How to Keep Your Job After Aliyah in Your First 90 Days

Making aliyah does not automatically end your employment with your current employer. As of 2026, you can legally continue working for a US, UK, or other foreign employer from Israel — but only if your employment is restructured through a compliant local mechanism such as an Employer of Record (EOR).

Most foreign employers cannot run Israeli payroll themselves. They have no Israeli entity, no Bituach Leumi registration, and no way to withhold Israeli income tax. Without a compliant structure, both you and your employer are exposed: the employer risks creating a taxable “permanent establishment” in Israel, and you risk having no legal employment status, no pension contributions, and no health coverage from day one. An Employer of Record like CWS Israel solves this by becoming your registered local employer while your day-to-day manager and role stay exactly the same.

Days 1–14: Registration and Legal Status

In your first two weeks after landing, you must register with Bituach Leumi (National Insurance) and open your Oleh file, even before your first Israeli paycheck arrives. This registration is what every later exemption, benefit, and payroll filing references.

Concretely, this means: visiting your local Bituach Leumi branch (or completing registration through the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration absorption process), obtaining your Teudat Oleh and Teudat Zehut, and opening an Israeli bank account. If you plan to keep your overseas job, this is also the window to notify your employer that you will need a compliant Israeli employment structure — waiting until month two or three creates a payroll gap that is hard to backdate cleanly.

📄 What to bring: passport, Teudat Oleh, proof of address, and if available, a letter from your employer confirming continued employment.

Days 15–45: Setting Up Compliant Employment

Between weeks two and six, the priority is converting your employment into a structure Israeli law recognises — typically an Employer of Record arrangement, since setting up a full subsidiary is rarely worth it for a single employee.

Under the CWS Israel model, you never sign a traditional “employment agreement” with CWS directly. Instead, CWS Israel sends a quote outlining the conditions of employment with a link to the governing terms and conditions; once you accept the quote, CWS registers you for payroll, Bituach Leumi, and health tax (Mas Briut) — typically within 48 hours of the quote being accepted. Your original employer continues paying an invoice to CWS Israel, and CWS runs compliant Israeli payroll on your behalf, including the correct employer contributions: 3.55% of salary up to ₪7,522/month and 7.6% above that threshold for Bituach Leumi, plus a minimum 6.5% employer pension contribution once you cross the six-month pension threshold.

💰 Why this matters financially: Without this structure, none of your time in Israel counts toward pension, severance (Pitzuim), sick leave, or unemployment insurance — all of which start accruing only once you are on compliant Israeli payroll.

Days 46–75: Tax Residency and Reporting Obligations

By your second month, you become an Israeli tax resident, which triggers both a major benefit and a new reporting duty. The benefit is a 10-year exemption on foreign-source income — salary, dividends, interest, rent, and capital gains earned outside Israel are not taxed in Israel during this window.

The duty, tightened for anyone making aliyah from 1 January 2026 onward, is that the automatic reporting exemption has been narrowed: new residents arriving in 2026 must now disclose foreign bank accounts, investment portfolios, pensions, and business interests to the Israeli Tax Authority, even though the underlying income remains untaxed. This is separate from your US obligations — American Olim still file FBAR (FinCEN Form 114) for foreign accounts over $10,000 in aggregate, and FATCA disclosures continue because Israeli banks report US-linked accounts to the IRS under the US-Israel intergovernmental agreement.

🛡️ Practical step: Have your accountant confirm your Oleh tax-exemption status is filed correctly in the same window you register for payroll — the two filings reference each other.

Days 76–90: Confirming Everything Is Running Correctly

By day 90, you should have three things confirmed: an active Bituach Leumi file showing employer contributions, a payslip (Form 106-track equivalent) showing correct withholding, and Kupat Cholim (health fund) registration active through your new employment.

This is also the point to check for gaps. If your employer conversation stalled, or if you started as an independent contractor to “figure it out later,” now is the time to convert to compliant EOR employment before it affects your pension continuity or your mortgage eligibility — Israeli banks weight formal employment history heavily when assessing Olim mortgage applications.

💼 CWS Israel’s Olim First Steps programme is built specifically for this 90-day window, combining EOR employment, a 25% first-year discount, and PwC-reviewed compliance so nothing falls through the cracks.

EOR vs Freelancing vs Waiting: Which Path Fits Your First 90 Days?

To keep your job after aliyah, new Olim generally choose between three paths: converting to an Employer of Record, registering as an Osek Murshe (self-employed) and invoicing your old employer, or delaying any Israeli registration until “things settle down.” Only the first two are compliant from day one; the third creates a growing compliance gap.

What Do You Actually Get With CWS Israel’s Olim First Steps?

CWS Israel’s Olim First Steps combines Employer of Record services with a 25% discount on EOR fees for your first year, English-first contracts and communication, and a PwC annual compliance review so your employer never has to worry about Israeli labour law themselves.

📄 Compliant payroll, Bituach Leumi and pension registration    💰 Correct severance and sick-day accrual from day one    🛡️ Multilingual support in English, Hebrew, Russian and Arabic    💼 SIA member with 12 years’ experience serving foreign employers in Israel

Why Can’t My Foreign Employer Just Keep Paying Me Directly?

A foreign employer paying an Olim’s salary directly into an Israeli bank account, without any local registration, creates real risk for both sides. The core problem is that Israeli law does not recognise a foreign company as a legal employer inside Israel unless it registers a branch, sets up a subsidiary, or works through an Employer of Record.

For the employer, continuing to run you on their home-country payroll while you physically work from Israel can trigger “permanent establishment” exposure — meaning Israeli tax authorities may treat the foreign company as doing business in Israel and owing Israeli corporate tax, currently 23% in 2026. For you, working this way means no Bituach Leumi registration, no pension accrual, and no severance rights, because none of these are calculated on payroll that never touched an Israeli system. This is the single most common mistake CWS Israel sees among new Olim: assuming that because the money still arrives, the employment is fine.

Common Mistakes New Olim Make in Their First 90 Days

The three most frequent mistakes are delaying Bituach Leumi registration, treating a temporary contractor invoice as a long-term solution, and assuming a US employer’s HR team understands Israeli labour law. All three are avoidable with a short conversation in your first two weeks.

Delaying registration is the costliest mistake because pension and severance accrual cannot be backdated once a compliant structure is finally set up — every month of delay is a month of benefits permanently lost. Using a contractor invoice (Osek Murshe) as a stand-in for genuine employment works for true freelance or multi-client work, but if you have one employer, fixed hours, and ongoing direction from a manager, Israeli labour courts are likely to view that as disguised employment, exposing both you and the paying company to reclassification risk and back-payment obligations. Finally, most overseas HR departments have never handled an Israeli hire before; they are usually relieved to hand the compliance work to a specialist rather than research it themselves.

Frequently Asked Questions