I am a non-resident director of an Israeli company. Why can I no longer file anything with the Registrar of Companies myself?

Foreign shareholders usually discover this the hard way. A share transfer is signed, the documents are couriered to Jerusalem, and three weeks later the envelope comes back unopened. The Israeli Corporations Authority stopped accepting paper in June 2024, and the online system that replaced it was built around an Israeli identity credential that a non-resident director simply cannot get. Nothing about the underlying company law changed. What changed is who is physically able to press the button.

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Detailed Answer

The legal source is Amendment 35 to the Companies Law 5759-1999, enacted alongside Amendment 2 to the Digital Communications with Public Bodies Law and promulgated on 27 June 2022, with a two-year grace period that expired on 27 June 2024. From that date the Registrar of Companies at the Corporations Authority, part of the Ministry of Justice, accepts reports and applications only through its online portal. The list is broad: the annual report, amendments to the articles of association, a change of company name, appointments and terminations of directors, transfers of shares, changes in registered share capital, a change of registered address, mergers, and updates to officer details. There is no paper fallback and no exception for a company whose owners live abroad. Filing is done by a person the company has defined on the Corporations Authority website as its authorised reporting officer. That person does not have to be a director or an officer of the company, but must be identified by the state, either through registration in Israel's national digital identity system or through a smart card issued by an authorising authority, which in practice means an Israeli advocate. Both routes require an Israeli identity number.

For a director sitting in London, Toronto or Sydney the consequence is procedural rather than legal, and it bites on deadlines. Section 223 of the Companies Law requires a company to report the appointment or termination of a director to the Registrar within 14 days, and that clock does not pause while a foreign signature travels. The workable arrangement is to appoint an Israeli lawyer as the company's authorised reporting officer at the point of incorporation, before anything is urgent, and to keep a standing power of attorney on file. The power of attorney is signed before a notary where you live and apostilled, or signed before an Israeli notary at a consulate; where it is executed in Israel the fee is fixed by the Notaries Regulations (Service Fees) 5738-1978 at NIS 197 for the first signatory and NIS 77 for each additional one. Two practical warnings. First, the authorised reporting officer's credential belongs to the individual, not to the firm, so if the lawyer you appointed leaves the file you have to re-designate someone before the next filing, and companies that skip this step usually find out during a sale when the buyer's due diligence turns up an out-of-date register. Second, the Registrar's records are what banks, buyers and the Tax Authority rely on, so a company that has drifted out of date on the portal has a real commercial problem, not just an administrative one. If you are still deciding how to structure the company, the related question of whether you need an Israeli person involved at all is covered in our answer on whether an Israeli resident is required to start an Israeli company.

In Practice: Since 27 June 2024, under Amendment 35 to the Companies Law 5759-1999 and Amendment 2 to the Digital Communications with Public Bodies Law, every filing to the Registrar of Companies at the Corporations Authority must go through the online portal, with no manual alternative. Only an authorised reporting officer registered in Israel's national digital identity system or holding an advocate's smart card may file. A change of director must still reach the Registrar within 14 days under Section 223. Budget NIS 197 for the first signatory on the notarised power of attorney under the Notaries Regulations (Service Fees) 5738-1978, plus an apostille, and allow two to three weeks from signing abroad to the filing being accepted.

When to Consult a Lawyer

• A transaction has a filing deadline attached. Share transfers on a closing, a capital increase tied to an investment round, and a director change under the 14-day rule in Section 223 all fail if nobody with a valid credential is standing by, and a foreign signature plus apostille rarely turns around inside a fortnight.
• The company has not filed for several years. Unfiled annual reports accumulate fees and can lead the Registrar to mark the company as being in breach, which blocks the very filings you need to make to fix the position and can eventually put the company on the path to being struck off.
• Your authorised reporting officer has become unreachable. Where the appointed lawyer has retired, changed firms or fallen out with the shareholders, the company can be locked out of its own registry file, and re-designation itself requires an authenticated instruction from the board.

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Speak With an Israeli Attorney

We act as the authorised reporting officer for foreign-owned Israeli companies, hold the standing power of attorney, and keep the Registrar's file current so that filings tied to a closing or a statutory deadline actually go through.

Contact us for a confidential initial consultation.