How a London Same-Sex Couple Made Aliyah Together as Spouses

Result: Both partners received oleh status as spouses, unlocking two absorption entitlements and the reduced oleh purchase tax bracket on a Jerusalem apartment · Timeline: 6 months from the stalled file to landing · Challenge: Interior Ministry queried a foreign same-sex marriage · Authority: Population and Immigration Authority, Jewish Agency, Israeli Consulate in London · Financial Impact: Roughly NIS 167,000 in purchase tax saved plus the absorption basket

Background

Two men in their early forties, together since 2009 and married at a north London register office in 2016, decided in late 2025 to move to Jerusalem. One is Jewish, the grandson of a Manchester family whose synagogue records go back to the 1920s. The other is not Jewish and has no Israeli ancestry of any kind. They opened a joint aliyah file through the Jewish Agency in London in January 2026, expecting the Jewish partner's file to be the difficult one, since eligibility questions usually attach to the person claiming through descent.

The opposite happened. The Jewish partner's file cleared within weeks. His husband's file sat. Nobody refused it, which is a particular kind of problem, because there is nothing to appeal against a file that has simply not moved. By March they had given notice on their London flat and had a Jerusalem apartment under offer, and one of them had immigration rights while the other did not.

The Challenge

The Law of Return 1950 gives every Jew the right to immigrate. Section 4A extends the same rights to the spouse of a Jew, the child of a Jew, the grandchild of a Jew and their spouses, and the text of the section says nothing about the sex of the spouse. That is the whole legal answer, and it has been the answer for years. The difficulty is administrative rather than doctrinal, and it lives in the gap between two authorities.

Israel does not perform civil or same-sex marriages domestically. It does register marriages lawfully performed abroad, and in HCJ 3045/05 (Ben-Ari) the Supreme Court, sitting as the High Court of Justice, directed the Population and Immigration Authority to register foreign same-sex marriages in the Population Registry. That registration is administrative. It records marital status and does not purport to decide the validity of the marriage under Israeli religious law. But it is the practical hook on which a Section 4A claim hangs, because the spousal entitlement runs from the marriage and the Israeli system reads marital status off the registry.

A couple applying from abroad has not yet been registered anywhere in Israel. So the file arrives at the Israeli Consulate with an English marriage certificate and no Israeli status entry to point at, and a consular clerk who has processed two hundred aliyah files this year and none like this one asks for something the couple cannot produce. In this case the request that came back was for evidence that the marriage was "recognised in Israel," which is a question with no document as its answer. Left there, the file would have aged quietly for another year.

In Practice: Section 4A of the Law of Return 1950 gives the spouse of a Jew the same immigration rights as the Jew, and following HCJ 3045/05 (Ben-Ari) the Population and Immigration Authority registers a same-sex marriage lawfully performed abroad in the Population Registry. A marriage certificate issued in England and Wales under the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 must be legalised by the FCDO Legalisation Office before an Israeli authority will look at it, at GBP 45 by post or GBP 35 for an e-apostille, and the office returns a postal application in roughly two to five working days. The Jewish Agency (Sochnut) processes a fully documented aliyah application in about two to four months, and the clock on a spousal file does not start until the marriage evidence is complete.

What We Did

We reframed the request before answering it. The consulate had asked for proof of recognition, so we filed a written submission setting out what recognition means in this context: that Section 4A confers the entitlement, that the section is silent as to the sex of the spouse, and that the registration practice following Ben-Ari is the Authority's own. That submission went to the Interior Ministry desk that actually decides spousal files, with a copy to the consulate, rather than to the consular clerk alone. Files stall most often because they are sitting with someone who has no authority to decide them.

Alongside it went the documents. The English marriage certificate was legalised at the FCDO Legalisation Office by post and translated into Hebrew by a notary, with the notarial translation certificate attached rather than a translator's declaration, because Israeli authorities treat the two differently. The Jewish partner's eligibility was documented independently: his mother's ketubah, a letter from the family's Manchester synagogue confirming its records, and his grandmother's birth entry, all legalised in the same batch to avoid a second round of postage.

The third element was the part that most couples underestimate. Spousal applications under the Law of Return are examined for authenticity, and a same-sex application is examined on exactly the same standards as any other, which cuts both ways. We assembled a chronological file: seventeen years of joint tenancy agreements and mortgage statements, a joint bank account opened in 2011, both partners named on each other's pension nominations and wills, photographs at family events across a decade, and correspondence from before the marriage. It ran to ninety pages. We submitted it unprompted with the initial response rather than waiting to be asked, because the authenticity question was going to be asked eventually and a file that answers it in advance moves faster than one that answers it in month five.

In Practice: Regulation 12 of the Purchase Tax Regulations 1974, made under the Real Estate Taxation Law 1963, gives an oleh reduced purchase tax on one residential home, historically 0.5% on the value up to roughly NIS 1.98M and 5% above, claimable from one year before aliyah to seven years after. A non-resident buying the same home pays under Section 9(g1a) at 8% on the first NIS 6,055,070. On a NIS 2.6M Jerusalem apartment that is about NIS 40,900 against NIS 208,000, a difference of roughly NIS 167,000, and the Israel Tax Authority does not apply the oleh rate automatically. It must be claimed in the purchase tax declaration filed within 30 days of signing.

The Outcome

The Interior Ministry approved the spousal file eleven weeks after our submission. Both partners received oleh visas from the consulate in London and landed in June 2026, and both were registered as married in the Population Registry at their first appointment at the Ministry of Interior office in Jerusalem, on production of the legalised English certificate. Each opened an entitlement file at the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration (Misrad HaAliyah VeHaKlita) in his own name, since an absorption entitlement belongs to the individual oleh and not to the household, and the household rate was assessed by the Ministry from there. For reference, the 2026 basket for a single adult runs to about NIS 20,491, released in seven instalments across the first six months and paid only against an entitlement certificate.

The apartment mattered more in money terms. They completed on the Jerusalem flat in August at NIS 2,600,000, after aliyah rather than before it, which was the single most consequential piece of timing in the file. Purchase tax came to roughly NIS 40,900 under Regulation 12 against roughly NIS 208,000 at the non-resident rate. Had they signed the contract in March, when they first wanted to, the reduced bracket would not have been available on that purchase and the difference would have been paid to the Israel Tax Authority and never recovered.

Six months passed between the stalled file and the landing. The legal work was three written submissions and a document exercise. There was no hearing, no litigation and no appeal, because the position was already settled law and the obstacle was a file sitting on the wrong desk with a question attached to it that had no documentary answer.

Key Takeaways

What this case illustrates for non-residents in similar situations:

1. A silent file is not a refused file, and it needs a different response. There is no appeal against inaction, so the move is a written submission to the deciding authority rather than a follow-up call to the consulate that took the papers.
2. Section 4A does not distinguish between spouses by sex, and the registration practice following HCJ 3045/05 (Ben-Ari) is the Population and Immigration Authority's own. When an official asks for evidence that a marriage is "recognised in Israel," the answer is a legal submission, not a certificate.
3. Legalise every document in one batch. The FCDO Legalisation Office charges GBP 45 by post or GBP 35 for an e-apostille per document, and couples who send the marriage certificate first and the Jewish partner's evidence six weeks later lose more time to postage than to the Ministry.
4. Build the authenticity file before anyone asks for it. Spousal applications are screened for genuineness on the same standards regardless of the couple, and a documented shared life going back years is the answer. Assembling it after a query arrives adds months.
5. Do not sign the purchase contract before oleh status is documented. The Regulation 12 bracket depends on status at the time of purchase and on the eligibility window, and on a NIS 2.6M apartment the timing was worth about NIS 167,000. Our guide on making aliyah from the United Kingdom sets out the sequence in full.

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Facing a Similar Situation?

If your aliyah file has been split so that one partner is progressing and the other is not, the reason is usually a documentary question about the marriage rather than a decision about entitlement. We assess both partners' eligibility, prepare the marriage recognition submission, and put the authenticity evidence in front of the Interior Ministry before it is requested. Our answer on whether a same-sex couple can make aliyah together covers the underlying entitlement.

Contact us for a confidential consultation about your Israeli legal matter.