions, without an income test or a lease, and it follows a fixed schedule by status month. That route is explained in our guide to rental assistance for olim. The general programme on this page is different: you apply, you prove you are housingless and that you belong to an eligible group, and you present a lease.

Two points connect the routes. First, an oleh who is entitled to the absorption basket (סל קליטה, sal klita) paid by the Aliyah and Integration Ministry receives no assistance under procedure 08/04 for that period. Second, when the olim period ends, an English-speaking retiree on income supplement, a single parent, a divorcing spouse or a family on a low salary may qualify under the general programme, but only by applying for a certificate. Olim who already receive Housing Ministry assistance, oleh single-parent families and elderly olim are the groups the ministry exempts from presenting updated approvals at the end of each eligibility period. If you are retiring alone, our guide for single, divorced or widowed retirees covers the other benefits that sit alongside this one.

A public-housing replacement is a separate route. Approved tenants considering private rent while waiting should check the replacement and tenant-rights guide and obtain their individual approval before returning a public flat.

Who can apply

You can apply if you are an Israeli citizen or a non-citizen holding a permanent residence visa and licence, an A/1 temporary licence (a potential oleh) or an A/5 general temporary licence. A non-citizen parent of a child who is an Israeli citizen can also apply while holding a B/1 work licence (unless the employer must provide housing under the Foreign Workers Law) or a court decision extending a qualifying licence. Anyone who is not a citizen or permanent resident can receive assistance at most for as long as the visa and licence are valid; where a court extension has no end date, approval is given for up to three months at a time. When a couple applies, at least one spouse must meet these conditions and that spouse is the applicant.

Check housingless status under this programme, not another one. The term “housingless” does not have one ownership lookback for every Israeli housing scheme. Our chasar dira eligibility guide compares the discount-lottery, rent-assistance, eligibility-mortgage and public-housing tests, and explains which certificate to request.

The housingless test

Assistance is given only to someone recognised as housingless (חסר דירה, chasar dira). That means that in the 10 years before the application you did not hold, alone or jointly with anyone else, any rights in:

• a flat or part of a flat, by ownership, lease or long lease;
• a housing unit as a licensee in a community settlement or on a farm, or as the continuing son on a moshav farm (nachala);
• kibbutz membership;
• a protected tenancy under the Tenant Protection Law;
• possession of a flat or part of one received by inheritance or as a gift;
• a public-housing tenancy.

There are two exceptions in the 2026 procedure. Someone who sold such a right and was left, after repaying the mortgage, with no more than the maximum sum the ministry publishes on its website is treated as housingless. A single parent is treated as housingless if, in the five years before the application, they held no more than 50% of a single flat.

Route one: you live on a qualifying allowance

The first eligibility group is people whose income is a qualifying National Insurance (Bituach Leumi) or Holocaust Survivors’ Rights Authority allowance. The qualifying allowances differ by household type.

Route two: a working family that passes the income test

The second group is families, including single-parent families, whose income is not above the ministry’s qualifying-income ceiling. The procedure defines that ceiling as the highest work income that still allows income support from National Insurance, plus 25%. The ministry publishes the current ceilings by family size on its website, and your assistance level is set from your family’s income and composition against them.

A couple must also “exhaust earning capacity” (מיצוי כושר השתכרות, mitzui kosher hashtakarut). The 2026 procedure accepts any one of these:

• One spouse works full time: a 100% position of at least 144 hours a month on average, with average monthly pay over the last six months of at least 75% of the minimum wage.
• A teacher or kindergarten teacher earning at least the minimum wage on average over the last six months.
• A self-employed spouse whose average income over the last six months is at least the minimum wage.
• A household worker with a National Insurance confirmation of at least the minimum wage on average over six months, or someone receiving a work-injury disability benefit at least equal to the minimum wage.
• One spouse receives unemployment, maternity or pregnancy-protection pay at a full-time rate.
• One spouse has a general disability pension for 75% or more incapacity as a single person and the other does not work.
• One spouse has 60% to 74% incapacity and the other earns at least half the minimum wage.

Senior citizens and single parents do not have to pass the earning-capacity test; a single parent needs only to stay under the qualifying-income ceiling or live on one of the allowances in the table.

Single parents, separated spouses and shared custody

A single-parent family is a parent with at least one child in their custody who is not married and has no common-law partner, or who is married but living apart in one of the situations the procedure lists. Those situations include a spouse abroad for at least 12 consecutive months, a spouse in prison or detention or in long-term nursing care, an agunah recognised by a religious court, and a divorce or dispute-resolution file that has been open and active for 12 months or more. A “child” is unmarried, under 21 and living with you; a pregnancy from week 24 counts as a child. A single parent who lives with a common-law partner is assessed as an ordinary family.

With partial or shared custody, a child counts in your application if the other parent signs a waiver, if the other parent has not applied, or if the divorce agreement says the child spends most days with you. When time is split equally and both parents apply, each receives half of the single-parent assistance. The gov.il single-parent page adds that if the second parent applies later in the year, the first keeps the full amount until the end of that year and then moves to half.

Which flats qualify

The procedure defines a dwelling as a room or set of rooms used for living, including a hotel room and student dormitories. The flat must be used for residence and rented on the private market, and you must live in it permanently, which the procedure defines as most days of the week and of the year. No assistance is paid if you:

• live in public housing or in one of the ministry’s sheltered “Golden Age” homes;
• are a senior citizen in an old-age home funded by the Welfare Ministry, or are in nursing care funded by the Health Ministry;
• live in service housing provided by your employer;
• rent from a non-profit body, such as an association, endowment or church, that receives government support with a housing component (renting from a non-profit is possible only with its accountant’s confirmation that it receives no such support);
• are an oleh entitled to the absorption basket. A recipient who marries an oleh during the oleh’s basket period keeps their own single-person eligibility until the basket payments end.

Renting from relatives

You cannot receive assistance for a flat owned by a relative: a spouse or common-law partner, a former or separated spouse, your parents and their spouses, your children and their spouses, or your brothers and sisters. There are two exceptions. Someone on a disability pension for 75% or more incapacity who lives with a relative can be approved by the exceptions committee if the disability causes extra housing costs. And someone who rents from a brother or sister, started receiving assistance before January 2014 and has received it continuously for that same flat since then can keep it.

Kibbutzim, shared flats and the locality

If you rent on a kibbutz or a cooperative moshav, bring a letter from the secretariat confirming that you are not a member and not a candidate for membership. If the lease is in the names of several flatmates, even if not all of them are eligible, your assistance is based on your own share of the rent as stated in the lease, or, if the lease does not say, on your share of the households renting the flat.

The ministry classifies localities in two ways: whether the locality is in a national priority area, and whether it is “large” or “small”. A large locality is a town or locality with more than 1,000 residents where, at the last census, at least 30 households rented privately and they made up at least 5% of households; every other locality is small. Not every locality qualifies, and the ministry publishes the list of localities where rent assistance is given. If a government decision reclassifies your locality and lowers the level, you keep the higher level for as long as you keep receiving assistance continuously in the same flat; if you move to another flat in the same locality, you keep it for up to one year from the move.

How much you get

The monthly amount is set by your household composition, the number of children and the class of the locality where you rent. The ministry publishes the amount tables on gov.il and links them from each application page; check the current table for your household before budgeting. Three rules apply to everyone:

The 10% supplement goes to four groups: World War II veterans recognised by the Defence Ministry under the WWII Veterans Status Law; Nazi-war disabled with up to 49% disability recognised under the Nazi War Disabled Law; Holocaust survivors whom the Holocaust Survivors’ Rights Authority has recognised as entitled to the supplement under the Holocaust Survivors’ Benefits Law; and Chernobyl liquidators recognised under the law for those who helped neutralise the disaster. The relevant ministry or authority sends their details to the Housing Ministry. The supplement is not added for someone who receives enlarged assistance as a public-housing applicant waiting for a flat.

People who are entitled to public housing and are waiting for a flat receive enlarged rent assistance during the wait, under the ministry’s public-housing allocation procedure 08/05. A separate enlarged route for seniors who gave up public housing for five years was closed in 2021; seniors who were on it then and have stayed on it continuously keep it.

Illustrative example, not a quote: the cap of 95% of the rent matters when the rent is low. If your household’s table amount were ILS 1,370 and your lease were ILS 1,200 a month, the ministry would pay no more than ILS 1,140 (95% of ILS 1,200), not the full table amount.

How to apply for the eligibility certificate

A wheelchair user who cannot reach a branch for health reasons can ask the company’s call centre to send a representative home, under conditions the ministry sets.

Documents to prepare

Appendix A of the procedure lists the documents the registration company checks. Which ones you need depends on how you qualify.

Getting paid

Payment needs a valid eligibility certificate and a valid lease that covers the months claimed. The ministry pays only for a calendar month that includes at least 15 days of tenancy, so a lease that starts late in the month usually earns nothing for that month. Money is transferred in the first week of the month, or according to the ministry’s payment schedule.

The assistance is paid into your own bank account. If you want it to go straight to your landlord, you sign a transfer request (appendix D) and attach the landlord’s signed declaration (appendix E) agreeing to receive it and allowing the ministry to verify the account. Payment to a guardian or trust account is approved only if the account is managed solely for you. The ministry can check your data against other databases and ask for proof that you live in the flat, such as water, arnona, gas and electricity bills.

Back payments

• Allowance route: a first-time or renewing recipient can be paid for up to 3 months before the payment date, for months in which they received the qualifying allowance and had a lease. If National Insurance approves an allowance retroactively, the assistance follows for the period it approved, up to 12 months from the approval, provided you apply within 12 months of receiving the National Insurance confirmation. If your allowance changes and your level rises, the difference is paid from the start of the new allowance, at the amounts in force when it is calculated.
• Income-test route: a first-time recipient is paid only from the month of application; if the approval was delayed, up to 3 months can be paid back with a lease for those months. A renewing family whose previous eligibility ended less than three months ago can be paid for those months if the lease covers them. If your income drops and you qualify for a higher level, differences are paid from the date you complete the new income documents.
• Pregnancy: a pregnancy declared from week 24 counts as another person, but that part is held until the birth appears in the population register and is then paid back from the eligibility date, for no more than 4 months. After a stillbirth, assistance for the pregnancy period is paid on a hospital confirmation filed within three months.

If a recipient with no spouse dies on or before the 15th of the month, payment continues to the end of that month; after the 15th, to the end of the following month. If the recipient had a spouse who is not eligible in their own right, the spouse keeps the couple’s payment until the end of the following month (death on or before the 15th) or the following two months (after the 15th).

Renewing and keeping your details current

Renew online through the government personal area when fewer than 45 days remain before your current eligibility ends; the ministry says you can and should renew only in that window. The renewal form is only for current or past recipients, not new applicants. You, a guardian appointed by official order, or one spouse for both (declaring the other knows) may file it, and only if your family status has not changed since your last application; if it has, report the change through your registration company. You must declare any flat or share of a flat you own now or owned in the last ten years, with its address and the date you acquired or sold it. Online renewal is free; through the company it costs ILS 40. If approved, you get a letter stating your amount, and you are paid once your company has a valid lease. At the end of each eligibility period most recipients must present updated approvals for a fresh check.

A new or extended lease goes in through the free online lease-update service. It is open only to holders of valid eligibility renting a private-market flat that is not owned by a first-degree relative, and only if your family status has not changed. One spouse can file for a married or common-law couple if the other accepts the declarations, which bind you both, and a lawful guardian can file only if payment goes to an account the guardian manages for you or to the landlord. You may be asked for an account-management letter, a statement or a cancelled cheque, and you can attach the lease. Once the update is approved, payment is made within 10 working days (Fridays, holiday eves and Chol HaMoed are not ministry working days) to your account or your landlord’s. If you cannot use the form, email, fax or post the lease to your company.

Your email, mobile number and bank account can be changed online through the personal-details update service, which is open to current recipients and to anyone who applied in the last year and has not yet been paid. The same service accepts a pregnancy report from week 20 and a child added to your custody (the procedure counts a pregnancy as an extra person from week 24), provided your family status has not changed. A marriage, divorce, purchase or inheritance of a flat cannot be updated online; report it to your registration company. The procedure obliges you to report every change in your personal situation, including a change of address. If you receive the money through your landlord and leave the flat without telling the company and signing a new undertaking, you lose the assistance for that period and must repay it. Wrong or false information stops the assistance, exposes you to the penalties in the law and lets the ministry recover what it already paid.

If you are refused or the amount looks wrong

You can appeal the amount or a refusal. The gov.il service pages describe two levels: the Supreme Exceptions Committee, which hears requests for assistance outside the rules, and the Public Appeals Committee, which hears appeals on that committee’s decisions. Procedure 08/04 names the first level the Supreme Housing Committee (ועדת אכלוס עליונה) and says it decides on applicants who are not eligible under the rules and on appeals against the level set. File the appeal through your registration company with an appeal letter and the documents that support your request.

For an applicant outside the allowance and income-test routes, the district first checks that you are housingless (or, for a single person, that you receive one of the allowances the procedure sets as a threshold) and scores objective tests: job scope, how far income exceeds the ceiling, disabilities, number of children, age, and hostile-action injury. A file with fewer than 40 points is rejected without going to the committee (10 points for victims of hostile action). The committee can approve only if the applicant reaches at least 70 points out of 100, including up to 30 points for special circumstances such as domestic violence, a lack of family support, more than one disabled child or rehabilitation after street living.

For safety assessment, shelter and treatment-linked accommodation, see housing routes after domestic violence. These services are separate from this private-rent benefit.

Special routes

Several groups have their own procedures and file through a registration company. Each route has its own documents, amounts and limits.

A few more rules matter for violence victims. In the first year the ministry approves eligibility on the listed approvals alone, with no investigations, no extra documents and no housingless test. After the first year you must be housingless, unless you own a flat or share where your partner still lives and your share has not been set, or a divorce agreement gives you a flat or share but you cannot return or have not been paid. If welfare approval is missing or delayed, a criminal court decision, a police complaint, a protection order or a hospital or health-fund social worker’s confirmation of treatment can support temporary eligibility for three months. Eligibility ends on marriage, the ministry does not offset your other debts to it against this assistance (only debts arising from this assistance itself), and if you are entitled to a higher amount under another procedure you receive the higher one. Months count toward the cap unless four years have passed since they were paid. A victim who is not an Israeli resident can apply while her visa and stay permit, or a court decision delaying removal, is valid, for up to 12 months.

The ministry’s page for special populations also describes a pilot for young adults at risk aged 18 to 25 approved by the Welfare Ministry, but it states that the programme’s budget was for use until the end of 2024. Ask the Welfare Ministry’s programme or your social worker whether it is open before relying on it.

Buying a home while receiving rent assistance

Buying does not end the assistance on the day you sign. Someone who was housingless just before signing a purchase or building contract can keep receiving rent assistance until handover: for a new flat or a purchase group, until the delivery date in the contract (extended with the developer’s confirmation if delivery is late); for self-building a house, until the delivery date in the building contract but no more than three years from the building permit or occupancy form, whichever comes first; and for a second-hand flat, until the entry date in the contract but no more than six months from signing. If you are still weighing renting against buying, our article on why many new olim rent first walks through the timing.

For landlords

A tenant on rent assistance can ask the ministry to pay the assistance directly into the landlord’s account. The landlord signs the ministry’s declaration with the bank details and agrees that the ministry may verify the account and that the landlord has no claim against the ministry if payments stop. The procedure states that approving direct payment creates no obligation of the state toward the landlord. Payments arrive in the first week of the month, only for months with at least 15 days of tenancy under a valid lease, and never for a flat owned by the tenant’s close relative. For the wider lease rules, see our guides to breaking a lease in Israel and managing a property from abroad.

Sources

1. Ministry of Construction and Housing, procedure 08/04 “Participation in rent payment”, effective and published 3 May 2026 (replaces the 29 January 2012 edition).
2. Ministry of Construction and Housing, procedure 08/25 “Victims of domestic violence”, effective 16 January 2025.
3. gov.il, request for rent assistance or public housing.
4. gov.il, the guide to public-housing assistance (stock, waiting list and the larger rent payment for people waiting).
5. gov.il, rent assistance for single people; for families; for single-parent families.
6. gov.il, renewal of rent-assistance eligibility; lease update; personal-details update.
7. gov.il special routes: domestic violence, protection or removal order, released prisoners, street dwellers, special populations.

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