The A/1 Temporary Resident Visa for Prospective Olim

Most people who qualify for aliyah assume they must become an Israeli citizen the moment they land. They do not. Israeli law lets someone eligible under the Law of Return arrive as a temporary resident instead, holding an A/1 visa, keeping their foreign citizenship untouched, and taking almost all of the same new immigrant benefits, while deciding at their own pace whether to convert that status into Israeli citizenship at all.

For a non-resident weighing a move, that distinction is worth understanding before you fill in a single form. The A/1 route is not a lesser or fallback option. It is a deliberate choice that some families make for tax reasons, some for personal or professional ones, and some simply because they want to try Israeli life for a year or two before committing. This guide explains what the A/1 temporary resident visa is, who can get it, what it gives you, and the specific traps that catch people who arrange it from abroad without advice.

What the A/1 Visa Actually Is

The A/1 is a temporary resident visa under the Entry into Israel Law 1952, granted to a person who is eligible to immigrate under the Law of Return 1950 but who requests residency rather than citizenship.

The default aliyah path is different. When an eligible person makes aliyah in the ordinary way, they become an Israeli citizen on the day they arrive, automatically, unless they specifically ask not to. The A/1 visa is what you receive when you make that request: you are recognised as an oleh (immigrant) for benefit purposes and issued an oleh certificate, but your legal status is toshav arai (temporary resident), not citizen.

That status is granted for up to three years. Throughout it, the holder can live, work, and study freely, and can apply to become a citizen at any moment. If they do nothing, they can also simply leave. The A/1 is, in effect, a long trial membership in Israeli residency for people who already hold the key that opens full citizenship whenever they choose to turn it.

Who Qualifies and How You Apply From Abroad

Eligibility for A/1 is eligibility for aliyah. The two tests are identical.

Under the Law of Return 1950, the right extends to a Jew, to the child or grandchild of a Jew, and to the spouse of any of those. Proving it from abroad means assembling the same evidence any aliyah applicant needs: documents establishing Jewish descent or the marital link, personal civil records, and a clean-enough background. Those documents, when they come from a foreign registry, generally have to be apostilled in the issuing country before an Israeli authority will accept them, which is a process you complete at home before you travel.

The application itself is normally started through the Jewish Agency (Sochnut) or, for applicants in North America and the United Kingdom, through Nefesh B'Nefesh, and finalised with the Israeli consulate serving your region. At the interview stage you indicate that you are seeking temporary resident status rather than immediate citizenship. The visa is then issued so you can travel, and your status is activated on arrival, where the aliyah desk and the Population and Immigration Authority complete the registration and issue the documents that unlock your benefits.

Because every step of the eligibility and documentation process mirrors a standard aliyah file, our guide to making aliyah from the United States covers the document-gathering in detail that applies equally to an A/1 request.

The Benefits You Keep, and the Two You Do Not

This is where temporary residency earns its appeal. An A/1 holder receives an oleh certificate, and with it almost the entire package of new immigrant benefits.

That package includes the absorption support administered by the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration (Misrad HaAliyah VeHaKlita), the reduced oleh rate of purchase tax when buying a first home in Israel, and the significant ten-year exemption from Israeli tax on foreign-source income and gains. An A/1 holder is also registered as a resident with the National Insurance Institute (Bituach Leumi), which brings entitlement to national health insurance and the public healthcare basket that ordinary non-residents are shut out of.

In Practice: Under Section 14 of the Income Tax Ordinance 1961, a new immigrant and an A/1 temporary resident are exempt from Israeli tax on foreign-source income and capital gains for ten years, meaning a 0% Israeli rate on qualifying foreign income across that decade. The Israel Tax Authority (Rashut HaMasim) treats the exemption as running from the date Israeli residency begins, which is usually your A/1 arrival date, and that date is fixed once set. Because the ten-year clock cannot be paused or restarted, the timing of your move is itself a planning decision worth taking before you land.

What temporary residency does not give you is the two things that only citizenship carries: an Israeli passport (teudat ma'avar aside, a full citizen's passport), and the right to vote in Knesset elections. For many prospective olim neither is urgent in the first year or two, which is exactly why the A/1 works as a bridge. When those things matter, you convert to citizenship, and under the Law of Return that conversion is available on request.

In Practice: Under Regulation 12 of the Purchase Tax Regulations made under the Real Estate Taxation Law 1963, an oleh, including an A/1 temporary resident holding an oleh certificate, pays a reduced purchase tax of 0.5% on the value of a home up to a set ceiling (around NIS 1,988,000) and 5% above it, provided the purchase falls within the eligibility window of one year before to seven years after aliyah. The benefit is claimed through the Israel Tax Authority at the time of purchase and is not applied automatically, so it must be raised in the self-assessment filed within the standard reporting period after signing.

Why Choose Temporary Residency Over Citizenship

If the benefits are nearly identical, why not simply take citizenship? Several real reasons push families toward A/1.

The first is genuine uncertainty. A retiree testing whether the move suits them, a professional who may be posted elsewhere, or a family whose children are still deciding all gain from a status that does not require an irreversible commitment. The second is planning around children and military service, where the age at which a child acquires status can affect service obligations, and families sometimes take advice on timing before locking in citizenship. The third is personal or professional considerations tied to the person's home country, where holding off on a second citizenship for a defined period is preferable.

None of this makes A/1 a way to have Israeli residency benefits without Israeli consequences, which is the misconception worth confronting directly. The distinction between the two statuses, and what each costs you over the long run, is set out further in our comparison of Israeli citizenship and permanent residency.

The Tax and Status Traps to Plan For

The A/1's biggest risk is that people read it as a light-touch status and discover it is not.

Arriving to live on an A/1 generally makes you an Israeli tax resident from day one, because Israeli tax residency follows the centre-of-life test in the Income Tax Ordinance 1961, not the label on your visa. The ten-year Section 14 exemption is generous, but it is a shield with an expiry date, and it does nothing about your home country. Leaving a country such as Canada or the United States to settle in Israel can itself trigger a departure or exit tax on the way out, entirely separate from anything Israel does.

There is also a residency-maintenance point. A/1 is a status for someone actually living in Israel. It is not a passive membership you can hold from abroad for years while rarely setting foot in the country, and prolonged absence can put both the status and the associated health coverage at risk when renewal comes up.

Common Mistake: Prospective immigrants treat the A/1 as a way to collect oleh benefits while keeping their old tax life abroad intact, then find that arriving to live in Israel made them an Israeli tax resident from the start and, after the ten-year Section 14 window, exposed their worldwide income to Israeli tax. Worse, the move often triggered a home-country exit or departure tax they never planned for, and by the time an accountant flags it the residency start date is already fixed and cannot be re-timed. Take combined Israeli and home-country tax advice before you set your arrival date, not after.

Practical Checklist

• Confirm your eligibility under the Law of Return 1950 before choosing between A/1 and citizenship
• Gather and apostille your descent, civil, and background documents in your home country before travel
• State clearly at the consular stage that you are requesting temporary resident status, not immediate citizenship
• Fix your intended arrival date with tax advice, since it sets the ten-year Section 14 clock permanently
• Check whether leaving your home country triggers a departure or exit tax before you go
• Claim the oleh purchase tax rate through the Israel Tax Authority when you buy, as it is not automatic
• Register with Bituach Leumi on arrival to activate your national health insurance entitlement
• Plan to actually reside in Israel, since A/1 status and its benefits depend on genuine residence

Speak With an Israeli Attorney

Choosing between the A/1 temporary resident visa and immediate citizenship is not just an immigration question. It sets your Israeli tax residency date, interacts with your home country's exit rules, and affects your family's benefits and, in some cases, military-service planning. An Israeli attorney working alongside a tax adviser can confirm your Law of Return eligibility, prepare the temporary-residency request, and time the move so the ten-year exemption and the oleh benefits work in your favour rather than against you.

Contact us for a confidential initial consultation.