I won an Israeli judgment years ago and still have not been paid. How much has it grown, and what happens to a dollar debt?

A New York creditor holding a Tel Aviv judgment from 2021 usually wants two numbers: what the judgment is worth today, and whether the dollars they lost are still dollars. The first is set by the Adjudication of Interest and Linkage Law 5721-1961 and by rates that change every three months. The second is settled by Section 5B of the same law, and the answer is usually not the one American creditors expect.

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Detailed Answer

The law gives a court or other judicial authority power under Section 2 to award, on a sum it adjudicates, either shekel interest or index linkage together with linked interest, and the rates themselves live in regulations rather than in the statute. Those regulations were remade as the Adjudication of Interest and Linkage (Determination of the Annual Rates of Shekel Interest, Linked Interest and Late-Payment Charges) Regulations 5785-2024, and the Accountant General at the Ministry of Finance publishes the resulting figures at the start of each quarter. For the quarter beginning 1 April 2026 shekel interest stood at 5.92% a year, linked interest at 4.27% and late-payment charges at 4.96%. Shekel interest is the ordinary award and already carries an inflation component, which is why it is not combined with index linkage. Late-payment charges are added on top of shekel interest once every three full months from the date fixed for payment, and they do not themselves bear interest. Section 6 removes the court's power to award interest where the parties' contract or another statute already provides for a late payment charge, so a well drafted supply agreement can displace the statutory rate in either direction.

For a creditor abroad, Section 5B(a) is the provision that decides the real economics. Where the sum is expressed in foreign currency it is converted to shekels at the Bank of Israel representative rate on the day interest begins to run, and from that day forward you hold a shekel claim carrying Israeli statutory interest. If the shekel weakens against the dollar over the following four years, the shekel judgment plus interest may translate back into fewer dollars than you were owed, and no Israeli mechanism restores the difference. The practical consequences are ordinary but easy to miss. Ask for the conversion date to be fixed as late as the facts allow. Do not let an Israeli file sit: a judgment left in the Execution Office grows at a rate that will not beat a currency move, and enforcement costs accrue against a debtor who may be dissipating assets. And keep the two systems apart in your head, because the sum a US court will recognise is the shekel judgment as it stood, converted at the date the US court chooses, which is a separate question addressed in our answer on enforcing an Israeli court judgment in the United States.

In Practice: Under the Adjudication of Interest and Linkage Law 5721-1961, Section 2 empowers the court to award shekel interest or linkage plus linked interest, and Section 5B(a) converts a foreign currency sum at the Bank of Israel representative rate on the date interest starts to run. Rates are set under the Regulations 5785-2024 and published quarterly by the Accountant General: for the quarter from 1 April 2026, shekel interest 5.92%, linked interest 4.27%, late-payment charges 4.96%. On a judgment of NIS 400,000 unpaid for four years, shekel interest alone adds roughly NIS 100,000, and Section 6 disapplies the statutory rate where the contract sets its own.

When to Consult a Lawyer

• Your contract with the Israeli party fixed its own late payment rate. Section 6 may cut off the statutory interest entirely, and whether that helps or hurts depends on the rate you agreed, so it needs reading before you plead the claim.
• The judgment is old and the shekel has moved sharply since the conversion date. There may be a case for reopening the calculation on the original claim rather than accepting the arithmetic the Execution Office produces.
• You intend to enforce in the United States. The conversion date the Israeli file used and the date a US court applies are different questions, and the gap between them is often larger than the interest.

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Speak With an Israeli Attorney

We calculate what an Israeli judgment is actually worth today, check whether the conversion date and interest basis were correctly applied, and press the Execution Office file so the debt is collected rather than merely indexed.

Contact us for a confidential initial consultation.