Israeli Survivor Benefits Navigator

Israeli Survivor Benefits Navigator

Legal notice

This is a free information tool operated by an AI model. It explains the rules and calculates from the figures you enter, but it does not examine your full circumstances and does not constitute advice. All of its outputs are produced automatically, with no involvement, review, or approval by an authorised National Insurance representative, and an AI model may err, omit data, or present a wrong conclusion. Eligibility and the amount are determined solely by the National Insurance Institute. This tool is not a substitute for advice that takes account of the particular circumstances and needs of each person, and all use of its output is the user's sole responsibility.

Problem

When someone dies in Israel, the family is usually entitled to several payments at once, but almost none of them arrive automatically. The survivor's allowance from Bituach Leumi, the survivor's pension from the deceased's pension fund, and life-insurance or provident-fund payouts each have a different form, a different institution, and a different deadline, and many families never claim money they are owed. This skill maps the whole maze: it checks who is eligible, estimates the monthly survivor's allowance from the current rate table, and lists the exact forms to file with each institution.

Instructions

You produce three deliverables: (1) an eligibility report, (2) an estimated monthly survivor's-allowance amount, and (3) a filing checklist mapping each benefit to its form and institution. All figures below are effective 01.01.2026 and are re-indexed every January, so verify the current-year amount at btl.gov.il before quoting it. Never invent a figure.

Step 1: Establish the facts you need

Ask HOW the person died before anything else, because the cause selects the track and the tracks are not interchangeable: an ordinary death goes to the survivor's allowance; a work accident or occupational disease goes to the dependents' allowance (Step 4); a death in a hostile act (terror attack, rocket, ramming) goes to the hostile-action compensation track, which Bituach Leumi also runs but under a separate law and at a different, higher rate, so form 410 is the wrong form there; a death in IDF service goes to the Ministry of Defence rehabilitation department, outside Bituach Leumi entirely; and a road-accident death also opens a claim against the motor insurer, from which Bituach Leumi payments are then deducted.

Then ask for: who died and their relationship to the survivor; whether the survivor is a widow or widower and their age; the number and ages of children; whether the death was work-related (a work accident or occupational disease); whether the deceased had a pension fund, provident fund (kupat gemel), or life-insurance policy; and whether the survivor already receives an old-age (vatik) pension.

Step 2: Who is a "she'er" (eligibility)

The Bituach Leumi survivor's allowance requires ALL of: the deceased was insured for survivors' insurance at death, completed a qualifying (akhshara) period, the claimant is counted among the deceased's she'erim, and there are no insurance-contribution arrears.

Who counts as a widow/widower. A widow or widower is a spouse who was either MARRIED to the deceased OR a common-law partner (ידוע/ה בציבור, including a same-sex partner) who lived with the deceased under one roof, and who meets one of these: they were married or cohabiting for at least 1 year before the death; OR at least 6 months if she/he was 55 or older when the deceased died; OR they had a shared child with the deceased (a shared child waives the duration requirement).

A widow who lived apart from the deceased is not automatically excluded. She must also meet one of: the separation lasted less than 36 months; they lived together during the last year of his life or part of it; during that last year, or part of it, he paid her maintenance (mezonot) or owed it under a judgment or a written agreement; or he received an increment for her in his old-age or disability pension. Ask about separation before telling anyone they are out.

• A widow is entitled by law, with no income test.
• A widower (male) is subject to an income test, but ONLY if he has no qualifying child. Bituach Leumi states it plainly: if the widower has a child who meets the orphan definition, no income test is carried out at all. Where there is no such child, he is entitled if his total income is up to 7,848 NIS a month, after deducting 2,093 NIS from income from work (employee or self-employed), pension, or a monthly income first paid at retirement age. Income is measured over the 12 months before the month of his wife's death (including that month), or over the calendar year in which she died. If a widower's income later rises above the ceiling the allowance stops and he is paid the survivor grant instead; if his income falls again, entitlement is re-examined and the grant already paid is deducted from the renewed allowance.
• Orphans (child cutoffs). Use the full official list, not a flat "up to 18". A child counts while ANY of these holds: under 18; under 20 and finishing secondary school or studying for a bagrut, or with a learning disability in a framework recognised by Bituach Leumi; under 20 and in a pre-military mechina or a recognised IDF pre-military framework (kadatz / tratz); under 20 and studying at least 20 weekly hours in an institution approved by law (yeshiva gvoha, university, college, vocational training); under 21 and volunteering for a public purpose for up to 12 months with the draft deferred because of it; under 24 and doing regular service in the IDF (entitlement runs for 36 months); under 24 and volunteering in national service in a framework recognised by Bituach Leumi; under 24 and in the atuda with the draft deferred for the studies. These cutoffs drive the child increment in the allowance, so a 22-year-old orphan in regular army service still counts.

Qualifying (akhshara) period. The deceased must have accrued one of: 12 insurance months in the year immediately before death; OR 24 insurance months (consecutive or not) in the 5 years before death; OR 60 insurance months in the 10 years before death; OR 144 insurance months in total; OR the resident-ratio route (60 insurance months since first becoming an Israeli resident, provided the uninsured months do not exceed the insured months). No akhshara is required at all when the deceased was an insured worker and died within a year of becoming a resident, died before age 19, was the primary breadwinner, or (for a woman) died within a year of divorce or widowhood.

If the deceased was never insured because he immigrated late, use the special allowance instead. A resident who came to Israel after the set age (60 to 62 depending on his birth month) was never insured for survivors' insurance, so his widow and children claim the special survivors' allowance (gimla she'erim meyuchedet) on form 4506 rather than the ordinary allowance. It is paid at the ordinary rates without the seniority increment. Do not turn this family away at the akhshara test.

If akhshara or contribution arrears sink the claim, there is still a fallback. Bituach Leumi may pay a discretionary grant on equitable grounds (הענקה מטעמי צדק) to a survivor who fails the qualifying-period or arrears condition. Never close the file on "the deceased was not properly insured" without pointing the family at it.

File within 12 months. The survivor's-allowance claim should be filed no later than 12 months from the date of death. If it is filed later, the allowance can be paid retroactively only for a period of up to 12 months, so late filing forfeits earlier back-payment. Do not let a family delay the claim.

Step 3: Estimate the survivor's allowance (ordinary track)

Use the current rate table. The amount is set by the widow(er)'s age and the number of children with them:

Per-orphan bases in special cases (parent not entitled: 1,142 for a single child, 862 each when more than one; orphan of both parents: 2,284 per child). There is no cap on the number of eligible children.

Orphan subsistence allowance (dmei michya, דמי מחיה) -- a SEPARATE monthly payment on top of the allowance, and the one families most often miss. It is paid for an orphan who is studying, from 9th grade (after 8 years of compulsory schooling) until age 20, at least 24 weekly hours in a school, university, college, vocational institution, or yeshiva gvoha, and whose upkeep is not at state expense. The amount depends on whether the parent draws the survivor's allowance:

An orphan of both parents drawing two survivors' allowances gets dmei michya TWICE. Payment is income-tested on the parent's and the orphan's income: the ceiling for full dmei michya for a parent with one qualifying orphan is 15,696 NIS gross a month, plus 964 for each additional child. Claim on form 2910. A widow(er) can claim dmei michya for a child even when no child increment is paid for that child.

Income supplement (tosefet hashlamat hachnasa) -- the single largest uplift on this page, and one families rarely ask for by name. A survivor with little or no other income is paid a much higher combined monthly amount, banded by age. Claim on form 430 together with (or after) form 410. Amounts effective 01.01.2026:

These are the TOTAL monthly allowance including the supplement, not an addition to the base rows above. Always test for it before quoting a family the bare 1,381 or 1,838. Receiving the supplement is also the key that opens a second layer of discounts, on arnona, electricity, water, the TV fee, telephone, medicines and HMO co-payments, plus rent assistance and a heating grant in eligible areas, so it is worth claiming even when the cash gap looks small. The arnona discount for a survivor's-allowance recipient is discretionary for each local authority and is never automatic: it has to be claimed at the municipality with the Bituach Leumi entitlement letter, and the rate and the capped floor area differ between authorities. Separately, a widow(er) raising children with no new partner is treated as a single-parent household (horeh atzmai) for the benefits that status carries.

Old-age (vatik) pension interaction. A widow(er) who is entitled to both an old-age pension and a survivor's allowance is paid the old-age pension in full PLUS half of the survivor's allowance (if they accrued the old-age qualifying period as an insured worker). The 919 figure is specifically half of the childless-50+ base (half of 1,838). A widow(er) WITH children is paid half of the higher with-children rate, so 919 is NOT a universal half-allowance figure. A survivor who has NOT accrued that qualifying period but is insured for old age is paid the FULL survivor's allowance instead, and moves to full old-age plus half the survivor's allowance once the period is completed. A widowed homemaker drawing an old-age pension is not paid the extra half at all, and at 70 she chooses between the old-age pension and the survivor's allowance.

Any OTHER Bituach Leumi allowance is a CHOICE, not an addition. The full-plus-half rule above is specific to the old-age pension. A survivor entitled to the survivor's allowance and also to another National Insurance allowance, general disability (nechut klalit), work-disability, or the work-injury dependents' allowance, cannot receive more than one and must choose between them. Two consequences to state out loud: if the parent chooses general disability the CHILDREN keep the survivor's allowance, and the children are always paid the higher of the amounts; and a survivor who chose general disability can have the survivor's allowance revived at retirement age, or when the disability entitlement lapses for a reason other than remarriage.

Then add the seniority increment (tosefet vetek): 2% of the base per full insurance year the deceased accrued (from the first year), up to a maximum of 50%. A full insurance year is 12 insurance months.

A widow(er) under 40 with no children usually gets a one-time survivor grant (36 monthly allowances) rather than a monthly allowance. This is not absolute. The under-40 childless survivor still gets a monthly allowance if she/he is pregnant with, or later bears, the deceased's child (a shared child means she/he is treated as a widow(er) with a child, entitled from the date of death), and, in the work-related-death (dependents') track, if she was unable to support herself from work at the time of the death (she is then paid a monthly allowance regardless of her age, as if she were 50). So do not flatly rule out a monthly amount here: present the grant as the usual outcome, note these exception paths, and point to Bituach Leumi for the determination.

Run scripts/estimate_survivor_allowance.py --age <age> --orphans <n> --seniority-years <y> to produce the estimate (add --exception-eligible for the under-40 childless case when an exception above applies). On a host that cannot run scripts (ZIP-upload platforms such as ChatGPT, Claude.ai, Claude Desktop or Manus), do not skip the estimate and do not report a tool error: compute it by hand from the table above, base plus 2% per insurance year capped at 50%. Present it clearly as an estimate only.

Step 4: Work-related death branch (dependents' allowance)

If the death resulted from a work accident or occupational disease, the family claims the dependents' allowance (kitzvat tluyim) instead of the survivor's allowance. It is higher, has no income test, and you cannot receive both for the same death. It is a percentage of a full (100%) work-disability pension, which is 75% of the deceased's wage in the three months before the injury (capped so the full pension does not exceed 39,428 NIS):

The widow(er) rows above are only part of the official table. Two further sub-tables apply when there is no entitled surviving parent, or when the dependants are not a spouse and children:

Two age exceptions on the widow(er) rows: a childless widow(er) under 50 is still paid the monthly 60% rate, at any age, when she cannot support herself; and a widow who was pregnant at the death is treated as unable to support herself and paid 60% until the birth, then 80% (the widow-plus-one-child rate) afterwards.

Run the estimator with --work-related --wage <deceased monthly gross wage>, or, on a host without script execution, compute it by hand: 75% of the deceased's monthly wage (capped so the full pension does not exceed 39,428), multiplied by the percentage from the table that matches the family.

Step 5: One-time grants and burial

• Death grant (menak petira): one-time 10,514 NIS to the spouse of a deceased who received old-age, income-support, general-disability, special-services, work-injury, survivors, or prisoners-of-Zion benefits (to the child if no spouse). Usually automatic; the survivor's-allowance claim (form 410) already includes it.
• Survivor grant (menak she'erim): one-time = 36 monthly allowances, for a widow(er) under 40 with no children (and certain income cases).
• Marriage grant (menak nisuim) on remarriage: remarriage (or entering a new common-law relationship) TERMINATES the survivor's allowance. In exchange the widow(er) receives a one-time marriage grant equal to 36 monthly allowances, paid in two installments: 18 monthly allowances after the marriage, and the remaining 18 about two years later. The allowance can instead be CONTINUED if the new spouse's income is below the ceiling (7,848 NIS) AND he is either 60 or older or cannot support himself, and it is REINSTATED if the widow(er) divorces (or starts divorce proceedings) within 10 years of remarrying. Report a remarriage on form 408.
• Bar/bat mitzvah grant (menak bar mitzva): a one-time 7,009 NIS paid for an orphan drawing a survivor's allowance, at age 12 for a girl and 13 for a boy. It is paid automatically, with no form. An orphan of both parents who draws two survivors' allowances gets the grant twice. Families almost never ask for it by name, so raise it whenever there is a child near that age.
• Annual study grant (menak limudim): paid each August for children of a survivor's- or dependents'-allowance recipient, into the account that receives the child allowance. Automatic, no form.
• Vocational rehabilitation and a training living allowance for widows and widowers: Bituach Leumi's rehabilitation department funds retraining (tuition, travel, books, a rehabilitation officer) and pays a monthly living allowance during the training, for a widow(er) who needs to return to the labour market. For someone widowed in mid-life this is frequently worth more than the allowance itself, and it is the entitlement families are least likely to know exists. Apply through the branch's rehabilitation department, not with form 410.
• Balance of the deceased's own allowance: if the deceased was drawing an old-age pension, the unpaid balance for the month of death is claimed by the survivors on the same claim as the death grant.
• Burial fees (dmei kvura): Bituach Leumi pays burial costs and customary services directly to the Chevra Kadisha, so basic burial is free to the family.

Step 6: Pension fund and insurance (separate from Bituach Leumi)

• Pension-fund survivor's pension (pensiyat she'erim): claim directly from the deceased's pension fund. Rates are set by each fund's takanon, not by statute. First ask whether the deceased was still depositing at the date of death, and if not, since when. In a new comprehensive fund the survivors' pension is risk cover, not accrued savings: when deposits stop, the cover continues only for a short automatic period and then lapses unless a risk arrangement (hesder risk) was made, which leaves the family with the accumulated balance to the beneficiaries and no monthly pension at all. The member's chosen insurance track can also carry reduced or no survivors' cover. Never quote a percentage before confirming the cover was live. In the veteran Amitim funds the published split is 60% of the pension to the spouse, 20% to an orphan, 40% to an orphan of both parents and 15% to a dependent parent, capped at 100% of the pension in total. Other funds differ, so ask the specific fund. Use "הר הביטוח" (Har HaBituach, run by the Capital Market Authority, at https://harb.cma.gov.il/) to locate all of the deceased's insurance policies and pension products, and "הר הכסף" (Har HaKesef, at https://itur.mof.gov.il/) to trace lost or dormant pension savings, life-insurance policies, and bank accounts.
• Budgetary pension (pensiya taktzivit): if the deceased was a state, IDF, police or local-authority pensioner on a budgetary (non-funded) pension, the survivors' pension comes from the paying body under its own rules, not from a pension fund, and a one-time grant to the spouse may also apply. Ask which of the two tracks the deceased was on before sending anyone to a fund.
• Severance pay to survivors (pitzuyei piturim le-she'erim): under section 5 of the Severance Pay Law, when an employee dies in service the employer pays severance to the survivors as if it had dismissed him, separately from anything Bituach Leumi or the fund pays, and it commonly runs to tens of thousands of shekels. Section 5 has its OWN definition of she'er, not the Bituach Leumi one: the spouse (including a common-law partner who lived with him, where a genuine family relationship existed) and a child who is a dependant under the National Insurance Law, and failing those, dependent children, parents or siblings who lived in his household. Nothing in the form-410 flow triggers this, and part of the sum may already sit in the pension fund's severance component, so raise it with the employer before the family closes the employment file.
• Provident fund / life insurance (kupat gemel, keren hishtalmut, bituach chayim): claim directly from the manager/insurer. Under section 147 of the Inheritance Law these sums are outside the estate and go to the registered beneficiaries (motavim) in the policy, overriding the will. If no beneficiary is registered, the money falls into the estate and needs a succession/probate order. There is a clock on the insurance side that the Bituach Leumi 12-month rule does not cover. Under section 31 of the Insurance Contract Law a claim for insurance benefits prescribes 3 years after the insured event, and 5 years for life, illness-and-hospitalisation, and long-term-care policies where the contract was made or renewed from 25.11.2020 (older contracts keep the 3-year period). Since this skill sends families to Har HaBituach and Har HaKesef to hunt for forgotten policies, a policy found years later may already be time-barred: if the period is close to expiring, send them to a lawyer immediately rather than assuming that writing to the insurer is enough to hold it open.

Step 7: Build the filing checklist

Map each applicable benefit to its form and institution (see references/forms-and-filing.md): survivor's allowance → form 410 (Bituach Leumi, also covers the death grant and the balance of the deceased's own allowance); special survivors' allowance → 4506; orphan living allowance → 2910; income supplement → 430, with the income declaration on 412; dependents' allowance (work-related) → 213; remarriage report → 408; vocational rehabilitation → the branch's rehabilitation department; pension → the pension fund; gemel/insurance → the manager/insurer; severance → the employer; arnona discount → the municipality.

Tell the family when the money actually starts. The allowance is paid on the 28th of each month for that month. It runs from the 1st of the month of death where the survivors are entitled to the income supplement; where they are not, from the 1st of the month of death if the death was before the 16th, and from the 1st of the following month if it was after the 15th. Where the deceased was drawing an old-age or disability pension, it runs from the 1st of the month after the month of death.

For any complex case (contested eligibility, work-injury proof, large estates, disputed beneficiaries), recommend consulting a pension advisor or a lawyer. State the facts, but do not tell the user they can skip professional advice.

Bundled Resources

• references/survivor-allowance-rates.md: the full current-year rate table with source URLs and the 01.01.2026 effective date.
• references/forms-and-filing.md: each benefit mapped to its Bituach Leumi form number and institution.
• references/domain-checklist.md: the Must/Should/Out-of-scope coverage contract for this domain.
• scripts/estimate_survivor_allowance.py: estimates the monthly amount from the encoded rate table (--help, --example).
• evidence.json: every figure and claim with its verbatim official-source snippet.

Recommended MCP Servers

Reference Links

• Bituach Leumi survivors section (index): https://www.btl.gov.il/benefits/Survivors_%20Insurance/Pages/default.aspx
• Survivor's allowance amounts (widow/widower): https://www.btl.gov.il/benefits/Survivors_%20Insurance/shiuraihakizba/Pages/k.almanim.aspx
• Dependents' allowance (work-related death) rates: https://www.btl.gov.il/benefits/Work_Injury/זכויות%20בני%20משפחה%20של%20נפטר%20מפגיעה%20בעבודה/Pages/שיעורי%20הגמלה.aspx
• Bituach Leumi survivor's-allowance eligibility check: https://www.btl.gov.il/Simulators/Pages/SherimCalc.aspx
• Kol-Zchut survivor's allowance: https://www.kolzchut.org.il/he/קצבת_שאירים
• Har HaBituach (insurance + pension locator, Capital Market Authority): https://harb.cma.gov.il/
• Har HaKesef (lost pension savings, life-insurance policies, and bank accounts, Finance Ministry): https://itur.mof.gov.il/
• Section 147 of the Inheritance Law (beneficiaries vs the estate): https://he.wikisource.org/wiki/חוק_הירושה

Gotchas

• Do not confuse the survivor's allowance (קצבת שאירים) with the dependents' allowance (קצבת תלויים). The dependents' allowance is the work-related-death track only, it is higher, it has no income test, and you cannot receive both for the same death.
• Benefits do not start automatically, with a short and specific list of exceptions: the death grant, the bar/bat mitzvah grant, the annual study grant, and burial fees. Everything else requires an active claim, on a specific form, to a specific institution. Name the automatic ones as automatic rather than telling a family to file for them.
• Ask how the person died before filling in any form. A death in a hostile act sits in a different Bituach Leumi track, not the survivor's allowance, and a death in IDF service is not a Bituach Leumi matter at all but a Ministry of Defence rehabilitation one.
• Never use one flat allowance figure. The amount depends on the widow(er)'s age band AND the number of children AND the seniority increment; use the full table.
• For a provident fund, pension fund, or life-insurance policy, the registered beneficiary designation overrides the will (section 147). Do not assume the money follows the will or the heirs.
• A widow(er) already drawing an old-age (vatik) pension is paid the old-age pension IN FULL PLUS half of the survivor's allowance (not "half instead of both"). The 919 NIS figure is only half of the childless-50+ base; a widow(er) with children gets half of the higher with-children rate. A widowed homemaker at absolute pension age instead picks the higher of the two. Check the applicable base before estimating.
• Remarriage (or a new common-law relationship) ends the survivor's allowance and triggers a one-time marriage grant of 36 monthly allowances (paid 18 + 18, the second part about two years later). The allowance continues if the new spouse is 60+ or cannot support himself with income below the ceiling, and is reinstated on divorce within 10 years of remarrying.
• File the survivor's-allowance claim within 12 months of the death. Later filing limits back-payment to the last 12 months.

Troubleshooting

• If a current-year amount cannot be confirmed on btl.gov.il, present the eligibility and forms but omit the number and point the user to the official calculator; never guess a figure.
• If the claim is REJECTED, the family has 12 months from the day it received the written decision to appeal to the regional labour court (beit ha-din ha-ezori la-avoda) nearest its home; an appeal against the labour court's own judgment goes to the national labour court within 30 days. A medical-committee decision goes first to an appeals committee, and only then to the labour court and only on points of law. Say the deadline out loud, and recommend a lawyer, because this clock forfeits the entitlement exactly like the filing clock.
• If the user asks about burial logistics, death certificates, closing bank accounts, notifying institutions, or transferring assets, route them to israeli-estate-settlement-navigator.
• If the user asks how to write a will or obtain a succession (ירושה) or probate (קיום צוואה) order, route them to israeli-wills-inheritance.
• If the question is about general, non-death Bituach Leumi navigation, route to israeli-bituach-leumi; for pension planning while alive, route to israeli-pension-advisor.
• For contested eligibility, work-injury proof, or disputed beneficiaries, recommend a pension advisor or lawyer.