Emigration of doctors, engineers, other highly educated Israelis hits record high

High-earning Israelis working in tech and healthcare are emigrating in sharply rising numbers, almost doubling over five years, a new study by the Israel Tax Authority has found.

The research by the Israel Tax Authority’s Planning and Economics Division, which examined incomes of Israeli emigrants over the past decade, found the rate at which affluent Israelis left the country increased sharply in 2023 and 2024 to record highs, and was almost double what it was until 2019.

The Israel Tax Authority analysis said that the brain drain disproportionately involves doctors, engineers and other highly educated, high-earning workers, who are in the primes of their careers.

“From all the indicators regarding Israelis recently leaving the country a consistent picture emerges: the pace of emigration among the strong and affluent strata of society increased, whereas among the weaker strata, the departure rate is almost unchanged,” said Dr. Ariel Greizaz and Nili Ben-Tovim, the authors of the study.

“An analysis of the emigrants’ incomes relative to the average income in the population reveals that previously, the emigrants’ income before leaving was similar to the average income in the economy, whereas today their income is about 50% higher – further evidence that in recent years, an affluent population has been emigrating from Israel.”

The authors of the study stated that it was difficult to determine whether this shift in the makeup of emigrants stemmed from major changes that occurred in society and the labor market following the COVID-19 pandemic, or whether it was a reaction to the political upheaval over the judicial overhaul and security events that started with the October 7 onslaught and war in Gaza that have been shaking Israel since 2023.

They warned that the sharply rising emigration of high-earning Israelis could cause tax revenue losses to the tune of an annual $3.5 billion.

The trend could turn into a spiral effect difficult to reverse, cautioned Itai Ater, an economics professor at Tel Aviv University’s Coller School of Management. “More Israelis, including many high-earners such as physicians and tech workers, are leaving Israel in recent years,” Ater told The Times of Israel. “It is crucial that we tackle this dangerous trend before it becomes too late.”

The study was published a day after prominent academic economist Dan Ben-David issued similar warnings to the Times of Israel, as reported in an editor’s column by David Horovitz and a ToI podcast.

The tax authority study came on the heels of a Tel Aviv University report released earlier this week which showed a record-setting trend of emigration from Israel continued in 2025, with nearly 50,000 Israelis leaving the country for the third year in a row.

Historically, much of Israel’s emigration has been framed around the pursuit of better economic opportunities abroad. The Tel Aviv University report attributed Israel’s prolonged military conflict and political tensions to driving elevated emigration that could threaten the country’s long-term strategic interests.

The research, which analyzed income levels and tax payments among working Israelis from 2015 to 2024, showed that up until 2019, income taxes paid by Israelis in the year before leaving the country amounted to an average of about NIS 500 million ($166 million) per year, while in 2023 and 2024 the amount jumped to about NIS 1.2 billion annually.

The authors of the study inferred from this that the outflow of Israeli citizens led to a potential loss in tax revenues of about NIS 700 million for each year of emigration. The Israel Tax Authority clarified that this does not represent an immediate loss of all tax revenue, as some emigrants keep their residency status and continue paying taxes in Israel after departure.

The average annual income of emigrants in the year before departure grew in real terms by about 60%, from about NIS 125,000 in the 2015 to 2019 period to about NIS 200,000 in 2024, according to the study.

“If this alarming trend continues at this rate, within five years, Israel could be losing NIS 3.5 billion in tax revenues every year,” said Greizaz and Ben-Tovim.

For a country where the top 20% of income earners are paying 92% of all income tax revenue, the change in the mix of Israelis leaving the country represents a significant strategic risk to state revenues and growth in the economy.

Israel is a small country with few natural resources whose growth and security depend heavily on human capital concentrated in specific sectors, led by tech, which accounts for about a fifth of gross domestic product (GDP) and more than half of exports, with a third of total income tax revenue generated from salaried tech employees.

An analysis across age groups showed that the share of Israelis leaving in their 40s and 50s grew by more than 50%, constituting about 20% of the emigrants over the age of 20, compared to only 13% a decade ago.

The share of the 30-40 age group bracket remained stable, while the share of 20-30 year-olds, with lower incomes and whose contribution to tax revenue is much lower, declined, the study showed.

“The increase in the age of emigrants affects total tax receipts in a non-linear way, because those aged 30-50 are the high-income earners and the primary taxpayers,” said Greizaz and Ben-Tovim.

For the purpose of the Israel Tax Authority study, an emigrant is defined as an Israeli resident who had lived in the country for at least three years and left for at least 90 consecutive days in the year of departure, and stayed outside Israel for at least 270 days in the following year.