Serving as Executor of an Israeli Estate From the US

A daughter in New Jersey is appointed executor of her father's estate, takes her letters testamentary to the bank, the brokerage, and the county recorder, and clears the American side in a matter of weeks. Then she turns to the apartment in Ramat Gan and the old account at Bank Hapoalim, sends the same letters to Israel, and hears nothing back that helps. The document that opened every door in New Jersey does not open one in Israel. No Israeli bank will release a shekel on it, and the Land Registry (Tabu) will not move a title on it.

This is the single point that trips US executors more than any other. You are effectively running two estates that never speak to each other: the American one, where your letters and the IRS govern, and the Israeli one, where the Inheritance Registrar controls everything. Your American authority simply stops at the border, and no amount of certification at home changes that.

This guide is about the Israeli side and how a US executor handles it without leaving home. For the underlying Israeli court mechanics, our complete guide to Israeli probate sets out the procedure in detail; here the focus is the US-Israel intersection that catches executors out.

Why Your Letters Testamentary Stop at the Border

American practitioners sometimes assume there must be a resealing route, the way a grant can move between some common-law jurisdictions. There is none between the United States and Israel. Israeli courts do not reseal foreign grants of any kind, from any country, and no reciprocity treaty bridges the two systems. Your letters testamentary are evidence that a US court appointed you. They are not authority over an Israeli asset.

Israel administers estates under the Succession Law 1965 (Hok HaYerusha). To deal with any Israeli asset you need one of two orders, both issued by the Inheritance Registrar (Rasham HaYerushot) at the Ministry of Justice:

• A succession order (tzav yerusha) where there is no will, distributing the estate by the statutory order in Sections 10 to 17 of the Succession Law.
• A will execution order (tzav kiyum tzava'a) where there is a will, validating it for Israeli purposes.

An American will is not dead on arrival. Under Section 137 of the Succession Law, a will valid under the law of the place where it was made can be recognised in Israel. But recognition is never automatic. The will has to be lodged with the Israeli Registrar, translated, supported by apostilled proof, and confirmed by an Israeli will execution order before it reaches the Ramat Gan flat.

In Practice: Filing for a succession or will execution order with the Inheritance Registrar (Rasham HaYerushot) carries a state fee of roughly NIS 597, plus a publication fee of about NIS 130 for the newspaper notice required under Section 67 of the Succession Law 1965. That notice opens a 14-day window for objections. An uncontested order is normally issued three to six months after a complete file is lodged, but the clock only starts once every US document is apostilled and translated, which is where the real delay sits.

Executor Is a Role Israel Does Not Quite Use

Here is a conceptual mismatch that causes real confusion, and it is worth slowing down for.

The American system runs estates through a personal representative: an executor or administrator who takes legal title to the estate, marshals the assets, pays the debts, and distributes what is left, all under a fiduciary duty enforced by the probate court. Israel does not work that way by default. Once the succession or will execution order issues, the heirs generally take their shares directly, and they deal with the assets through a lawyer holding their power of attorney. There is no automatic Israeli office that mirrors your American appointment.

The practical consequence is that you cannot act in Israel simply because a New Jersey court called you the executor. Your standing to file the Israeli application comes from being an heir, or from a power of attorney the heirs give you or your Israeli lawyer, not from the letters themselves. Where the estate genuinely needs someone to manage or sell assets before distribution, Israel appoints an estate administrator (menahel izavon), which is a separate step discussed below. Understanding that the two systems allocate the job differently keeps a US executor from waiting for an Israeli authority that is never going to arrive in the mail, and from assuming a power abroad that the appointment does not carry.

The Documents You Sign in the US

Because you will not appear in Israel, the entire file is assembled remotely. The package an Israeli attorney typically needs from a US executor includes:

1. A power of attorney authorising the Israeli lawyer to act, signed before a notary public in the US and apostilled
2. The death certificate, apostilled
3. The will, if any, with an apostille or notarial certification
4. The letters testamentary or letters of administration, useful as supporting evidence even though they have no operative force in Israel
5. Proof of the heirs' identities and their relationship to the deceased

Each US public document needs an apostille, and this is where Americans lose the most time, because apostilles in the United States are issued at the state level, not federally. A document issued or notarised in a given state is apostilled by that state's Secretary of State, so a death certificate from Florida and a power of attorney notarised in New York travel to two different offices. A notary's signature is usually authenticated by the county clerk before the state apostille attaches. Both the US and Israel are parties to the 1961 Hague Apostille Convention, so a single apostille is enough; full consular legalisation at an Israeli consulate is not required and only slows things down.

Anything not in Hebrew or English must then be translated, and Israeli authorities generally insist on a notarised Hebrew translation of foreign documents. Build that step into the timeline early rather than discovering it at the Registrar's counter.

Two Tax Systems and No Estate Tax Treaty

Here US executors get a pleasant surprise followed by a set of duties that are entirely American.

The pleasant surprise: Israel abolished its estate duty in 1981. There is no Israeli inheritance tax on the value passing to the heirs, and the transfer of the Ramat Gan apartment into their names does not itself trigger an Israeli tax bill.

The catch is that the tax questions in a US executor's file are almost all American ones. For a deceased who was a US citizen or domiciliary, US federal estate tax reaches the worldwide estate, so the Israeli apartment and the Hapoalim account count toward the US estate, are reported on Form 706, and are measured against the $15 million exemption for 2026, with a top rate of 40%. There is no US-Israel estate tax treaty, unlike the estate-tax treaties the US maintains with countries such as the UK, Germany, and France, so no treaty situs rules soften the position. In practice the absence of a treaty is neutral here rather than harmful, because Israel imposes no estate tax of its own, so there is neither an Israeli charge to credit nor a double estate tax to relieve. The exposure, where it exists at all, sits entirely on the US side, and the detail of it is covered in our guide to US estate tax on Israeli assets.

Two duties then follow that are easy to miss. First, the heirs, not the estate, may owe IRS reporting: a US person who receives more than $100,000 from a foreign estate files Form 3520, and foreign accounts they come to control can trigger an FBAR. Second, Israel taxes the later sale of inherited real estate, not the inheritance. The heir inherits the deceased's original purchase price as the cost base for Israeli betterment tax (mas shevach) under Section 26 of the Real Estate Taxation Law 1963, so a flat bought decades ago and sold today by the heirs generates Israeli tax measured from that old price.

In Practice: On a later sale, betterment tax (mas shevach) is assessed by the Israel Tax Authority (Rashut HaMisim) under the Real Estate Taxation Law 1963 at up to 25% of the real gain for an inherited property, with the cost base fixed at the deceased's original acquisition price under Section 26. A self-assessment must be filed within 30 days of signing the sale contract. An apartment acquired decades ago for the equivalent of NIS 250,000 and sold for NIS 3,000,000 produces Israeli tax on most of that NIS 2.75 million gain. A US executor who closes the estate without preserving the Israeli purchase records leaves the heirs to reconstruct the cost base years later, usually at a disadvantage, and separately from the stepped-up basis they will use for the IRS.

When an Israeli Estate Administrator Is Needed

Most Israeli estates do not need a formally appointed administrator (menahel izavon). Once the succession or will execution order issues, the heirs can deal with the assets directly through the lawyer holding their power of attorney. An administrator becomes necessary where the estate is complex, contested, or holds assets that must be actively managed or sold before distribution.

The point that matters for a US executor: you cannot simply transplant your American role into this office. Israeli practice strongly favours an administrator who is resident in Israel with a local service address, and the Family Court will hesitate to appoint a non-resident with no presence in the country. The workable route is to nominate an Israeli lawyer or a trusted local administrator for court appointment.

In Practice: Where an administrator is appointed, Section 78 of the Succession Law 1965 places the appointment with the Family Court, and Section 82 requires the administrator to file a full inventory of estate assets, typically within three months. The court can require a security bond and supervises the account. For a non-resident US executor, appointment usually takes four to eight weeks from an uncontested application at the Family Court, and the administrator, not your American letters, is then the person Israeli banks and the Land Registry will actually deal with.

What Often Goes Wrong

Common Mistake: Relying on US letters testamentary, or trying to have them "recognised," to deal with Israeli assets. Because Israel neither recognises nor reseals foreign grants, the bank simply refuses, and weeks are lost before the executor accepts that a separate Israeli order is required. Worse is the executor who asks a relative in Israel to withdraw funds "on account" before the order issues: that exposes the relative to personal liability under Section 107 of the Succession Law 1965, the bank reports the movement, and the Inheritance Registrar can demand repayment before issuing the order, adding six to ten weeks and NIS 8,000 to NIS 15,000 in legal costs to put right.

A second recurring error is appointing one professional to run both estates. A US probate attorney cannot file at the Israeli Inheritance Registrar, and an Israeli lawyer cannot prepare Form 706 or advise on IRS reporting. The model that works is two professionals coordinating, with the executor making sure each has the figures the other produces: the Israeli date-of-death valuations for the estate tax return, and the US grant and death certificate for the Israeli file.

Practical Checklist

• Establish exactly which Israeli assets exist before filing anything: bank accounts, property, securities, pension and provident funds
• Obtain state-level apostilles on the death certificate, the will, the letters, and the power of attorney, remembering that each may go to a different Secretary of State
• Arrange a notarised Hebrew translation of each foreign document
• Instruct an Israeli attorney to file for a succession order or will execution order with the Inheritance Registrar under your power of attorney
• Obtain Israeli date-of-death valuations of the property and accounts for Form 706, and document a stepped-up basis for the heirs
• Preserve the deceased's original Israeli purchase records so the heirs can establish their cost base on a future sale
• Do not let anyone withdraw Israeli bank funds before the Israeli order is registered with the bank
• Coordinate the US probate, the estate tax return, and the Israeli filings as one timeline rather than two

Speak With an Israeli Attorney

Administering the Israeli part of an estate from the US is largely a documents-and-sequencing exercise: getting the right apostilled file to the Inheritance Registrar, valuing the Israeli assets correctly for the IRS, and keeping the Israeli order in step with your American administration. We act for US executors under power of attorney so you do not have to travel, and we work alongside your American probate attorney and accountant.

Contact us for a confidential initial consultation.