Quick Answer: During miluim (reserve military duty), your employment relationship remains legally intact. Your employer cannot dismiss you, reduce your seniority, or dock your annual leave. The National Insurance Institute (Bituach Leumi) compensates you at your average daily wage calculated from the three months before your call-up, with a daily floor tied to the minimum wage and a ceiling linked to the NII income cap. Under legislation extended into 2026, employees who complete 60 or more cumulative days of reserve service in a calendar year receive a 60-day dismissal protection window after returning — double the standard 30-day rule. Foreign nationals and new immigrants who are subject to reserve duty hold exactly the same rights as Israeli-born employees.

Israel is one of very few countries where reserve military service is a routine part of adult working life. An employee can be at their desk on Monday and on a military base by Thursday. For foreign nationals who have made Aliyah, for expats working on Israeli employment contracts, and for foreign-owned businesses with Israeli staff, understanding how this works in practice is not optional — it is a basic part of operating within the Israeli labor market.

The legal framework protecting reservists at work has always been robust. It became substantially more so after October 2023, when emergency legislation expanded the scope and duration of employment protections to reflect the unprecedented volume of reserve service being called. Many of those expanded protections remained in force through 2025 and into 2026, and employers who have not updated their HR procedures may be applying rules that no longer reflect current law.

This guide covers who is subject to reserve duty, what the Defense Service Law guarantees during service, how NII reserve pay is calculated, the current dismissal protection windows, and what both employees and employers need to do when a call-up notice arrives.

1. Who Is Subject to Reserve Duty in Israel

Reserve military service in Israel is governed by the Defense Service Law 5746-1986 (Chok Sherut Bitachon). The law establishes who is subject to compulsory military service and, following completion of active duty, who enters the reserve pool.

The core rules for reserve obligation:

  • Jewish men who completed mandatory active service are generally subject to reserve duty until age 45 (or age 50 for officers and NCOs above the rank of sergeant). The exact cutoff depends on rank and role.
  • Jewish women who completed mandatory service may also serve in reserves, though historically at lower rates; this has been changing with the expansion of women's roles in the IDF.
  • New immigrants (olim) who arrived before age 29 typically complete shortened or full mandatory service and then enter the reserve pool. Those arriving between 29 and 40 may be assigned to reserves directly after assessment. Arrivals after age 40 are generally exempt but may volunteer.
  • Druze and Circassian men are subject to the same conscription and reserve obligations as Jewish men under Section 36 of the Defense Service Law.
  • Arab citizens of Israel are not subject to compulsory service but may volunteer; volunteers who complete service enter the same reserve framework.

Reserve duty is typically announced through an individual call-up order (tzav kishur or petkah) delivered by post or through the IDF's digital systems. Emergency call-ups, known colloquially as tzav 8 (named after the relevant order number), can arrive with little or no advance notice and require immediate reporting to a military unit.

In Practice: Olim and Reserve Obligation

An oleh who made Aliyah at age 32 and completed a shortened mandatory service of four to six months will typically receive their first reserve call-up within one to two years of completing active service. The IDF's Manpower Directorate (Agaf Kalich Adam) assigns reserve units and manages the call-up schedule. Olim who are unsure of their reserve status — or who are approaching the exemption age threshold — can contact the recruitment and reserve branch directly at any IDF recruitment office. Employers of new immigrants should be aware that a staff member might receive a tzav kishur at any point during the year, often with only a few days' notice, particularly during active military operations. Building a reserve duty response procedure into your HR policy — covering how NII Form 371 is filed, who covers the absent employee's duties, and how communication with the reservist is maintained — saves significant time when a call-up actually arrives.

2. Your Employment Status During Miluim

The core principle in Israeli law is that reserve military duty is not a break in employment. The employment relationship continues throughout the service period, with the employee in a protected special-leave status. This has several important consequences that differ from ordinary unpaid leave:

  • The employee accumulates seniority for all purposes — severance pay calculations, notice period length, and eligibility thresholds for various employment benefits — as though they had been at work.
  • Annual leave continues to accrue at the normal statutory rate under the Annual Leave Law 5711-1951. Reserve days are never deducted from vacation entitlement.
  • Sick leave balance is unaffected by reserve service.
  • The pension and provident fund contributions continue (covered in more detail in section 5 below).
  • The employee remains entitled to dmei havraa (recreation pay) for the full year, including months spent on reserve duty.

The employer must hold the employee's position — or an equivalent position at the same grade and pay — available for their return. Filling the position permanently with another hire during a reserve period is not permitted and exposes the employer to significant legal liability.

In Practice: Notifying Your Employer

Under Section 41 of the Defense Service Law 5746-1986, an employee who receives a call-up order must notify the employer as soon as reasonably possible — and in any event before the reporting date. If you receive the order before starting a new job, you must also disclose it to the prospective employer within a reasonable time. There is no requirement to show the employer the order itself (it may contain classified unit information), but you should provide the reporting date and the expected duration of service. In practice, most reservists show their employer a partial copy or a confirmation letter from their unit. An employer who receives timely notice cannot condition return to work on any penalty or demand compensation for the inconvenience caused by the absence.

3. Reserve Pay: How the NII Calculates Your Compensation

During reserve duty, the National Insurance Institute (Bituach Leumi, or NII) compensates the employee for lost wages. The mechanism works through the employer: the NII pays the employer, who in turn pays the employee. This means the employee continues to receive their salary through their normal payroll — the source of the funds shifts to the NII, but the payment channel stays the same.

How the daily rate is calculated: The NII takes the employee's gross salary from the three calendar months before the month in which reserve service begins, divides it by the number of actual working days in those three months, and arrives at an average daily wage. This figure is the reserve compensation rate.

For example: an employee who earned NIS 15,000/month gross over the three preceding months and worked 22 days per month would receive NIS 45,000 / 66 days = approximately NIS 682 per reserve day.

Floor and ceiling:

  • Daily minimum: The NII will not pay below the daily minimum wage equivalent (approximately NIS 216/day based on the 2026 minimum monthly wage of approximately NIS 5,880 divided by 25 working days — employees should verify current NII tables at bituah-leumi.co.il).
  • Daily maximum: Compensation is capped at the NII's monthly income ceiling divided by the number of working days. The monthly NII income ceiling for contributions in 2026 is approximately NIS 49,030, giving a maximum daily rate of roughly NIS 1,960/day. Employees earning above this ceiling cannot claim NII compensation for the excess — though many employers voluntarily top up to full salary under collective agreements or employment contracts.

Special categories with higher rates: Officers above the rank of captain, medical personnel, and reservists with specialized roles may receive higher NII compensation rates set by regulation. These are calculated separately through the IDF payroll system rather than purely through the three-month wage average formula.

In Practice: Filing NII Form 371

The employer — not the employee — files the NII claim. The form is Bituach Leumi Form 371 (Tvia lekabbalat dmei miluim), submitted online through the NII employer portal at btl.gov.il. The form must be filed within six months of the last day of reserve service; claims filed after this window are typically rejected. The employer submits the employee's gross salary for the three preceding months, the number of reserve days, and the military unit confirmation of service dates. The NII then processes the payment — usually within 30 days — and transfers funds to the employer's bank account for onward payment via the next payroll cycle. Employees should confirm with their HR department that the form has been filed, particularly after longer periods of service, since administrative lapses on the employer side are more common than most employees realize.

4. Dismissal Protection: The 30-Day and 60-Day Rules

Protection from dismissal during and after reserve service operates in two stages under the Defense Service Law 5746-1986:

During the service period: An employee who is on active reserve duty cannot be dismissed at all. Section 42A of the Defense Service Law makes such a dismissal null and void — the employment relationship continues, as does the NII compensation obligation. The employer may not even issue a dismissal notice that is scheduled to take effect after the employee returns.

After returning to work — the standard 30-day rule: Following completion of reserve duty, the employee is protected against dismissal for 30 days. To dismiss during this window, the employer must obtain prior written authorization from the Ministry of Labor's Employment Committee (Va'adat Ha'asaka) at the nearest Ministry of Labor regional office (Lishkat Ha'avoda). Dismissal without this authorization during the 30-day period is null and void under Section 42B of the Defense Service Law.

The extended 60-day protection — 2025/2026: Under emergency legislation enacted in the wake of the October 2023 conflict and extended into 2026 by the Knesset, employees who accumulated 60 or more cumulative days of reserve service in the 2025 calendar year receive a 60-day post-return dismissal protection window rather than 30. The same Employment Committee approval mechanism applies throughout this extended period.

The 60-day count is cumulative across the entire year, not per individual call-up. An employee who served 25 days in February, 20 days in June, and 20 days in October reaches 65 cumulative days and therefore qualifies for the 60-day protection after their last service period of the year.

In Practice: The Employment Committee Authorization Process

If a legitimate business reason requires dismissing a recently returned reservist during the protected window — company closure, position elimination in a genuine restructuring — the employer must submit a written application to the Employment Committee at the Ministry of Labor (Misrad Ha'aliya V'haklit handles foreign worker matters; for Israeli employees the Ministry of Labor regional office in the relevant district handles the application). The application must explain the business reason, show that the decision is unrelated to the reserve service, and demonstrate that no equivalent position is available. The Committee typically decides within two to three weeks. Dismissing without this authorization — even for a genuine business reason — renders the dismissal legally void and the employee is entitled to reinstatement and all back pay, plus compensation. Employment attorneys representing dismissed reservists routinely win these claims, because unauthorized dismissal is an absolute procedural violation regardless of the underlying justification.

5. Benefits That Continue During Reserve Service

Several benefit streams require specific attention during a reserve period. Each operates differently:

Pension and provident fund contributions. The employer's mandatory pension contribution — approximately 6.5% of the employee's salary under the Pension Insurance Expansion Order 5768-2008 — must continue throughout reserve service, calculated on the NII compensation amount the employee receives. The NII separately reimburses the employee's own contribution portion (approximately 6%) directly to the pension or provident fund. This means the employee's pension account keeps receiving both employer and employee contributions every month of service, at a base calculated on the NII daily rate.

Study fund (keren hishtalmut). Employer contributions to a study fund also continue during reserve service if the employment contract or collective agreement requires them. The NII does not cover this — it remains the employer's direct obligation.

Severance pay accrual. Reserve service periods count toward the length-of-service calculation used to determine severance pay under the Severance Pay Law 5713-1963. This is important for employees on long reserve call-ups: a 90-day service period is 90 days of seniority that counts toward the severance entitlement, not a gap in service that might otherwise trigger a severance forfeiture argument.

Health insurance. Membership in an Israeli health fund (kupat holim) is managed through the NII's health tax system. During reserve duty, the NII handles the health tax contribution on the compensation payments it makes, so health fund membership continues without any action required by the employee.

In Practice: Pension Contributions on the NII Amount vs. Full Salary

An employee earning NIS 20,000/month gross but whose NII reserve compensation is capped at NIS 15,000/month (because their salary exceeds the three-month average used in the formula) will find that pension contributions during reserve service are calculated on the NIS 15,000 NII rate, not on their full salary. An employer who tops up the NII payment to NIS 20,000 under a contractual or collective obligation must also ensure pension contributions are calculated on the full NIS 20,000. The employer's obligation is tied to the actual salary paid, not just the NII base. Failure to maintain correct pension contributions during reserve service is a statutory breach of the Pension Insurance Expansion Order 5768-2008 and can generate significant back-contribution claims when discovered — often at termination, when provident fund statements are reviewed. HR departments should run a pension contribution audit for any employee returning from an extended reserve period of 60 days or more.

6. Spouse and Family Rights During a Partner's Reserve Service

The Defense Service Law extends a set of separate rights to the spouse or partner of a reservist. These apply when the reservist is on active reserve duty and the partner is employed in Israel.

Reduced working hours. Where the reservist serves five or more consecutive days and the couple have at least one child under age 13, the partner who remains at work is entitled to reduce their working day by one hour, starting from the first day of the reservist's service. The hour reduction is treated as paid work time — the employer cannot dock pay for it. This right continues throughout the duration of the reserve service period.

Eight additional paid absence days per year. The spouse of a reservist is entitled to up to eight paid days of absence per calendar year specifically related to the partner's reserve service — for example, to care for children, manage household matters that arise from the absence, or deal with military-related administrative needs. These days are separate from and in addition to annual leave, sick leave, and all other statutory entitlements. The employer cannot require the spouse to use annual leave instead.

Dismissal protection for spouses. Spouses of reservists who are themselves employed in Israel also benefit from a modified dismissal protection: an employer who dismisses an employee while their partner is on active reserve duty must obtain Employment Committee approval regardless of the reason for dismissal. This protection applies from the day the partner's reserve service begins and continues for 30 days after it ends.

In Practice: Documenting Spouse Rights

To exercise the reduced-hours and absence-day rights, the spouse must provide the employer with confirmation of the reservist's service — typically a letter from the reservist's unit (ishur yechida) stating the service dates. The IDF issues these confirmations on request, and most units have administrative staff who can produce a letter within one to two days. Employers who are not familiar with this obligation sometimes treat the spouse's reduced hours or absences as unauthorized or as a leave-balance deduction. If this happens, the employee should send a written notice to HR citing Section 40A and related provisions of the Defense Service Law 5746-1986 and requesting immediate correction. Continued refusal to honor these rights can be reported to the Ministry of Labor (Misrad Ha'avoda) by calling the 1-800-354-354 employer/employee rights hotline or submitting an online complaint through the Ministry's portal at mol.gov.il.

7. A Practical Employer Checklist for Miluim

When a staff member receives a reserve call-up, the employer's responsibilities under Israeli law are concrete and time-sensitive. Here is what must happen:

  • Release the employee immediately. Once you receive notice of the call-up and the reporting date, there is no legal basis to delay release pending project completion or to require the employee to work through the notice period at the cost of being absent from military duty. Blocking or delaying a reservist is a criminal offence under Section 49 of the Defense Service Law 5746-1986.
  • File NII Form 371 within six months. Submit the employer reserve duty claim to the NII via the employer portal at btl.gov.il within six months of the last day of service. Missing this window forfeits the NII reimbursement. The NII processes payment directly to your business bank account, typically within 30 days of claim submission.
  • Continue pension contributions. Calculate and remit the employer's pension contribution each month of service based on the compensation amount received, and confirm that the NII is crediting the employee's share to the fund. Review pension fund statements for accuracy within 30 days of the employee's return.
  • Keep the position available. Do not permanently fill the role during a reserve period. If temporary coverage is needed, use a fixed-term contract clearly labeled as a reserve-cover arrangement. The returning employee is entitled to resume their exact role, or an equivalent role at the same grade and pay.
  • Do not count reserve days as annual leave. The Annual Leave Law 5711-1951 and Section 42 of the Defense Service Law are both violated by any deduction of reserve days from vacation entitlement. Leave balances should be unchanged at the employee's return.
  • Observe the 30/60-day dismissal window on return. If you receive notice of a forthcoming call-up and were already considering dismissing the employee for a separate reason, take legal advice before acting. Any dismissal that occurs in proximity to reserve service — even before it begins — can be challenged as circumvention of the dismissal prohibition.
In Practice: What "Blocking" a Reservist Actually Risks

Section 49 of the Defense Service Law 5746-1986 makes it a criminal offence to prevent a person from performing reserve duty — either directly (refusing to release the employee) or indirectly (threatening negative consequences such as non-renewal of contract or loss of assignment). Criminal penalties under Section 49 can reach up to six months' imprisonment. In parallel, the Regional Labor Court can award civil compensation of up to six months' salary for violations of reserve-duty employment protections under Section 44 of the Defense Service Law. For a senior employee earning NIS 25,000/month, that is up to NIS 150,000 in additional exposure beyond any reinstatement award. The IDF Manpower Directorate also has an ombudsman function specifically for reservist employment complaints — the Reservist Rights Unit (Yechidat Zchuyot HaMiluimnik) can intervene directly with employers who block call-ups. Practical experience suggests that most employer-side violations arise from confusion about the process, not deliberate bad faith; having a clear internal reserve duty procedure in your HR manual is the most effective preventive measure.

8. What to Do If Your Rights Are Violated

If your employer has violated your reserve duty employment rights — whether by deducting reserve days from your leave balance, cutting your pay during service, filling your role permanently, or dismissing you within the protection window — you have several parallel avenues:

Ministry of Labor complaint. The Ministry of Labor (Misrad Ha'avoda) operates a dedicated enforcement division that investigates employment law violations, including those related to reserve duty. You can file a complaint online at mol.gov.il or by calling the 1-800-354-354 hotline. Inspectors have the authority to enter workplaces, demand documents, issue corrective orders, and refer cases for criminal prosecution. Complaints are typically acknowledged within seven working days and assigned to an inspector within three to four weeks.

IDF Reservist Rights Unit. For employer interference with actual call-up compliance — failure to release, threats, or retaliation — the IDF Manpower Directorate's Reservist Rights Unit (Yechidat Zchuyot HaMiluimnik) handles complaints directly and can contact the employer within 24 hours when urgent cases arise.

Regional Labor Court. For financial claims — underpaid reserve compensation, lost pension contributions, improperly deducted leave days, or wrongful dismissal — the Regional Labor Court (Beit haDin haAzori l'Avoda) is the correct forum. There are six regional courts: Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Nazareth, Be'er Sheva, and Petah Tikva. File at the court covering the district where you work. The limitation period for wage-related claims is seven years from the date the breach occurred, under the Wage Protection Law 5718-1958.

Legal representation. For cases involving wrongful dismissal during the protected window or significant financial losses, retaining an Israeli labor attorney before filing is strongly advisable. Unauthorized dismissal of a reservist is one of the cleaner fact patterns in Israeli labor law — the legal prohibition is categorical, and courts have awarded reinstatement plus full back pay plus additional compensation in consistent decisions across the Regional and National Labor Courts.

In Practice: Claiming Compensation for Wrongful Dismissal During the Protected Period

A reservist dismissed within the 30-day (or 60-day) protection window without Employment Committee authorization should file at the Regional Labor Court in the district where they worked within seven years of the dismissal date, though acting within 60 to 90 days dramatically improves the chances of a reinstatement order (courts are far less inclined to order reinstatement when substantial time has passed and the employment market has moved on). The statement of claim should specify: the employment relationship and salary, the dates of reserve service, the dismissal date, the absence of Employment Committee authorization, and the compensation sought. Under Section 44 of the Defense Service Law 5746-1986, the court may award up to six months' salary as additional compensation on top of standard severance pay entitlements. Filing fees at the Regional Labor Court for claims under NIS 29,700 are approximately NIS 165; fee scales apply above that threshold. For claims brought as a result of violations during active military operations covered by emergency legislation, some courts have also considered awarding enhanced compensation recognizing the particular public interest in protecting reservists from employment retaliation during wartime service.