SAEDNEWS: A Hebrew-language report says the wave of reverse migration from Israel has continued at a rapid pace, with young, highly educated and long-term residents accounting for a significant share of those leaving.
According to SaedNews: A report by the Hebrew-language Zman Yisrael says the wave of reverse migration from Israel that accelerated roughly two years ago is continuing at the same pace. Data on people who have definitively emigrated shows that more than half are between 20 and 44 years old and have above-average levels of education.
The report says about 69,000 Israelis left the country in 2025, while around 19,000 people who had previously left returned. It also challenges Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that most recent departures involved new immigrants from Russia and Ukraine who arrived after the Ukraine war and had not integrated into Israeli society.
A Knesset Research and Information Center report submitted to the Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs Committee in early June rejected that explanation. In 2022 and 2023, the number of established emigrants who had lived in Israel for at least two years was roughly twice that of people who left within two years of immigrating.
In 2024, Israel-born residents accounted for 52 percent of definitive emigrants, while roughly half of those leaving since 2022 were aged 20 to 44. In 2023, about 51,000 non-new emigrants—people born in Israel or who had lived there for at least five years—left, a 53 percent increase from 2021.
The report also found that in 2022, 20,124 people who had arrived less than two years earlier left, compared with 39,241 who had already lived in Israel for more than two years. In 2023, the corresponding figures were 27,973 and 54,791.
Education figures show another striking gap. In 2022, 33.2 percent of those leaving held bachelor’s degrees, compared with 21.5 percent of the overall population. Master’s degree holders represented 23.5 percent, against 11.9 percent nationally, while those with doctorates accounted for 3.7 percent, compared with just 0.8 percent of the population. The report therefore puts the proportion of PhD holders among emigrants at about four and a half times their share of the wider population.
According to the report, this pattern suggests selective migration involving people with strong prospects in the global labor market, a group that Israel’s economy may find difficult to replace.
Israel’s National Insurance data showed that the largest number of requests to formally end residency in 2025 came from people aged 31 to 40, with 2,259 applications. Only 565 involved new immigrants, meaning fewer than one-quarter; the remainder were long-term residents.
Meanwhile, official statistics published at the end of 2025 showed about 69,000 departures and roughly 19,000 returns. The Central Bureau of Statistics uses a restrictive definition of an emigrant: a person must remain abroad for at least three consecutive months and then nine intermittent months during the following year. The actual number of people leaving may therefore be higher than the official figure.
At the same time, new immigration has declined. Around 24,600 new immigrants arrived in 2025, down from approximately 32,500 in 2024. Thus, departures remained high while new arrivals fell. Overall, about 26,000 more people definitively emigrated than the combined number of new immigrants and returning residents, a trend the report says has continued for several years.
