What Zakaut is
Zakaut (זכאות, eligibility) is a loan from the state that becomes one slice of your mortgage. The Ministry of Construction and Housing (משרד הבינוי והשיכון) decides who qualifies and how much, by counting points. Your bank pays it out together with the rest of your mortgage. The ordinary base loan ranges from ₪54,240 to ₪161,665, depending on your points, plus a supplement for military or national service.
It is not a gift and it does not replace your mortgage. Its value is in the terms: a fixed rate that can never exceed 3%, and no early-repayment fee on the Zakaut part.
The first condition: chasar dira
To qualify by points you must be chasar dira (חסר דירה), "without a home": neither you nor your spouse held rights in an apartment, even a partial share, in the past 10 years. There are exceptions, for example former owners whose remaining proceeds from a sale are below ₪151,783 for a single person or ₪178,661 for a couple or family, and some divorced single parents. Certain earlier state housing aid also counts against you, so check your case.
How points are counted: resident families
For a married couple who are not olim, add up three things: years of marriage, children, and siblings of each spouse.
- Completed years of marriage: 0 → 30 points, 1 → 250, 2 → 300, 3 → 350, 4 → 400, 5 → 450, then +50 for each further year.
- Children (unmarried, under 21, living with you; a pregnancy counts from week 24): 1 → 350, 2 → 500, 3 → 650, 4 → 800, 5 → 900, 6 → 1,000, then +100 for each further child.
- Siblings, counted separately for each spouse (Israeli citizens living in Israel): 1 → 50, 2 → 100, 3 → 150, 4 → 400, 5 → 600, 6 → 650, then +50 for each further sibling.
- Families buying in a national priority area A have a floor of 1,500 points. A recognised disability generally adds 200 points, with its own floors.
Resident singles
Singles who are not olim get points for age plus siblings, capped at 1,690. Age: 21 to 30 → 30 points, 31 → 250, 32 → 300, then +50 a year up to 950 at 45, then 1,200 at 46, 1,250 at 47 and 1,300 at 48 (the Ministry's table stops there). Nationwide eligibility starts at 30; from 21 to 29 you need qualifying army or national service and a home in priority area A or B. In practice, a single person with two siblings reaches the 599-point minimum at 36.
Olim (new immigrants)
Olim can use immigrant eligibility for 15 years from the date they received immigrant status, not 10 as is often said. They may also choose the resident route if it gives more.
- Immigrant families: points for completed years since aliyah (same scale as the marriage years above: 0 → 30, 1 → 250, 2 → 300, and so on), plus children, plus a fixed 730. Your total can never be below 1,700 points in the first year or 1,800 from the second year. Here a child is unmarried and under 25 when you received immigrant status, including children born afterwards.
- Immigrant singles: points for years since aliyah plus a fixed 600 between ages 21 and 45, or 400 above 45, capped at 1,690. Kol Zchut (כל זכות), a widely used rights guide (page updated 2 March 2025), reads it differently: 600 points from 21, plus an extra 400 above 45. Until that is clarified, treat any estimate for an immigrant single as provisional and rely on your certificate.
- Immigrant families with more than five years in Israel can get an extra loan of ₪19,630, ₪28,370 or ₪43,630 by seniority, at 3% over 28 years.
What your points are worth
Points place you in a band, and each band has a fixed base loan:
- Under 599 points: no base loan
- 599–999: ₪54,240
- 1,000–1,399: ₪62,400
- 1,400–1,499: ₪74,350
- 1,500–1,599: ₪85,250
- 1,600–1,699: ₪96,190
- 1,700–1,799: ₪107,090
- 1,800–1,899: ₪117,985
- 1,900–1,999: ₪128,930
- 2,000–2,099: ₪139,825
- 2,100–2,199: ₪150,720
- 2,200 and above: ₪161,665
Service adds money, not points. Each complete month of compulsory army or recognised national service adds 1% of your base loan; reserve duty can add more. The total service supplement is capped at 65% of the base for families and 46% for singles.
Other supplements exist for specific places and programs: ₪100,000 in national priority area A or ₪70,000 in area B (at 4.5% over 20 years), Negev localities, and the 10 Plus program (₪132,000). They have their own conditions and do not always stack.
The interest rate
The Zakaut loan has a fixed rate and is linked to the Madad (מדד), Israel's consumer price index, so the balance rises with inflation. Under the Housing Loans Law, your rate is the lowest of three figures: the Bank of Israel's published average rate for housing credit over your repayment term, minus 0.5 point; 3%; or the rate your lending bank normally charges. The law sets further conditions, and the Bank of Israel average is not itself your rate, so do not try to work it out from published tables. Your bank quotes the actual rate when it issues the loan. Terms run from 5 to 30 years.
Two worked examples
- An oleh family in its second year in Israel, with one child: 1 completed year (250) + one child (350) + 730 = 1,330 points. The floor from the second year is 1,800, so the family has 1,800 points and a base loan of ₪117,985. If one parent served 24 months in the army, add 24% (about ₪28,300).
- A resident couple married 3 years with 2 children, where one spouse has 3 siblings and the other has 1: 350 + 500 + 150 + 50 = 1,050 points, which is the 1,000–1,399 band: ₪62,400.
There is no ₪800,000 Zakaut cap
You may read that Zakaut is "up to ₪800,000". No such limit appears in the Ministry's tables, the Housing Loans Law or Directive 329. Even stacking the largest base loan, the maximum family service supplement and the priority-area loan gives about ₪367,000. A likely source of the confusion is a 2010 Bank of Israel letter, still attached to Directive 329, which exempted housing loans below ₪800,000 from a stricter capital rule and, in the very next clause, exempted borrowers eligible for Ministry aid. The two lines are easy to read as one. That explanation is plausible, not proven.
Your certificate is what counts
Every estimate, including ours, is only an estimate. The binding document is the certificate of eligibility (תעודת זכאות), issued by the Ministry. You apply through a mortgage bank: any bank's mortgage adviser can file it, and Leumi offers an online application.
- Bring ID cards and appendices, marriage or divorce records, proof of children or pregnancy, your siblings' ID numbers or a declaration, service and reserve certificates, disability papers if relevant, and your immigrant certificate (תעודת עולה) if you are an oleh.
- The Ministry's guide lists a registration fee of ₪60; Kol Zchut lists ₪70. Ask your bank.
- The certificate is valid for one year from the application and can be extended through the bank.
- The Ministry does not promise a fixed processing time, so apply early. If you have already signed: for a second-hand home, the aid is given only within one year of signing and while part of the price is still owed to the seller.
In the ribit simulator
The Zakaut estimator in the ribit simulator asks for your status (resident or oleh), household, years married or since aliyah, age, children, siblings and service months. It shows your points, your band, the base loan and the service supplement, and flags the cases where the Ministry's own rules conflict. Use it to plan, then get your certificate.