Sick Leave in Israel: Employee Rights, Pay Rules, and Dismissal Protection

Getting sick while working in Israel is genuinely confusing if you came from somewhere else. The pay structure is not what most foreigners expect: the first day is unpaid regardless of seniority, and the rates step up gradually from there. The rules around doctor's notes are stricter than in many countries. And the question of whether your employer can fire you for being ill does not have a clean answer under Israeli law.

This guide walks through how sick leave actually works in Israel: the entitlement, how pay is calculated, what your employer can demand from you in terms of documentation, and what legal protection you have if things go sideways.

1. The Legal Framework: Sick Pay Law 5736-1976

Sick leave in Israel is governed primarily by the Sick Pay Law 5736-1976 (Chok Dmei Mahalah). Enacted under Labour Minister Moshe Baram, it created a uniform nationwide floor for sick pay entitlement that applies regardless of sector, employer size, or nationality of the employee.

The law sets minimum standards only. It does not prevent employers or collective agreements from providing more generous terms — and many do. Where a collective agreement, extension order (tzav harchava), or individual employment contract grants better sick pay rights, those better terms apply. Israeli labour law generally treats any deviation below the statutory floor as void, with the statutory entitlement taking its place automatically.

Three other laws come up regularly in sick leave situations:

• The Employment (Equal Opportunities) Law 5748-1988 — prohibits dismissal on grounds of medical condition or disability
• The Annual Leave Law 5711-1951 — governs what happens when you get sick during annual vacation
• The National Insurance Law (Consolidated Version) 5755-1995 — the source of NII disability payments once sick leave runs out

2. Who Qualifies — Including Foreign Workers

The Sick Pay Law applies to every person employed under an employment relationship in Israel, with no carve-outs for nationality, visa type, or sector. That means:

• Israeli citizens and permanent residents
• Foreign nationals on B/1 work visas
• Expert visa holders (B/1 Maamad Meyuchad)
• Olim chadashim from the first day of Israeli employment
• Foreign caregivers employed by Israeli families under the Foreign Workers Law 5751-1991
• Part-time employees (pro-rated to their working hours)

The entitlement starts from the first day of employment. There is no minimum service period before sick days begin to accumulate. An employee who falls ill in their first month of work has a partial sick day balance already built up from the weeks worked so far.

Genuine self-employed contractors and freelancers fall outside the Sick Pay Law's scope, since there is no employment relationship. However, foreign nationals working exclusively for one Israeli client under conditions that functionally resemble employment risk being reclassified as employees by the Regional Labor Courts — with retroactive sick pay obligations attached.

3. Sick Day Accumulation: 18 Days Per Year, 90 Day Cap

Under Section 2 of the Sick Pay Law 5736-1976, employees accumulate sick days at a rate of 1.5 working days per month of employment. Over a full year that comes to 18 days. Unused days roll forward indefinitely, though the total reserve cannot exceed 90 days.

A few things worth knowing about how the accumulation works:

• Once you hit the 90-day cap, new days stop accumulating until you draw the balance back below 90
• Unused sick days are not paid out on termination; they lapse when the employment ends
• Sick days are counted in working days, not calendar days — a Monday-to-Friday illness uses five sick days, not seven

For part-time employees, the entitlement is proportional. A part-time employee working 50% of full-time hours earns 0.75 sick days per month rather than 1.5.

4. How Sick Pay Is Calculated Under Israeli Law

The payment structure under Section 3 of the Sick Pay Law 5736-1976 is graduated, with the first day acting as a waiting period:

Sick Day	Payment Rate
1st day	0% — no pay (waiting day)
2nd and 3rd days	50% of daily wage
4th day and beyond	100% of daily wage (limited by accumulated balance)

The daily wage for a monthly-paid employee is calculated by dividing the gross monthly salary by 25 working days. For an employee earning NIS 15,000 per month, the daily rate is NIS 600. A five-day sick episode would pay: NIS 0 (day 1) + NIS 300 (day 2) + NIS 300 (day 3) + NIS 600 (day 4) + NIS 600 (day 5) = NIS 1,800 total for a five-day absence, rather than the full NIS 3,000 that five working days of normal pay would represent.

That is the statutory minimum. Many employers, particularly tech companies, banks, and public-sector bodies, provide full pay from day one under their contracts or applicable collective agreements. Where a contract is more generous, the contractual terms win; the Sick Pay Law sets a floor, not a ceiling.

5. Medical Certificate Requirements

To receive sick pay for any period of absence, an employee must provide a medical certificate (teudat holeh) from a licensed physician (rofeh murshe). This is a formal legal requirement under the Sick Pay Law and is not merely a company policy option.

What the certificate must show:

• The name of the examining physician and their registration number with the Israel Medical Association (IMA)
• The dates covered by the incapacity
• A statement that the employee is unfit for work during that period

What the certificate does not need to include:

• The diagnosis or medical condition — an employee's privacy rights mean the employer is not entitled to know the nature of the illness

Certificates issued by health fund (kupat holim) physicians, hospital doctors, and private practitioners are all valid. Foreign nationals who fall ill abroad while travelling can use a local physician's certificate, though the employer may request a certified Hebrew translation or a document authenticated with an apostille for longer absences.

Employers are entitled to request a medical certificate even for a single-day absence. Many employers waive this requirement for absences of one to two days under their internal policies, but this is a business decision, not a legal obligation. An employer who demands a certificate for a one-day absence and docks pay when the employee cannot produce one is acting within the law.

6. Falling Ill During Annual Vacation: Converting Days

Under Section 7 of the Annual Leave Law 5711-1951, an employee who falls ill during annual vacation can convert those days to sick leave, preserving the vacation days for later. It is one of the more useful provisions in Israeli employment law and one that many foreign workers don't know about.

Concretely: take a two-week vacation in August, spend five days genuinely ill, and you don't lose five vacation days. Those five days are reclassified as sick leave (drawing from your sick day balance), and you reschedule them at a later date.

For the conversion to apply, two conditions must be met:

• The employee must provide a valid medical certificate covering the period of illness during the vacation
• The employee must notify the employer promptly — delays weaken the claim, and some collective agreements set specific notice windows

The employer cannot refuse a legitimate conversion request backed by a valid medical certificate. The sick day balance is reduced (subject to the same 0/50/100 payment structure), and the vacation entitlement is correspondingly restored.

7. Dismissal While Sick: What the Law Says

This is the area where foreign employees most often have the wrong expectations. Israel does not have a straightforward "you cannot fire a sick employee" rule comparable to the UK's unfair dismissal protection for long-term sick workers. What it has instead is a body of statute and case law that makes dismissing a sick employee extremely risky for the employer.

The Equal Opportunities Law

Section 2 of the Employment (Equal Opportunities) Law 5748-1988 prohibits employers from discriminating against an employee in any employment decision — including termination — on the grounds of a medical condition. Where dismissal is motivated by an employee's illness, this statute is the primary legal weapon. The Regional Labor Court can award compensation of up to NIS 120,000 without requiring proof of financial loss under Section 10 of the law, in addition to full severance pay and notice pay.

Doctrine of abuse of right in termination

Israeli labor law imposes a good faith obligation on all employment relationships under the Employment Contracts (Enforcement) Law 5716-1956 and through decades of Regional Labor Court case law. Courts apply the doctrine of shmiush lo takhin (abuse of right) to terminations that appear legitimate on their face but are in fact triggered by the employee's illness. An employer who fires a long-serving employee within days of learning about a serious illness faces a presumption of bad faith that is difficult to rebut.

Severance and notice pay

A dismissed employee who has completed at least one full year of employment is entitled to severance pay under the Severance Pay Law 5723-1963. Being sick does not change this entitlement. An employer who dismisses a sick employee still owes full severance (one month's gross salary per year of employment) plus notice pay under the Notice of Dismissal and Resignation Law 5761-2001 — typically 1 day per month of service up to a maximum of 1 month.

8. Extended Illness: When the National Insurance Institute Steps In

The Sick Pay Law's 90-day maximum accumulation means that seriously ill employees will eventually exhaust their employer-funded sick pay. What happens then depends on the nature and expected duration of the illness.

Short-term disability benefit (NII)

The National Insurance Institute (Bituach Leumi / NII) does not pay a standard sick benefit for ordinary short-term illness. However, for employees who have been incapacitated for at least 90 consecutive days, the NII's disability branch (Anaf Nechut) may become relevant. Eligibility for NII disability benefits requires:

• A reduction in earning capacity of at least 60% due to the medical condition
• Assessment by a NII medical committee (va'ada refu'it) at the NII's regional offices
• Submission of Form 200 (Application for Disability Benefit) with supporting medical documentation

The NII disability benefit rate in 2026 is approximately NIS 5,020 per month for a full-rate general disability allowance, with partial rates applicable to lower assessed disability percentages. Applications are filed at any NII branch office (sniph bituach leumi), with the main offices located in every major city.

Work injury (pegi'at avoda)

If the illness or injury arose from work activities — an occupational disease, a workplace accident, or an injury during commuting under the National Insurance Law's broad commuting definition — the NII's work injury branch (Anaf Pegi'at Avoda) pays a daily wage-replacement benefit from the first day of incapacity, bypassing the sick pay rules entirely. Work injury benefit replaces up to 75% of pre-injury daily wages. Claims must be filed within 12 months of the injury or the onset of the occupational disease.

Frequently Asked Questions