Using Sick Days to Care for a Sick Child in Israel: Your Complete Employee Rights Guide

Your child wakes up with a fever, the school calls, or the pediatrician says they need to stay home for a week. For a working parent in Israel, the immediate practical question is: do you lose pay? Do you use annual leave? Is there a legal right to stay home and care for a sick child?

For most employees, yes. The right has been in Israeli law since a 1998 amendment to the Sick Pay Law, but it's one of the more commonly misread entitlements in the country. The rules turn on accumulated sick day counts, and employers sometimes push back when they shouldn't.

For foreign nationals, new immigrants, and expats, the framework is particularly unfamiliar. In many countries, child sick days either don't exist as a statutory category or work very differently. This guide covers what you're entitled to, how the counting works, what documentation applies, and what to do if your employer refuses.

1. The Statutory Right Under Israeli Law

The right to use sick days for child care (*yemey makha l'tipul b'yeled holeh*) comes from an amendment to the Sick Pay Law 5736-1976 (*Chok Dmei Makha 5736-1976*). The amendment came into force in 1998 and added what is now Section 6 of the Sick Pay Law, allowing employees to draw on their accumulated sick day balance when a dependent child falls ill.

This right does not stand alone. It interacts with two other pieces of legislation:

• The Annual Leave Law 5711-1951, which governs how sick days accrue
• Applicable collective agreements (heskemim kolektivim), which may provide more generous entitlements than the statutory floor

Israeli law doesn't create a separate pool of "child sick days." It simply lets you use your existing accumulated sick day balance for a qualifying purpose: caring for a sick child. If your sick day balance is zero, the right can't be exercised, because there's nothing to draw on. Building up that balance by staying healthy matters practically, not just for your own coverage.

2. Who Counts as a Sick "Child" Under the Law?

The Sick Pay Law, as amended, defines the eligible category of children with reasonable specificity, though the precise scope has evolved through legislative amendments and Labour Court interpretation over the years.

The standard definition covers a biological child, step-child, or legally adopted child who is:

• Under 16, where the illness requires a parent to stay home
• Under 18, where the child has a recognized disability or chronic medical condition requiring ongoing parental involvement

The law doesn't require the child to be the employee's only child, or that no other caregiver is available. That said, if an employer challenges the absence and it reaches the Labour Court, being the only available caregiver on those specific days strengthens your position.

For foster children and guardianship arrangements: Labour Court decisions have generally extended the right to children in the employee's legal care under a guardianship order, though the statute doesn't say so explicitly. If your situation involves a non-standard family arrangement, get written confirmation from your employer before assuming the right applies.

The most common scenario for expat parents is infants and toddlers in daycare. Israeli daycares (*metaplot*, *ganim*) routinely send sick children home with a temperature above 38°C. A physician's note confirming the child cannot attend care is typically all the documentation you need.

3. How Many Days You Can Take: The 8-Day Annual Cap

The baseline entitlement under Section 6 is up to 8 sick days per year that may be used for child care. This cap runs on a calendar-year basis (January to December), not a rolling 12-month basis. Unused child-care days in one year don't carry forward.

The 8-day cap is a ceiling, not a floor. You can only take as many child sick days as you have accumulated in your sick day balance. An employee who has only accumulated 4 days in their sick day bank can use at most 4 days for child care. An employee with 20 accumulated sick days can use up to 8 of them for child care within a calendar year.

A few things worth knowing about the cap:

• Under the Annual Leave Law, sick days accrue at 1.5 days per month of employment. In the first year, a new employee typically accumulates 18 days. There's no minimum employment period before you can use them for child care.
• Part-time employees have a proportional cap. A 4-day-per-week employee's cap is calculated on the same basis as their sick day accrual, not at the full 8 days.
• Many collective agreements, particularly in the public sector, banking, and tech, provide more than 8 days. Where your contract or agreement gives more, that figure governs.

4. Other Family Members You Can Care For

The 1998 amendment to the Sick Pay Law extended beyond sick children to cover a range of other dependent family members. Later amendments expanded the list further. The current framework allows employees to use sick days to care for the following family members, subject to specific annual caps for each category:

Family Member	Annual Cap (Days)	Notes
Sick child under 16 (or under 18 if disabled)	8 days	Core entitlement under Section 6
Sick parent (mother or father)	6 days	Parents must be dependent on employee care
Sick spouse / partner	6 days	Recognized partners, including common-law
Sick sibling	6 days	Where the employee is the primary caregiver
Child or grandchild with disability (any age)	Up to full balance (subject to reasonable use)	Special provisions; seek legal advice for complex cases

These caps are cumulative within each family-member category but not interchangeable across categories. Using 6 days for a sick parent does not reduce your 8-day cap for a sick child in the same calendar year.

5. Single Parents: The 16-Day Rule

Israeli law recognizes that single parents, who have no co-parent to share the childcare load, face a bigger burden when a child falls ill. The Sick Pay Law accordingly gives registered single parents an enhanced entitlement: up to 16 child sick days per calendar year, double the standard cap.

To qualify for the doubled entitlement, the employee must hold registered status as a single parent under the Single Parent Families Law 5752-1992 (*Chok Mishpachot Chadpraniyot 5752-1992*). This status is confirmed by the National Insurance Institute (NII / *Bituach Leumi*) and is typically evidenced by a certificate or letter from the NII regional office.

A few points about the 16-day entitlement:

• The days still come from your accumulated sick day balance. If that balance is below 16, the effective cap is your balance.
• The single-parent status must exist at the time the days are taken. Becoming a single parent mid-year entitles you to 16 days for the remainder of that calendar year.
• Where both parents are employed, and both claim single-parent status (which can occur in shared-custody situations where each parent has registered status independently), each employer is bound by its own employee's entitlement. The law does not require coordination between the two employers.

6. What You Actually Get Paid During Child Sick Days

Child sick days are paid at the same rates as your own sick leave under the Sick Pay Law 5736-1976:

• Day 1: unpaid (the statutory waiting day, *yom hamtana*)
• Days 2–3: 50% of your daily wage
• Day 4 onwards: 100% of your daily wage

That's the floor. Many collective agreements, particularly in the public sector, banking, and tech, pay from day one at full rate. Check your contract or ask HR what applies to you.

Your "daily wage" for sick pay is your monthly salary divided by 30, regardless of how many working days are in the month. A salaried employee earning NIS 15,000 per month has a daily rate of NIS 500. On days 2 and 3 they'd receive NIS 250 each. From day 4, the full NIS 500.

For hourly and daily-rate employees, the daily wage is the average daily rate over the preceding three months. If your employer's calculation looks off, you can request a written breakdown and, if needed, challenge it before the Regional Labour Court.

7. Documentation Your Employer Can and Cannot Require

Employers can verify that child sick days are being used for their intended purpose, but the scope of what they can demand is limited.

What your employer can require:

• A medical note (*tahrich / ishur rofe*) from the child's physician confirming the child is ill and needs care at home
• The physician's name, clinic, and date of the visit
• Proof of the child's relationship to you (typically a birth certificate or ID document, on first use)

What your employer cannot require:

• A note from a specific physician, clinic, or Kupat Holim you don't use
• The child's diagnosis or details about the illness (a general note confirming illness and home-care need is enough)
• Proof that no other caregiver was available
• A note from your own physician rather than the child's

In practice, a note from the pediatrician or family doctor saying the child was examined, is unwell, and should stay home is all you need. All four Israeli health funds (Maccabi, Clalit, Meuhedet, Leumit) issue these as a matter of routine during sick visits. A hospital emergency department discharge summary works too.

If your child has a recurring illness or chronic condition, get an ongoing letter from the treating specialist confirming the diagnosis and that future episodes may require home care. This saves you the paperwork argument every time an episode happens.

8. What to Do if Your Employer Refuses

Outright refusals are relatively uncommon but they happen, particularly in smaller workplaces where HR is informal. More often the problem is softer: the employer classifies the days as unpaid leave, docks them from annual leave without consent, or applies pressure to come in and "arrange something." All of these are violations.

Steps to take:

1. Write it down. Email your employer or HR contact stating explicitly that you are invoking your right under Section 6 of the Sick Pay Law 5736-1976 to use accumulated sick days to care for your sick child. Keep a copy. If they respond incorrectly in writing, that's evidence.
2. Attach the doctor's note. Include the physician's note with your written request. This removes any argument that you lacked documentation.
3. Complain to the Ministry of Labour. The Department of Enforcement and Labour Relations (*Agaf Akvat Maasikot*) takes free complaints from employees about breaches of the Sick Pay Law. Labour inspectors can order compliance and, in repeat cases, impose administrative fines. Reach regional offices through the Ministry of Labor at gov.il.
4. File in the Regional Labour Court. For monetary claims like recovering unpaid sick pay, this is the right forum. Filing fees are low (around NIS 165 for claims under NIS 20,000) and most straightforward cases settle before reaching a hearing. Legal representation isn't required, though it helps in contested matters.