The number of Israelis leaving the country has jumped even after taking into account that many immigrants from Russia and Ukraine fleeing the war there used Israel as a “transit” country. The war in Israel further accelerated emigration, which reached a peak of 78,000 in 2024 (Israelis who left in 2023), the Central Bureau of Statistics reports. 14% of those who emigrated were from Tel Aviv, while only 6.3% of those leaving came from Jerusalem, the larger city.
The Central Bureau of Statistics (CBSS) recently changed its calculation method, so that Israelis who left and occasionally come home for “family visits” will still be counted as emigrants. So the definition today is “a person who, for a full year, starting from the day of leaving the country, spent a total of at least 275 days abroad.” This means that the year in which a person is declared to have left the country is actually the year after they emigrated.
Emigration from Israel began to increase significantly in 2023 (Israelis who left in 2022), when the number rose from 37,000 in 2022 (left in 2021) to 56,000. One of the main reasons for this was the many beneficiaries of the Law of Return from Russia and Ukraine, following the Russian invasion that began in February 2022. Many of them arrived in Israel, using it as a temporary “transit station” on their way to other countries. This is most evident in the proportion of those born in the former USSR among those leaving, which reached 43% in 2023 (they left in 2022) and increased even more the following year, when their proportion reached 47% of those leaving. In 2023, those born in Israel made up only 39% of those leaving.
But even among those born in Israel alone there has been a jump in the number of those leaving the country: from 19,000 in 2022 (they left in 2021) to 23,000 in 2023 and 30,000 in 2024. Although the number of Russians and Ukrainians using Israel as a transit point significantly accelerated the trend, a jump of tens of percent can still be seen in those born in Israel who are leaving the country.
Level of returning residents remains relatively stable
In January-September 2025 (left in 2024) Tel Aviv continued to lead in the rate of those leaving the country, with 14%. This rate has been increasing in recent years, and for comparison a decade ago, in 2014, the rate of those leaving Tel Aviv to emigrate was only 11.2%. Residents of Jerusalem, the largest Israeli city, make up only 6.3% of those leaving the country. The opposite trend is evident for Jerusalem. In 2014 residents of Jerusalem made up 10.6% of those leaving, today the figure has fallen significantly..
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Haifa shows a similar trend to Tel Aviv, with the rate of its residents among those emigrating rising from 4.7% in 2014 to 7.7% today. Beersheva makes up 2.1% of those leaving, with a stable trend, as does Rishon Lezion with 3.2%. The rate of emigration from Bat Yam is increasing (2.6% in 2014 to 3.9%) and from Netanya (3.3% to 6.9%). More Israelis are leaving from Netanya, with its 227,000 residents, than from Jerusalem, which recently reached over a million. It should be stressed that in absolute numbers the rate of emigration has increased significantly, so emigration from Tel Aviv is even more noticeable than expressed in percentages.
However, the rate of Israelis returning home has remained relatively stable, Tel Aviv leads (10%) and Jerusalem is in second place (9.4%), and in both there are no dramatic trends one way or the other.
Demographically, 94.3% of emigrants are Jews and others (Russians and Ukrainians that are not Jewish)), and most of them (60%) have some academic education. But these figures only go back to 2023 (the year of departure was 2022), so it is difficult to draw conclusions about trends in recent years, especially since the outbreak of the war.
These are relatively worrying figures, which indicate that relatively strong populations, mainly from the center of the country, have been leaving the country at an increasing rate in recent years. Only in a year will we know whether the end of the war’s main phase last month has changed this trend.
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on November 12, 2025.
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2025.
