An heir who lives abroad, or the heirs of a deceased who lived abroad and left an asset in Israel, face the same questions: which order is needed in Israel, which law governs the division of the estate, how much tax is paid on a sale, and how the money leaves the country.

Inheritance tax and estate tax

Israel has no inheritance tax and no estate tax. The Estate Tax Law, 1949 was repealed by the Estate Tax (Repeal) Law, 1981: the repeal applies to the estate of a person who died after 31 March 1981, and from 1 January 1988, under the Estate Tax (Repeal) (Amendment) Law, 1988, also to the estate of a person who died before that date. Section 4 of the Land Taxation (Appreciation and Purchase) Law, 1963 provides that “inheritance is not a sale”, so receiving an asset by inheritance is not a tax event: no capital gains tax and no purchase tax, even when the heir is a foreign resident. The tax event is the sale by the heir. Israel has no estate and inheritance tax treaties. An heir who lives in a country with an inheritance tax pays it under that country’s law on an asset in Israel as well, with no credit. France is one example (see the France-Israel tax treaty, in French).

Inheriting a foreign resident’s assets in Israel: jurisdiction and governing law

Section 136 of the Succession Law, 1965 gives the Israeli courts authority over the estate of “any person whose domicile at death was in Israel or who left assets in Israel”. An apartment or a bank account in Israel is enough, even if the deceased lived and died abroad. The governing law is a separate matter: section 137 provides that the succession is governed by the law of the deceased’s domicile at the time of death. Where the deceased’s centre of life was in France or in the United States, the estate is dealt with in Israel under French law or under the law of the American state where he lived, including the division between the spouse and the children, which may differ from the Israeli division. Foreign law is a fact to be proved, usually by an expert opinion. Two qualifications: section 142 provides that where the law of the domicile refers matters of immovable property to the law of the place where the property is located, Israel accepts the referral and applies Israeli law to the apartment, as many Anglo-American systems do; and section 140 recognises a will as to form if it is valid under Israeli law, under the law of the place where it was made, of the testator’s domicile, habitual residence or nationality, and, for immovable property, under the law of the place where the property is located. A will validly made abroad is not invalidated in Israel on grounds of form.

The procedure: an Israeli succession order or probate order

A grant of probate from a court in London or a probate order from a New Jersey court does not operate in Israel on its own. Section 39 of the Succession Law, 1965 provides that no rights may be claimed under a will, and a will may not be relied on as such, unless a probate order has been made on it, and that order is made in Israel: under section 66, the Registrar of Inheritance at the Ministry of Justice declares the heirs’ rights by a succession order where there is no will and by a probate order where there is one. Where the deceased was not domiciled in Israel, the application is filed with the registrar for the district where the assets are located (regulation 13 of the Succession Regulations, 1998), and the combined application for an order and for registration at the Land Registry that the Ministry of Justice offers is not available; registration at the Land Registry is a separate step after the order.

The application is filed online, and an applicant represented by a lawyer must file that way only (regulation 14(d)). It is accompanied by the death certificate (where the deceased had no Israeli identity card), the original will, proof that notice was sent by registered mail to the other heirs or an affidavit of personal delivery, the lawyer’s power of attorney, and the fee. The death certificate: if the deceased held an Israeli identity card and died abroad, the death must first be recorded in the Israeli population registry, and only then can the application be filed; if the deceased had no Israeli identity card, a foreign death certificate, duly authenticated, is filed. The original will: with online filing it must be physically delivered to the registrar within seven days, so whoever holds it abroad sends it ahead of time. And where the original remains with a foreign court that has already granted probate on it, section 68(b) of the Law and regulation 14(b)(3) allow the foreign probate order to be filed in its place, authenticated as a foreign document under section 30 of the Evidence Ordinance, without a separate application to prove the will. The foreign probate order therefore stands in place of the original will; the Israeli order is still required.

Language and authentication. Regulation 54A requires a document in a foreign language to be filed with a Hebrew or Arabic translation certified by a notary, except a document in English, for which the registrar may require a translation but need not. A French death certificate, a Spanish will or a German probate order goes through notarised translation; American and British documents usually do not. The heir abroad signs the affidavits and the power of attorney in one of two ways: before an Israeli diplomatic or consular representative, who is empowered under section 50A of the Notaries Law to act as a notary, in which case no further authentication is needed; or before a local notary, in which case the document is authenticated by apostille under the 1961 Hague Convention, to which Israel is a party. The first route dispenses with the apostille, subject to the availability of consular appointments.

Timing. Section 67 of the Law requires publication of the application and a period of at least two weeks for objections, and the registrar publishes on the Administrator General’s website and in the official gazette. According to the figures the Ministry of Justice publishes, an order is generally made within about forty days of filing, or of delivery of the original will, whichever is later. Where none of the heirs or beneficiaries is a child or descendant of the deceased, a parent or a descendant of a parent, or the spouse, for example where the beneficiaries under the will are cousins or friends abroad, or where one heir is missing, the application is referred to the Attorney General’s representative for a response (regulation 54), and the period lengthens. Referral to the family court occurs under section 67A mainly if an objection is filed, if the State, the Attorney General or the Administrator General is involved in the application, or at the registrar’s discretion; the fact that the deceased or the heir lived abroad does not by itself move the file. The resulting order is digital, sent to the applicant’s email, and transmitted at the same time through a direct interface to the Land Registry (Tabu), the Israel Land Authority, the Tax Authority and the banks. An heir who needs to present the order in another country orders a digital copy bearing an apostille.

Renouncing a share: only in favour of a spouse, child or sibling

An heir abroad may wish to renounce his share, for tax reasons in his country of residence or so that the apartment passes to a sibling who lives in Israel. Section 6 of the Succession Law allows an heir to renounce his share in the estate, in whole or in part, by written notice to the registrar as long as the estate has not been distributed, but provides that a renunciation may be made in favour of another person only if that person is the deceased’s spouse, child or sibling, and that a conditional renunciation is void. The notice is made by affidavit (regulation 16(b)), which the heir abroad signs at the consulate or before a notary with an apostille. A renunciation in favour of a nephew or of a stranger is not possible this way; in that case the heir takes his share and transfers it, and the transfer is a separate transaction for tax purposes.

Acting remotely: the power of attorney and the division among the heirs

From the order to the sale, the heir does not need to come to Israel. Section 20(a) of the Notaries Law, 1976 requires a power of attorney for land transactions to be drawn up or authenticated by a notary, but section 20(b) excludes from its scope a power of attorney given abroad in accordance with the law of the place where it was given. A power of attorney signed before the Israeli consul, or before a local notary and authenticated by apostille, is sufficient to register the inheritance at the Land Registry, sign the sale contract, report to the Tax Authority and receive the proceeds. The sale contract is signed by the attorney in Israel; the only signature that requires the heir’s personal appearance is the one on the power of attorney, before the consul or the notary, which is why it is the document planned first.

Where there are several heirs, the division among them is not a tax event as long as it stays inside the estate. Section 5(c)(4) of the Land Taxation Law provides that a division of estate assets among heirs is not treated as a sale, provided that if, as part of the division, consideration is given in money or in money’s worth that is not an asset of the estate, the part of the estate for which the consideration was given is treated as sold. A brother in Israel who takes the apartment while his sister abroad takes the parents’ bank account and portfolio: that is an exempt division. A brother who takes the apartment and pays his sister out of his own pocket: that is a sale of her share, with capital gains tax for her and purchase tax for him. The section applies to the first division of the estate, before or after registration of the order.

Capital gains tax when the heirs sell the property

The heir steps into the deceased’s shoes. Under sections 26 and 37 of the Land Taxation Law, where the deceased died on or after 1 April 1981, the heir’s acquisition date and acquisition value are those that would have been determined for the deceased had he sold himself. An apartment the parents bought in 1985 is sold by the son in 2026 with appreciation accrued since 1985, not since the date of death. The early acquisition also works in the heir’s favour: under section 48A(b2), for a qualifying residential apartment acquired before 1 January 2014, the real appreciation accrued up to that date is exempt from tax, and only the part accrued from that date onward is taxed at 25 percent. This is the linear computation, and it is available to a foreign resident as well. For an apartment acquired long before 2014, the linear computation removes a large part of the tax without any further exemption.

A residential apartment versus any other property

The linear exemption of section 48A(b2) and the exemptions of Chapter Five 1 (section 49B) apply only to a “qualifying residential apartment”: an apartment used mainly for residence for four fifths of the period over which the appreciation is computed, or for the four years before the sale. Land, a shop, an office or a plot received by inheritance falls under no exemption at all. Section 48A(b1) applies instead: the real appreciation is apportioned by time, the part up to 7 November 2001 is taxed at the highest marginal rate under section 121 of the Ordinance (47 percent), the part from that date to 31 December 2011 at up to 20 percent, and the balance at up to 25 percent. For an inherited asset the deceased acquired before 1961, section 48A(d) provides reduced historical rates, but the annual increment the section adds from 2011 onward brings them, on a sale in 2026, up to the ordinary ceiling. Appreciation on a non-residential asset is also subject to the surtax: 3 percent on taxable income above NIS 721,560 a year, plus 2 percent on income from capital sources above the same threshold, so up to 30 percent in total on real appreciation accrued since 2012. The linear exemption for an apartment itself carries no residence condition; a non-resident heir is entitled to it exactly as an Israeli resident is.

The exemptions, and the difference between an Israeli-resident heir and a non-resident heir

The full exemption for an inherited apartment, section 49B(5), sets three cumulative conditions: the seller is the deceased’s spouse, descendant, or the spouse of a descendant; before death the deceased owned one residential apartment only; and had the deceased been alive and selling the apartment, he would have been exempt from tax on the sale. A sibling or a nephew is outside the section, and a deceased who left two apartments loses the exemption for both. Position paper 03/2026 of the Tax Authority restates the purpose: the heir steps into the deceased’s shoes and sells as if the deceased himself were selling.

Section 49A(a) grants the residential apartment exemption to an Israeli resident or to a foreign resident who has no residential apartment in the country where he is resident, and lays down a presumption: a foreign resident is deemed to have a residential apartment in his country of residence as long as he has not produced a certificate from the tax authorities of that country that he has no such apartment. Land Taxation Implementation Directive 5/2013 makes clear that the presumption applies to the section 49B(5) exemption as well, that no affidavit or other document is accepted in place of the foreign tax authority’s certificate, and that a foreign resident who has not produced the certificate is taxed as a multiple-apartment owner even if the apartment in Israel is his only one. On this position an heir who lives in an apartment he owns in Boston or Paris is not entitled to the 49B(5) exemption, whatever the deceased’s position, and the linear computation remains. The position is disputed: there is no Supreme Court ruling on the question, and professional commentary argues that applying the section 49A(a) presumption to the inherited-apartment exemption is an expansive reading with no anchor in the wording of the section. Until a court decides, this is the Tax Authority position and it is what applies in practice.

The practical difficulty is that most tax authorities in the world do not issue such a certificate. Supplement No. 2 to the Directive (2017) records that as at its date only Belgium and Russia were known to issue one, and sets out an alternative route for every other country: a lease or other agreement showing that the seller rents his home; a municipal certificate, similar to Israeli arnona, showing that he pays as occupier and not as owner; a certificate from the tax authority of his country of residence that he has not reported rental income, or alternatively his tax returns; and an affidavit under the Evidence Ordinance that he has no rights in a residential apartment in his country of residence. In a federal country such as the United States or Switzerland, the certificates must cover every state or canton. Collecting these documents may take considerable time and should begin when the application for the order is filed.

Where the deceased himself was a foreign resident, the third condition of section 49B(5), that the deceased would have been exempt had he sold in his lifetime, is tested against the deceased’s position, and in our view the Tax Authority should be expected to apply the section 49A(a) presumption to the deceased as well and to require proof that he had no apartment in his country of residence; no explicit official ruling on the point has been published, and a family of foreign residents prepares to produce the certificates for the deceased too. And for the single-apartment exemption (section 49B(2)), which requires 18 months of ownership, the period during which the deceased held the apartment as a residence also counts. The Land Taxation Appeals Committee in Geva (59018-11-21) explained the logic behind denying the exemption to foreign residents, citing the Director of the Tax Authority before the Knesset Finance Committee: if a foreign resident were granted the capital gains exemption, Israel would be giving up the tax in favour of the country where he is resident. The exemption, when granted, is capped at a sale price of NIS 5,008,000 (section 49A(a1), not indexed until 2027); the part above it is taxed under the ordinary computation.

Transferring the money abroad

The transfer of the sale proceeds from the Israeli account abroad is subject to section 170 of the Income Tax Ordinance. The section requires anyone paying taxable income to a person who is not an Israeli resident to withhold tax at source at 25 percent for an individual, and defines the payer to include a financial institution through which the income is paid, unless the financial institution holds an approval from the assessing officer exempting it from the withholding duty. The Tax Authority repeated this in its December 2025 update to Implementation Directive 34/93: the duty applies both to the payer and to the bank through which the payment passes. In practice the bank conditions the transfer on a declaration of payment to a foreign resident (form 2513) with evidence of the nature of the payment and sometimes on the assessing officer’s approval, and sale proceeds that have already been reported and taxed under the land taxation regime are accompanied by the land tax certificates that show it. This step is prepared before the sale contract is signed, since the approval takes time and the payment dates in the contract are fixed.

Succession Law, 1965, sections 6, 39, 66, 67, 67A, 68(b), 136, 137, 140, 142; Succession Regulations, 1998, regulations 13, 14, 16, 17, 54, 54A; service pages of the Registrar of Inheritance, Ministry of Justice (updated June 2026); Land Taxation (Appreciation and Purchase) Law, 1963, sections 4, 5(c)(4), 26, 37, 47, 48A(b1), 48A(b2), 48A(d), 49(a), 49A(a), 49A(a1), 49B(5); Land Taxation Implementation Directive 5/2013 and Supplement No. 2 (2017); Land Taxation position paper 03/2026; Land Taxation Appeals Committee 59018-11-21 Geva v. Director of Land Taxation Tel Aviv; Notaries Law, 1976, sections 20 and 50A; Evidence Ordinance, sections 30 and 31; Regulations Implementing the Hague Convention (Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents), 1977; Income Tax Ordinance, sections 121, 121B and 170; Income Tax Implementation Directive 5/2025 (surtax); Implementation Directive 34/93, Supplement 1 (December 2025 update).

Further reading

Last updated: 7 September 2026

The above is a general overview and does not constitute legal or tax advice. The law, rates and amounts change, and every case depends on its own circumstances.