IsraelLawSpousal maintenance is not designed to last forever. It bridges the financial gap a divorce creates — particularly where one spouse gave up career opportunities or earns significantly less than the other. When the recipient remarries, or enters a new stable partnership, the legal rationale for that bridge changes. Israeli law recognises this clearly, and the legal rule is not the hard part. What trips people up is the practical mechanics: how to formally stop payments, what happens to arrears, and what cohabitation (living together without legal marriage) does and does not achieve.
This guide addresses those questions specifically for divorced foreign nationals and expats with Israeli maintenance orders, or those expecting an Israeli court to set maintenance as part of their divorce proceedings. Verify specific figures and procedural details with a licensed Israeli attorney, as case law and practice notes from the Family Courts evolve.
1. The Basic Rule: Remarriage Terminates Maintenance
Section 8 of the Maintenance Law, 5719-1959 states in plain terms that a maintenance obligation toward a former spouse ceases upon that spouse's remarriage. This is not a discretionary power of the court; it is a statutory termination. Once the maintenance recipient marries someone else, the former spouse's legal duty to provide support ends.
The reasoning is not complicated. Under Section 2 of the Maintenance Law, a husband has a duty to maintain his wife. Once a woman remarries, that duty shifts to her new husband under his statutory obligation — there is no legal basis for the ex-husband to continue supporting a woman who has entered a new legally recognised union with someone else. Courts applying non-Jewish civil law to foreign nationals reach the same conclusion under the general principle that a change in circumstances justifies varying a maintenance order.
The termination applies to periodic (ongoing) maintenance payments — the monthly amounts paid under a maintenance order. It does not automatically settle or waive arrears that accrued before the remarriage date, which remain due as a debt (see Section 6 below).
Section 8 of the Maintenance Law creates the right to termination, but it does not automatically notify the Execution Office (Lishkat HaHotza'ah LePoal) of the change. If the maintenance order was being enforced through the Execution Office — with wage attachments or bank debits — those mechanisms continue until a court formally varies the order. File a variation application to the Family Court in the district where the original order was made as soon as you have confirmed the remarriage. The application should be accompanied by evidence of the remarriage, such as a marriage registration extract from the Ministry of Interior's Population Registry (Misrad HaPnim) or, for remarriages abroad, a certified copy with an apostille and Hebrew translation. The court typically processes uncontested terminations within four to eight weeks of filing, and the order is effective from the remarriage date, not the court date.
2. Which Law Applies: Family Court vs. Rabbinical Court
Whether the Israeli Family Court (Beit Mishpat LeMishpaha) or the Rabbinical Court (Beit Din HaRabbani) handles your maintenance variation depends on which court issued the original order — or which court has jurisdiction over the divorce proceeding from which the maintenance arises.
For Jewish couples divorced through the Rabbinical Court, the Rabbinical Court applies halacha (Jewish religious law). Under halachic principles, a wife who has validly remarried forfeits her right to maintenance from her previous husband. The same applies to the ketubah obligation: once she has entered a new Jewish marriage, the former husband's halachic maintenance duty ends. The Rabbinical Court will typically accept a variation application supported by proof of the new marriage and issue a cancellation order relatively quickly when the facts are undisputed.
For non-Jewish foreign nationals, and for any case decided by the civil Family Court rather than a religious tribunal, the Family Court applies the Maintenance Law, 5719-1959 together with civil principles. The court treats remarriage as a statutory-termination event under Section 8 and does not apply halachic rules. The variation procedure follows the Family Courts Law, 5755-1995 and the relevant procedural regulations.
Where there is ambiguity about jurisdiction — particularly in divorce proceedings involving mixed-religion couples, foreign divorces, or cases where both courts are potentially involved — the stakes are high, and legal advice specific to the procedural posture of your case is essential before filing anything.
Rabbinical Court proceedings use Hebrew-language filings, follow halachic procedural rules, and move on a different timeline from the civil Family Court. The Rabbinical Court also has jurisdiction over Jewish couples even when both spouses hold foreign citizenship. Foreign nationals who were married and divorced through a Rabbinical Court in Israel, or whose divorce was registered there, must file the maintenance variation in the same Rabbinical Court that handled the divorce — not the Family Court. The Rabbinic Courts Administration (Hanhelet Batei HaDin HaRabbaniim) can direct you to the correct district court. Attempting to file a maintenance variation in the wrong forum will result in the application being rejected, wasting time and fees.
3. The Cohabitation Question
This is the area that generates the most litigation in Israeli maintenance variation cases. Some maintenance recipients, aware that formal remarriage ends their support, choose to live in a long-term stable relationship without legally marrying. They may register as yedua batzibur (common-law partners) informally, share finances and a household, and effectively function as a married couple — but retain the legal marital status of "divorced" to preserve the maintenance flow. Israeli courts have addressed this pattern directly and consistently.
Israeli case law — developed over decades by the Family Courts and the Supreme Court — holds that a stable cohabitation relationship by the maintenance recipient, even without formal marriage, constitutes a change in circumstances that can justify reducing or terminating maintenance. The key factors courts examine include:
- Financial interdependence: Does the new partner contribute to the recipient's housing costs, daily expenses, or lifestyle? Does the recipient contribute to the partner's?
- Duration and stability: A brief relationship is treated differently from a multi-year cohabitation. Courts look for permanence.
- Public presentation: Are the parties presenting as a couple in social, professional, or official contexts?
- Shared residence: Sharing a home is significant evidence, though courts do not mechanically require it.
- Actual need: Is the recipient's financial need genuinely the same as when the order was made, or has the new relationship reduced or eliminated it?
The paying spouse bears the burden of proving these factors. The court does not monitor cohabitation on its own; it requires the paying spouse to file a variation application and produce evidence. Evidence used in practice includes utility bills in joint names, shared lease agreements, photographs and social media, testimony from mutual acquaintances, and banking transaction patterns showing joint expenditure.
Courts do not treat cohabitation as equivalent to remarriage for automatic-termination purposes. A paying spouse who discovers their ex is living with a new partner cannot simply stop paying. Unilaterally stopping payments, even with clear evidence of a new relationship, creates arrears that the Execution Office will enforce — with interest at the statutory rate of CPI linkage plus 4% per year under the Adjudication of Interest and Linkage Law, 5721-1961 — until a court formally orders the reduction or termination. File the variation application first; reduce payments only after the court has made an interim or final order. Courts regularly grant interim reduction orders pending the full hearing where the initial evidence of cohabitation is solid.
4. Child Maintenance Is Not Affected
Section 8's remarriage-termination rule applies exclusively to spousal maintenance — the support one ex-spouse pays the other. It has no effect on child maintenance (mezonot yeladim).
Child maintenance is an obligation from parent to child, legally and conceptually separate from spousal maintenance. Under both the Maintenance Law and halachic principles applied by the Rabbinical Court, a father's duty to maintain his children runs until they reach adulthood (18 years, or 21 years for children still in secondary or tertiary education in some circumstances), regardless of:
- Whether the father has remarried and now supports a new family;
- Whether the children's mother has remarried;
- Whether the children are now living in the household of the mother's new spouse;
- Whether the new spouse of the custodial parent is wealthy.
The mother's new spouse has no legal obligation to maintain stepchildren under Israeli law. Their income is generally not taken into account when calculating what the biological father owes. This rule can feel counterintuitive to foreign nationals from countries where a step-parent's resources are considered, but Israeli courts apply it consistently.
Remarriage can affect child maintenance indirectly — if the father's financial situation changes significantly as a result of new family obligations, he can file a variation application to reduce the amount. But the obligation itself does not terminate, and the remarriage of the ex-wife is not a basis to reduce the child maintenance amount.
5. The Variation Procedure at the Family Court
When remarriage or established cohabitation has occurred, the paying spouse must file a baqashat shinui neesuyot (application to vary circumstances) with the Family Court or Rabbinical Court that made the original order. The general procedure at the Family Court involves the following steps:
- Filing the application: A written application sets out the original maintenance order (court reference and date), the changed circumstances (remarriage or cohabitation), and the relief sought (termination of the order, or a reduced amount). The filing fee at the Family Court is set under the Court Fees Regulations, 5748-1987 and is currently approximately NIS 1,580 for an application of this type (verify the current fee on the Courts Administration website before filing).
- Supporting evidence: Attach the marriage certificate or cohabitation evidence from the outset. Uncontested remarriage cases may be resolved on the papers without a full hearing if the ex-spouse confirms the facts or does not file an opposition within the response period.
- Interim order: If the paying spouse wants to reduce payments immediately while the case is pending, they may apply for an interim reduction order under Regulation 96 of the Family Courts Regulations, 5756-1996. Courts routinely grant interim reductions where the remarriage is documented and the claim is clear.
- Response period: The respondent (the former spouse) has 30 days to file a response. In remarriage cases, the only meaningful dispute is usually whether the remarriage actually occurred and whether arrears remain due.
- Hearing: If there is a contested issue, a short hearing is scheduled. Family Courts in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa typically schedule variation hearings within two to four months of the filing date in uncontested or minimally contested cases.
- Order and enforcement update: Once the court makes the termination or reduction order, it is served on the Execution Office to halt enforcement of the prior order. This is a separate step from obtaining the court order, and it matters practically because wage garnishments or bank attachments imposed by the Execution Office do not stop until the Execution Office receives the cancellation instruction.
A paying spouse living abroad who wants to file a maintenance variation in Israel can do so through a licensed Israeli attorney acting under a notarised and apostilled power of attorney. The attorney files on the foreign national's behalf, handles the hearing, and transmits the resulting order to the Execution Office without the paying spouse needing to travel. Apostilled powers of attorney from US states, the UK, and most European countries are accepted by Israeli courts without additional steps. A Canadian or Australian power of attorney requires an apostille issued under the Hague Apostille Convention, 1961, which both countries are party to. Allow approximately two to three weeks for the apostille and certified Hebrew translation before the power of attorney is ready for use at an Israeli court. Legal fees for an uncontested variation through an Israeli attorney run approximately NIS 3,000 to 6,000 depending on complexity and the extent of the court hearing required.
6. Arrears and Back-Payments
The remarriage of the maintenance recipient terminates the ongoing obligation from the date of the remarriage, not from the date the court issues its variation order. This distinction matters because the paying spouse is typically still making (or at least owing) monthly payments between the remarriage date and the court date. Those arrears are treated as follows:
- Payments due after the remarriage date: The Section 8 statutory termination means no new maintenance should have been due after the remarriage occurred. The variation application establishes that, and once the court makes the order, it is backdated to the remarriage date. This means the paying spouse who continued paying during the court proceedings can seek restitution of those amounts — in practice, this is done by offsetting against any arrears from before the remarriage date, or by separate application.
- Arrears from before the remarriage date: These remain fully due and enforceable as a debt, even after the remarriage. The Execution Office will continue enforcing those arrears regardless of the termination of the ongoing obligation. If the paying spouse has built up a significant arrears balance, the remarriage of the ex-spouse does not wipe that out.
- Linked and interest-bearing arrears: Maintenance arrears in Israel are CPI-linked from the due date under the Adjudication of Interest and Linkage Law, 5721-1961, meaning they grow over time. A paying spouse who has substantial historic arrears and then discovers the ex has remarried needs to address both the termination of the future obligation and a settlement or payment plan for the past-due amounts — separately.
7. Rules for Foreign Nationals and Expats
Foreign nationals divorcing in Israel or with Israeli maintenance orders face several questions specific to their situation.
Remarriage abroad: An Israeli maintenance order terminates when the recipient remarries, regardless of where the remarriage takes place. A UK or US remarriage triggers the same Section 8 termination as an Israeli one. The variation application to the Israeli Family Court must include the foreign marriage certificate with a certified apostille and Hebrew translation. Common-law or customary marriages in countries that recognise them can be more complicated — a court may require expert evidence on the validity of the foreign marriage before accepting it as triggering the statutory termination.
Maintenance orders obtained in foreign courts: If you have a maintenance order from a foreign court that was recognised and registered in Israel under the Foreign Judgments Enforcement Law, 5718-1958, you can file a variation application in the Israeli Family Court to modify the registered order based on remarriage. The Israeli court applies Israeli law (including Section 8 of the Maintenance Law) to the variation, even though the original order came from abroad. The variation is of the registered Israeli version of the order; it does not affect the original foreign order in its home jurisdiction.
Non-registered foreign maintenance orders: If you have a foreign maintenance order that was never registered in Israel but is being enforced informally through bank transfers or other arrangements, it cannot be formally varied in Israel. Enforcement and variation would need to happen in the originating jurisdiction. If the other party is trying to enforce a non-registered foreign order through Israeli courts, they cannot do so without the recognition process.
Non-Jewish foreigners and religious law: Foreign nationals who are not Jewish and whose marriage was not a Jewish religious marriage are not subject to Rabbinical Court jurisdiction for maintenance. Their maintenance is handled exclusively by the Family Court under the Maintenance Law and general Israeli civil principles. That is the clean case; the complications arise when one spouse is Jewish and the other is not, or when the couple was married through a foreign religious ceremony recognised in Israel. In those cases, jurisdiction is contested and requires specific legal analysis.
If the original maintenance order was being enforced through the Execution Office (Lishkat HaHotza'ah LePoal), the Execution Office typically has an active enforcement file with automatic deductions from wages or bank accounts. Obtaining a Family Court termination order is necessary but not sufficient to stop those deductions on its own. The court order must be filed with the Execution Office clerk in the district where the file is open, along with a formal request to close the file or suspend enforcement. The Execution Office has its own processing timeline — expect one to two weeks from filing the court order before wage deductions or bank account debits actually stop. Track this actively; do not assume the deduction will cease on its own once the court order exists.
8. Preventing Abuse and the Court's Anti-Avoidance Approach
Israeli courts are aware that some parties strategically avoid remarriage to preserve maintenance income. Courts have developed a doctrine sometimes called the "practical remarriage" principle, under which sustained, stable cohabitation that functions economically like a marriage can result in full termination of maintenance even in the absence of a legal ceremony.
The paying spouse's attorney typically presents evidence of the new relationship through financial records, witness statements, and social media. Courts have in some cases ordered the recipient to produce bank statements and tax returns (dochot mas hakhnasa) to assess whether the new partner contributes to living costs.
Conversely, courts protect against the paying spouse using unfounded cohabitation allegations as harassment. An application to vary maintenance based on alleged cohabitation that is not supported by credible evidence can result in the paying spouse being ordered to pay the respondent's legal costs, as well as continuing to pay maintenance at the original level until a final determination is made.
Act only on genuine evidence. Present it clearly and promptly. Use the variation procedure rather than unilaterally stopping payments — because the arrears and interest that accumulate in the meantime will follow you regardless of how clear the underlying facts turn out to be.
For context on what is at stake: Israeli Family Courts in recent years have awarded spousal maintenance for non-working or lower-earning spouses in the range of approximately NIS 2,500 to NIS 7,000 per month, depending on the earning gap, the length of the marriage, and the lifestyle the couple maintained during the marriage. For marriages of ten or more years where one spouse was not working, maintenance awards of NIS 4,000 to NIS 6,000 per month are common. Over five years, that adds up to NIS 240,000 to NIS 360,000 in payments. The economic significance of a maintenance termination following remarriage is therefore substantial, and filing the variation application promptly — rather than discovering months later that payments continued unnecessarily — matters. The National Insurance Institute (Bituach Leumi, NII) also tracks maintenance obligations for its Maintenance Assurance (Hafaskat Mezonot) guarantee scheme, and the NII's own records must be updated when an obligation terminates.
Frequently Asked Questions
Under Section 8 of the Maintenance Law 5719-1959, remarriage by the maintenance recipient does terminate the obligation. However, the termination is not instantaneous without any action — the paying spouse should still file a formal variation application with the Israeli Family Court or the Rabbinical Court that issued the original order, so the court records reflect the change and ongoing enforcement through the Execution Office is formally stopped. Arrears that accrued before the remarriage date remain due and enforceable.
Yes. Israeli Family Courts treat stable unmarried cohabitation by the maintenance recipient as a change in circumstances that can justify reducing or terminating maintenance, even without formal remarriage. The court examines the financial interdependence of the relationship, whether the new partner contributes to the recipient's living costs, and whether the recipient's needs have materially changed. The paying spouse must file a variation application and bring evidence of the new relationship; the court will not make the change automatically.
No. Child maintenance under the Maintenance Law and halachic law is an obligation from parent to child, completely independent of either parent's marital status. A father's obligation to maintain his children continues regardless of whether he or the children's mother has remarried. Similarly, a new spouse of the custodial parent has no obligation to maintain stepchildren under Israeli law, and a new spouse's income is generally not taken into account when calculating the non-custodial parent's maintenance obligation.
The variation application must go to the court that issued the original order. If the Rabbinical Court made the maintenance order as part of a Jewish divorce proceeding, the application to vary or cancel it must go back to the Rabbinical Court, not the Family Court. The Rabbinical Court applies halachic principles, under which a woman who has remarried through a valid Jewish marriage loses her right to maintenance from her previous husband. The practical steps differ from Family Court procedure, so separate legal advice specific to Rabbinical Court procedure is important.
Only if the foreign order has been recognized and registered in Israel under the Foreign Judgments Enforcement Law 5718-1958. Once registered, a variation application can be filed with the Israeli Family Court citing the remarriage as a changed circumstance. The court applies Israeli principles — including Section 8 of the Maintenance Law — to decide whether to modify the registered order. Unregistered foreign orders cannot be varied in Israel; enforcement and variation remain in the originating jurisdiction.
Licensed Israeli attorney advising foreign nationals, diaspora families, and international investors on Israeli family law, inheritance, and property matters. Based in Israel, advising clients worldwide.
Learn more →