Public Housing in Israel: Who Qualifies and How to Apply

Public housing in Israel (דיור ציבורי, diyur tziburi) is a small stock of state-owned flats let at a subsidised rent to people who own no home and fall into a narrow set of groups: mainly families with at least 3 children who have lived on income support or a low income with an income supplement, some families with a severe disability, and wheelchair users. You apply through a Housing Ministry registration company, online for free or in person for ILS 40, and if you are approved you join a waiting list in your town that can take years, because a flat is offered only when one falls vacant. Most income tests use a “qualifying income” ceiling of ILS 9,865 a month for the whole family. Many new olim follow a separate Ministry of Aliyah and Integration route; some households or later applicants may be assessed under Housing Ministry rules. The rules below come from the Ministry of Construction and Housing allocation procedure 08/05 (edition in force from 1 September 2024), the ministry’s public-housing guide (updated 24 August 2026) and its gov.il service pages, checked on 29 October 2026.

What public housing is and who runs it

Existing tenants have a different set of questions. The public-housing tenant-rights guide covers repair requests, charges, information, accessibility and conditional replacement of a flat.

The Ministry of Construction and Housing decides who is eligible. Applications go through private registration companies that work for the ministry (חברות הרשמה לסיוע בדיור), the same companies that handle rent assistance. The flats themselves are managed by housing companies (חברות מאכלסות, chevrot me’aklesot) such as Amidar and Amigour, which operate nationwide, and city companies such as Shikmona in Haifa. Once you are eligible, the housing company in your town keeps the waiting list, invites you to see a flat and signs the lease with you.

Eligibility is given in the town where you live. If your town has no public housing at all, the ministry approves a flat in a nearby town. The ministry states plainly that the rental stock is very small, so it is meant first of all for people in economic and functional distress, and that it is not obliged to house you while your eligibility is valid: a flat comes only when one is vacated.

Public housing is not the same as rent assistance. Rent assistance is a monthly payment toward a flat you rent privately, and far more households qualify for it; our guide to Housing Ministry rent assistance explains that programme. Ordinary rental assistance for olim is a third, separate route. The two connect in one place: people approved for public housing who are waiting for a flat can receive a larger rent payment (סיוע מוגדל, siyua mugdal) in the meantime, covered further down.

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.

First test: are you “housingless”?

For the Housing Ministry route described here, procedure 08/05 defines who is considered “housingless” (חסר דירה, chasar dira). The Aliyah and Integration Ministry route and any exceptions must be checked under the rules that apply to the applicant. That means a person aged 21 or over, or a family where every member qualifies, who in the 10 years before the application had no rights, alone or with anyone else, in a flat, part of a flat or a flat under construction. A registration you say was only a formality still counts. Rights include ownership, a lease or long lease, a protected tenancy, and contractual rights in any form, including an inheritance (even one you renounced), a gift or a trust. Permission to a housing unit on a farm or a family plot (nachala) in a community settlement also counts.

• Unpaid purchases. A second-hand flat bought under a contract signed up to 12 months before you register (or before the certificate is updated, whichever is later), and not yet fully paid, does not count against you. For a new flat from a contractor the window is 36 months, again only while the price is not fully paid.
• Earlier state help. Previous government housing assistance, including a public flat, loan, grant or eviction compensation, can affect eligibility. Ask the Housing Ministry how your housing history is assessed. Rent-participation grants and help to adapt a home for limited mobility do not count under procedure 08/05.
• Recent public tenancy. Procedure 08/05 describes a general lookback of 12 months before you apply. A 2025 ministry amendment describes a longer lookback for some people who returned a public flat under an enhanced-rent programme. Ask the Housing Ministry which eligibility and waiting-period rules currently apply to your circumstances.
• Single parents. A single parent who held up to 50% of a flat that was sold because of the divorce or during the marriage still counts as housingless, provided they had no other rights in the 5 years before applying.
• Committee cases. The authorised committees can also recognise people as housingless in other cases.

Who qualifies

Being housingless is not enough. You also have to fit one of the groups in procedure 08/05. The appropriate route depends on residence, immigrant status, household and the applicable Ministry rules; an Israeli married to a partner without an Israeli ID can qualify as long as the partner’s stay in Israel is legal and valid.

If you are a single parent receiving a disability pension, ask the Housing Ministry how it assesses your family under the current rules, including any applicable exception routes. The couple examples in the table do not by themselves settle every single-parent application.

Seniors at retirement age apply separately for Golden Age homes (בתי גיל הזהב), the ministry’s public sheltered housing for older people. Our guide to sheltered housing for English-speaking retirees covers those homes alongside the private options.

The income test

Where a route has an income test, the gross income of everyone in the family, except children over 21, must not exceed the qualifying income (הכנסה מזכה, hachnasa mezaka). The ministry’s guide puts it at ILS 9,865 a month and says it is updated from time to time, so check the current figure before you apply. Wheelchair users are measured against the national average wage instead, and couples who both live only on a stable 75% disability pension have no income ceiling at all. If you pay alimony under a divorce agreement, or pay a foreign caregiver, those payments are deducted from your income once you show proof.

Who counts as a child

A child is an unmarried, housingless son or daughter (including an adopted child) under 21 whom you support, including a child at boarding school, in student housing, on a kibbutz or in the army. A child in foster care or permanently placed outside the home does not count. A pregnancy from the fifth month (20 weeks) counts as a child, and each foetus counts, so twins count as two. A pregnant woman with no other children does not get that extra count. After a divorce, a child counts for you only if a judgment gave you sole custody and the child actually lives with you; under joint custody the child counts only if the other parent signs a waiver of housing assistance for that child.

Separated mothers living on the alimony payment

Procedure 08/05 has two routes for mothers of at least 3 children who live on the alimony payment from National Insurance (Bituach Leumi). The first covers a married woman (the procedure applies the same rule to a father) who has lived apart from her husband and been in legal divorce proceedings for at least 2 years, or an aguna, who has lived on that payment for 2 years in a row. She must also pass National Insurance’s income-support income test and its employment test for 12 months in a row, unless her work would exempt her from the employment service. After 6 months of meeting every condition she gets the larger rent payment given to people waiting for public housing, and after 12 months she becomes eligible for a flat. The second route covers a mother who moved from the alimony payment to income support and whose work in the previous year would have exempted her from the employment service: she gets the larger rent payment from her first month on income support, and becomes eligible for a flat after 6 months on income support, as long as she is still receiving it then.

New immigrants: check the route

New olim may be assessed through the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, while some households or later applicants may be assessed under Housing Ministry rules. Ask the relevant ministry which route applies. Under the olim route, eligibility is decided by the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration under its own procedure 5.084 (in force from 1 February 2026), for applications made after 7 months and before 15 years from the start of your eligibility as an oleh; qualifying seniors and other groups may have different timing under the procedure. You still need a “housingless” approval issued through a Housing Ministry registration company, and the groups are different: for example a family with at least 5 children, a single-parent family, seniors living on an old-age pension with income supplement, people with a severe disability or a listed serious illness, and special populations such as Holocaust survivors and World War II veterans. Our article on why many new olim rent first sets out those groups in full.

A few olim rules differ from the Housing Ministry route. An olim approval ordinarily lasts 24 months and may be extended with updated documents; some senior categories have different rules, so check the current procedure and your decision. You can join the waiting list in your own town and in up to 2 more towns, and your place depends on the applicable procedure, locality and priority rules, including the relevant date and qualifying adjustments. Members of the special populations have their start date moved 2 years earlier. Refusing 3 suitable offers generally ends further offers, although the ministry may approve a fourth and some offers do not count. And instead of waiting in line, you can choose a route of larger rent assistance for 4 years without flat offers, then return to the list. Income documents for an olim application cover the 3 months before you apply.

How to apply for the eligibility certificate

Writing the explanatory letter

The letter is the only place where you explain your situation in your own words. A checklist that keeps it complete:

• Address it to the registration company and branch you chose.
• For each main applicant: full name, ID number and year of birth; your address and phone numbers.
• Your family: marital status, children under 21, and the month of any pregnancy.
• How you live now, in plain facts: for example, two parents and five children in a rented three-room flat, or living with your parents.
• Every reason that applies: housingless, crowding, a medical condition, a disability percentage, a wheelchair, a disabled child, income support or low benefits, unemployment, or a welfare-office case.
• Attach every supporting document you have. If you deliver the application by hand, bring two copies and ask for a “received” stamp on the copy you keep.

If your Hebrew is limited, ask a Hebrew-speaking friend, relative or social worker to help you write the letter and to join calls with the ministry.

How long eligibility lasts and what can cancel it

Approved eligibility is valid for 4 years from the decision. 2 months before it expires, you are sent a reminder by SMS and post. If it runs out before you get a flat, you renew through the registration company or the housing company; renewal is not automatic and is re-examined on your current details under the rules in force at that time. If you do not renew, you drop off the waiting list. The system also re-checks everyone on the list every month for flat ownership, mortgages, changes in the population registry and similar data.

While you wait, report any change in your personal status or number of children in writing, with documents, through the registration company or the housing company. Eligibility is cancelled if you are found to own a flat or part of one, if you sold a flat, used purchase assistance or received settlement assistance after the approval, if a single parent who was approved as one marries, or if a couple divorces or separates. If one spouse dies, the survivor keeps eligibility on the family’s updated details until 4 years from the couple’s original eligibility; a low-floor need that came from the late spouse’s health falls away.

If you do not meet the rules: exceptions committee and appeals

People who do not fit the regular routes can ask the authorised committees to approve them as an exception (ועדת חריגים, va’adat charigim). Where someone in the family has a stable disability, the request is scored: up to 40 points for disability, up to 30 points for income per person or the months spent on income support, and up to 30 points at the committee’s discretion for special circumstances. A request goes to the committee only with at least 40 points before the discretionary points, and it is approved only with at least 70 points out of 100. Terror victims and bereaved families are scored out of 130 and need 70.

For extreme cases without a disability in the family, the ministry can examine a request if income per person is no more than one fifth of the qualifying income (ILS 1,973 a month according to the ministry’s guide), you are housingless, you have not reached retirement age, and at least 5 listed criteria apply, at least 2 of them significant ones such as domestic violence, a young person at risk, rehabilitation after homelessness, prison or addiction, children removed by court order, very large debts or serious medical problems in two family members. Most of these need a detailed social or medical report.

If you are refused, you can appeal to the ministry’s committees: the Supreme Exceptions Committee hears requests outside the rules, and the Public Appeals Committee hears appeals against its decisions. File through your registration company with an appeal letter and supporting documents such as medical certificates or a social report. Some subjects are not heard at all, for example moving up the waiting list, or a low-floor allocation after the medical adviser or medical committee has decided.

The waiting list

For most households, the waiting list is the hardest part of public housing. Your position depends on when you were approved:

• Approved up to 31 August 2016. Ranked by priority group: first existing tenants approved to move to a lower floor for health reasons, then tenants approved to move with a stable 75% disability pension, then tenants moving for crowding, then tenants moving for other reasons, and only then housingless applicants (first those whose medical committee requires a low or ground floor, then those with a stable 75% pension, then everyone else). Ties go to the larger family, then to the longer wait.
• Approved from 1 September 2016. Ranked only by the date of approval. Wheelchair users, people who are totally blind with a Welfare Ministry certificate and 100% medical disability, and people approved by the exceptions committee are still ranked under the older rules.
• Ground-level flats. A vacated ground-level flat goes first to wheelchair users, then to families whose medical committee found they must live on a ground floor; if nobody like that is waiting in the town, it is offered to such people in nearby towns.
• Long waits. If you have waited more than 4 years and renewed, you get two further offers as suitable flats come up, and your waiting time still counts from your first approval.

Rent help while you wait

In towns where there is no suitable public flat, approved people receive the larger rent payment toward a flat on the private market until they are housed. It is not given in towns that have vacant public flats, and the amount follows the town where you were approved. You stay on the waiting list while you receive it. If you would rather not be offered flats at all, you can file a waiver and keep the larger payment until your eligibility period ends; if you already refused a first offer, this has to be done within 30 days of that refusal. You can later ask to return to the list, and your place is then set by the date that request is approved. The ministry’s guide also lists a second programme for approved households, “Stable and Secure Rental” (שכירות יציבה ובטוחה), described on its gov.il page. The amounts are in the ministry’s tables, summarised in our rent assistance guide.

What size flat you get

The flat size is set by the number of people when the flat is allocated. People are counted as the number of children plus two, for single-parent families too.

If everyone entitled to a flat of a certain size refuses it, or nobody in the town is entitled to that size, it goes to people entitled to a smaller flat. To shorten the wait, you can ask in writing to be listed for a smaller flat than you are entitled to; that request counts as a waiver, and you cannot later ask to move because of crowding. A family with a child whose stable 100% disability is based on autism is entitled to a flat on the second floor. A ground-floor flat depends on the ministry’s medical committee, and a first or second floor on its medical adviser; those medical decisions cannot be appealed.

Offers, refusals and moving in

When a flat is vacated, the housing company contacts the first eligible person in line by SMS and registered letter and invites them to see it. You have 4 working days after the viewing to say yes or no, Fridays not counted. If you do not accept in time, the flat goes to the next person. If you refuse, you sign a refusal form.

After 2 refusals of flats that match your eligibility, you get no more offers until your eligibility ends, and no larger rent payment beyond the end of the certificate. Wheelchair users can refuse up to 4 times, and the head of the occupancy department can allow one more offer with written reasons. A refusal is not counted if the character of the neighbourhood does not suit the family (Haredi or Arab), if you refused a flat on the same street before because of its location, if the flat is outside your town, or if you are bound by a private lease until it ends.

Before you move in, the system and the housing company check again that nothing cancels your eligibility and that your certificate is valid. Inspect the flat before you sign. The housing company has to carry out the required repairs within 60 days of signing the lease or of the start of the tenancy, whichever is earlier.

Once you are a tenant

Tenants can ask to exchange flats for crowding (generally after at least 5 years in the flat), for a health need, or to move to a flat at least one room smaller (but not to a ground floor), and seniors can move to a Golden Age home. If a couple separates, the right to stay goes to the spouse with custody of most of the children, or to a spouse with custody of a wheelchair-bound or bedridden child in a flat adapted for that child, or to a wheelchair-bound spouse in an adapted flat; other cases go to a ministry committee.

When the contractual tenant dies or moves to a nursing institution, a spouse, child, grandchild or parent who lived with them can in some cases stay or move to another flat. Under the ministry’s temporary order of 2 August 2026, someone who was living in the flat with the tenant on 1 August 2009 qualifies after at least 4 years living there together, and so does someone who had already lived there that long and become a continuing tenant by that date. Anyone else needs at least 3 years living with the tenant before the death or move, and must also qualify for public housing in their own right. The request goes to a committee at the housing company.

Transitional housing for young adults without family support

Welfare-supported transitional housing is a separate route from a public-housing tenancy. The Welfare Ministry’s Yated programme information describes a supported-housing programme for care leavers who lack family support. Its intensive-services information also distinguishes transitional or rehabilitation apartments with support for community life from emergency and other treatment settings.

Ask your local social-services department or Yated social worker which current pathway fits your situation. Confirm admission criteria, support, costs, duration and availability for that specific programme. Do not assume that every transitional apartment has one age range or stay limit, that a place is immediately available, or that a public-housing application secures admission. If you need accommodation urgently, state that clearly so the appropriate emergency response can be assessed.

Getting help

• Housing Ministry housing-assistance line: *5442, human answer Sunday to Thursday, 08:30 to 16:00, with an automated service around the clock for people who have already applied. Fax 02-5847530. The same gov.il contact page links to the public-inquiries form and to the housing companies by town; complaints about a company’s maintenance go to the ministry after you have contacted the company.
• Olim: the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration phone line, *2994 in Israel or +972-3-9733333 from abroad.
• Older or disabled relatives: if you are planning for a parent, our answer on housing options for disabled seniors making aliyah compares the routes.

Sources

1. Ministry of Construction and Housing, procedure 08/05 “Allocation of rental flats in public housing”, edition 01, in force from 1 September 2024.
2. Ministry of Construction and Housing, guide to public-housing assistance, updated 24 August 2026.
3. gov.il, request for a public-housing rental flat.
4. gov.il, public housing for wheelchair users.
5. Ministry of Construction and Housing, guide to public-housing tenant rights, updated 1 September 2026.
6. Ministry of Construction and Housing, contact for public housing and Golden Age homes, updated 2 February 2025.
7. Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, procedure 5.084 “Eligibility and allocation of public housing for olim”, in force from 1 February 2026.
8. Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, information line.

Waiting for a public flat usually means renting privately for a while, often on the larger rent payment. Send us your town, the rent you can cover with the payment and your move-in date, and we will search long-term rentals that fit that budget.