Your Misrad HaKlita Rights, Month by Month: A Benefits Timeline for Olim

Why does every oleh benefit have a different deadline?

Because almost every benefit you receive as a new immigrant is tied to a clock that starts on one specific day, your aliyah date, the date printed on your משרד הקליטה (Misrad HaKlita) Teudat Oleh, and several of those clocks run out hard. In your home country you rarely think in "months since I moved"; here, that number decides whether you still qualify for a 90% property-tax discount, a customs exemption worth thousands of shekels, or a once-in-a-lifetime cut to purchase tax. Almost every new oleh is blindsided that benefits do not wait politely until life calms down, the arnona discount can quietly expire at month 24, the customs window at year 3, and your foreign driving licence at month 12, all measured from aliyah, not from when you finally got around to it.

This article is the map. It is the pillar that the rest of the get-started library hangs off: every line below is keyed to a window from your aliyah date and names the authority that runs it, so you can see at a glance which benefit is about to lapse and which one you have years to use. Three bodies do most of the work, Misrad HaKlita(the Ministry of Aliyah & Integration) for cash absorption support, Bituach Leumi (the National Insurance Institute) for the early health exemption, and the Israel Tax Authority (Rashut HaMisim) for the tax benefits.

What is the full benefits timeline, by window from aliyah?

Here is the master table: each benefit, the window measured from your aliyah date, and who administers it. Lapsing benefits are flagged, those are the ones to action early.

Which benefits expire on a hard deadline, and when?

Four benefits have unforgiving cut-offs, and they are the ones to put on your calendar the week you land. The arnona discount gives you one 12-month period of up to ~90% off your municipal property tax on roughly the first 100 m² of your home, but it must be activated within 24 months of aliyah and it is not retroactive, leave it and the right simply evaporates¹. The customs exemption on personally imported goods (appliances, a vehicle under the separate vehicle scheme) runs for 3 years from aliyah⁹. The free ulpan entitlement must be taken up within 18 months⁸. And the foreign driving-licenceconversion at a new-immigrant's reduced requirement must be done within 12 months of aliyah, after that you face the full Israeli testing process.

The מס רכישה (Mas Rechisha) relief is the highest-value lapsing benefit. As an oleh you can claim the reduced purchase tax on a single home you will live in, and the eligibility window stretches from 1 year before your aliyah to 7 years after³. It is a once-in-a-lifetime right, so the timing decision, buy early under the discount, or wait, is genuinely consequential. Our sibling pieces on mas rechisha for olim and the Form 2973 application walk through the current brackets and how to file.

What does the first-year cash support actually look like?

The cash benefits are deliberately front-loaded into your first year, when you are least likely to be earning. סל קליטה (Sal Klita), the absorption basket, starts with a lump sum handed to you at Ben Gurion on landing, then pays six monthly installments into your Israeli bank account across months 1-6, which is why opening that account in week one matters so much¹. As the basket winds down, דמי קיום (dmei kiyum) (a living allowance) can cover roughly months 7-12, and is generally tied to ulpan attendance⁷.

Running alongside is the ביטוח לאומי (Bituach Leumi) health-contribution exemption: for your first 6 months in Israel you are exempt from the health insurance contribution, provided your income stays below NIS 688 a month (5% of the average wage, as of 1 January 2026); the exemption can extend to 12 months if you are receiving dmei kiyum². Note the symmetry, your free public health cover from Bituach Leumi also ends at month 6 unless dmei kiyum extends it, so the day you cross the income threshold or month 7 arrives, contributions begin. Rent assistance then picks up the housing side, typically from around month 7 through month 30 for olim who arrived from 1 March 2024⁴.

How are the tax benefits treated at home versus in Israel?

The tax benefits on this timeline are Israeli reliefs, they reduce what the Israel Tax Authority charges you, and they say nothing about what your home country still wants. That separation is the single most expensive thing for olim to miss, so treat the Israeli side and the home-country side as two distinct ledgers. The Israeli side is straightforward: the olim credit points cut your Israeli income tax from your aliyah date, and the 10-year exemption means foreign-source income and gains are not taxed by Israel for a decade⁵⁶.

The home-country ledger is where passports diverge, and it is summarised below. The headline reform: the 10-year exemption became report-but-still-exempt from 1 January 2026. The income remains exempt from Israeli tax, but it must now be reported to the Israel Tax Authority rather than staying entirely off the books⁶. Reporting is not taxing, but it changes the paperwork, and it is exactly the kind of detail that does not exist for a lifelong Israeli.

Almost every oleh benefit is anchored to your aliyah date, the date printed on your Teudat Oleh, not your arrival mood or job start, and several expire on a hard deadline. Short-fuse windows that catch olim out: the driving-licence conversion must be done within 12 months, the free-ulpan entitlement within 18 months, the arnona property-tax discount within 24 months, and the customs exemption within 3 years. The mas rechisha purchase-tax relief is once-in-a-lifetime and runs from 1 year before aliyah to 7 years after. Cash support front-loads: Sal Klita pays an airport lump sum plus six installments over months 1-6, the Bituach Leumi health-contribution exemption covers months 0-6 (extendable to 12 with dmei kiyum), dmei kiyum covers roughly months 7-12, and rent assistance runs from around month 7 to month 30. The long-horizon benefit is the 10-year exemption on foreign-source income, which from 1 January 2026 stays tax-exempt but must now be reported. Three bodies run these lines: Misrad HaKlita handles Sal Klita, ulpan, dmei kiyum, rent and the arnona paperwork; Bituach Leumi handles the health exemption; and the Israel Tax Authority handles mas rechisha, customs and the income-tax benefits. These are all Israeli reliefs and do nothing about a home-country tax bill.