Tel Aviv Property Index · Demand
Where olim buy, and why the headline number misleads
Aliyah fell by about a third in 2025, to roughly 21,900. Almost all of that decline was Russia. Strip Russia out and arrivals rose 23.6% on the year and 81% since 2023, with Western olim going from 21% of all arrivals to 38%. That cohort is small nationally and concentrated enough to move about eight local markets.
Origin
Russia remained the largest single source at about 8,300, but that was down some 57% from 19,500 the year before. France rose about 45% to roughly 3,300, from 2,228. The United States came in around 3,500 and the United Kingdom at 840, a second consecutive year of growth — against 406 as recently as 2023.
Figure 1 — arrivals by country of origin, 2025
Reported US figures vary between roughly 3,500 and 4,150 depending on whether the source counts the United States or North America, and whether it is the ministry year-end statement or the later annual report. The lower, narrower figure is used here.
The decline is one country
A headline that says aliyah fell by a third describes Russian aliyah. Every other major source rose. This is the single most misread number in Israeli migration coverage, and it matters here because the countries that rose are the ones whose arrivals buy property.
Figure 2 — change in arrivals by origin, 2025 against 2024
Where they actually go
Olim overall settle mainly in Tel Aviv, Netanya, Jerusalem and Haifa. Western olim choose differently: Jerusalem, Beit Shemesh and Ra’anana lead, and the wider list runs Jerusalem, Tel Aviv–Jaffa, Beit Shemesh, Ra’anana, Modi’in-Maccabim-Re’ut, Netanya, Herzliya and Haifa. Jerusalem alone took 1,097 North American arrivals in 2025.
Eight thousand five hundred people is nothing against a national housing market of seventy thousand annual completions. Concentrated into eight cities, and within those into a handful of neighbourhoods, it is the difference between a street that clears and one that sits.
Figure 3 — Western share of all arrivals
Destination figures are the first place an oleh registers, which is not always where they end up. Many rent for a year or more before buying, so the price effect appears with a lag.
If you are the buyer
What this changes about how you look
- Community concentration is a price factor. You are not the first person to want that street, and the price reflects everyone who wanted it before you.
- Rent before you buy. The lag in this data is people doing exactly that, and it is usually the right call.
- Look one ring out. The cities next to the concentrated ones have the same commute and none of the premium.
- Arrival numbers are volatile. They respond to events abroad, and the 2025 figures move sharply with one country. Do not build a ten-year assumption on two good years.
- Watch the tax change. The Knesset Finance Committee approved a five-year income tax exemption for new olim in March 2026, on top of the existing ten-year foreign-source exemption.
Method
Arrival figures come from the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration year-end summary for 2025 and the Jewish Agency, with destination-city data from the ministry and from Nefesh B’Nefesh for North American arrivals.
Where sources disagree the narrower definition is used and the disagreement is stated rather than averaged away. The ministry year-end figure of 21,900 and the later annual report figure of 22,522 differ on cut-off and counting; both are cited so the reader can see the range.
Ministry of Aliyah and Integration 2025 year-end summary and annual report; The Jewish Agency for Israel 2025 figures; Nefesh B'Nefesh 2025 North American aliyah data; CBS immigration statistics. Tel Aviv Property Index. Figures are recomputed on each data release; the date above each chart is the vintage shown. Provisional Tax Authority reporting is revised for several months after a quarter closes, so the two most recent periods in any series will move. This page is market information, not advice on any particular property or transaction.