In past, Israel almost always had more Jews coming than going

Record Israeli emigration continued for third consecutive year in 2025, study finds

Using travel data, Tel Aviv University researchers estimate that between 45,000 and 50,000 Israelis left the country in each of the past three years, amid war and increased political strife

A record-setting wave of emigration from Israel continued in 2025, with nearly 50,000 Israelis leaving the country for more than 12 months for the third year in a row, according to a report published Monday by researchers at Tel Aviv University.

After about 49,000 Israelis left the country for more than a year in both 2023 and 2024, travel data from the Central Bureau of Statistics indicates the trend likely continued in 2025, Itai Ater, one of the report’s lead authors, told The Times of Israel.

The report argues that Israel’s prolonged military conflict and political tensions have contributed to elevated emigration that could threaten the country’s long-term strategic interests.

Opposition politicians said the report was a sign of the failures of the current government.

The research was conducted by Ater, of the Coller School of Management and head of the Economists’ Forum for Democracy; Nittai Bergman, head of the School of Economics; and doctoral candidate Doron Zamir.

While the CBS published emigration estimates for 2025 in December, its methodology counts people as emigrants only after they have spent most of a year abroad. As a result, many people included in the 2025 figures actually left Israel in 2024.

Official data for 2025 won’t be available until the beginning of 2027, the report noted.

In order to extract the 2025 trends before that, the TAU researchers analyzed CBS data for three-month departure periods. The researchers found that the number of Israelis spending at least three months abroad closely tracked the number who ultimately remained away for at least a year, with a statistical correlation of 0.96. They used that relationship to estimate 2025 emigration before official figures become available.

In 2025, 90,922 Israelis remained abroad for at least three consecutive months, compared with 91,499 in 2024 and 86,509 in 2023. In total, 268,509 Israeli citizens departed the country for trips lasting at least three months between 2023 and 2025.

For comparison, annual departures averaged roughly 60,000 per year throughout the decade spanning 2010 to 2019. During the entire corresponding three-year span a decade prior, from 2013 to 2015, only 183,219 Israelis left for similar periods.

“Accordingly, it can be estimated that if the correlation between the two series is maintained in 2025, then the number of those leaving Israel in 2025 for a period of 12 months or more will be between 45,000 and 50,000 Israelis,” the report concluded.

That figure is noticeably lower than the 69,000 Israelis that CBS previously said left the country, Ater noted. That’s because the calculation excludes new immigrants, mainly Russians and Ukrainians, who arrived in the past three years.

“We parsed the data this way in response to claims by people in the government who said previously that the emigration numbers don’t reflect the reality in Israel,” Ater said. “They tried to say that most of the people leaving were new arrivals from Ukraine [who used their right of return to leave the war zone before continuing on to another country], not longtime Israeli residents. So we wanted to show how many ‘real Israelis’ are actually leaving.”

In any case, Israel has been facing a rare and significant net migration deficit during the last several years, with more people leaving the country than entering it. With the exception of certain periods in the 1950s and 1980s, Israel has always had more Jews moving to Israel than leaving it, according to Sergio Della Pergola, one of Israel’s most respected experts on Jewish demographics.

Combined, 2024 and 2025 saw roughly 50,000 more people leave Israel than move to the country, according to CBS data.

Historically, much of Israel’s emigration has been framed around the pursuit of better economic opportunities abroad. However, many of those leaving Israel now attribute their decisions to dissatisfaction with the government, specifically policy changes it seeks that critics say will undermine democracy, or Israel’s current security situation, according to a recent study by Lilach Lev Ari, a professor of sociology at Oranim College.

“In 2025, we continue to see deeply concerning numbers of Israelis leaving the country for a significant period of time, adding to the exodus seen in 2023 and 2024,” Ater said in the report. “These figures on their own do not yet pose a threat to Israel’s resilience. However, looking ahead — and if there is no change — there is growing concern that emigration will escalate in a manner that endangers Israel’s security and economy.”

The numbers do not present an immediate systemic danger to the country, but bring it closer to a potential tipping point, the report warned.

“Additional negative shocks — political, economic, or security-related — could trigger feedback loops that lead to a further surge in emigration,” the report said.  “Once migration exceeds a certain threshold, reversing the trend will be extremely difficult and carry severe macroeconomic consequences.”

Following the report’s publication, Gilad Kariv, a senior lawmaker for the Democrats party who headed the Knesset committee that dealt with immigration and Diaspora affairs, said that he and colleagues repeatedly urged the government to appoint officials to deal with the problem of Israelis leaving in record numbers, but got nowhere.

“This is a strategic threat to Israel’s future, and it is closely connected to the behavior of the government,” he charged on X.

Yesh Atid MK Meirav Cohen, meanwhile, quipped that “for all they promised that Gazans would emigrate willfully, in the end the October 7 government encouraged willful emigration from Israel.”

“Every day, more and more Israelis are seeing the massive failures and perilous corruption of this government and despair,” added Yesh Atid MK Karine Elharrar.

Times of Israel Staff contributed to this report.