Unpaid wages in Israel: claiming salary, overtime, pension contributions and recuperation pay

Office in Kiryat Ono, in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area; Hebrew and English.

My employer has not paid my salary: what do I do, step by step?

1. Keep what you have: payslips, attendance reports, bank statements and the pension fund's report. You do not need to send any document before we have spoken.
2. Compare, month by month, what was actually paid with what was due: wages, overtime, pension contributions and recuperation pay.
3. Send the employer a letter of demand setting out which components were not paid and for which period.
4. If payment does not follow, file a claim in the Regional Labour Court (section 24(a)(1) of the Labour Court Law).
5. Act quickly on the delayed-wage compensation: the right to it is time-barred one year after the day the wages are treated as delayed, or 60 days after the day you received the wages, whichever is earlier (section 17A(a) of the Wage Protection Law).

Where to turn?

• The Regional Labour Court — for the claim itself.
• The Ministry of Labour — accepts complaints against employers for breach of the labour laws, alongside the proceedings in the Labour Court.
• The pension fund or provident fund — for a report showing what was actually deposited, and when.
• The National Insurance Institute — where an order has been made against the employer in insolvency proceedings: a benefit in respect of the wage debt and the severance pay, up to a ceiling set by law (sections 182–183 of the National Insurance Law). The details are in the guide to late payment of wages (Hebrew).

When are wages treated as "delayed"?

Under section 9 of the Wage Protection Law, 5718-1958 (חוק הגנת השכר, התשי״ח-1958), wages paid on a monthly basis are due at the end of the month for which they are paid. "Delayed wages" are wages not paid by the "determining day" — the ninth day after the date for payment (section 1). So a month's salary not paid by the ninth day of the following month is delayed wages. An employee who has stopped working is paid on the date on which the wages would have been paid had the employee continued to work (section 12).

The definition is broad. "Wages" include payments for holidays, productivity and overtime, and other payments due to the employee by reason of the work and in the course of it (section 1). An amount the employer owes a provident fund, such as a pension fund — whether deducted from the employee's wages or owed by the employer directly — is also treated as delayed wages if it was not paid to the fund within 21 days of the day on which the related wages are, or would have been, treated as delayed; this applies even when the wages themselves were paid on time (section 19A(a)).

Non-payment is also a criminal matter: an employer who did not pay wages by the determining day, and does not prove that the non-payment resulted from a circumstance outside its control, commits an offence (section 25B(b1)).

What is delayed-wage compensation, and when may the court reduce it?

The higher of the following two amounts is added to delayed wages as "delayed-wage compensation" (פיצוי הלנת שכר; section 17(a) of the Wage Protection Law):

• 5% of the delayed wages for the first week after the date for payment, and 10% for each further week or part of a week; or
• linkage differentials to the consumer price index from the date for payment until the day of payment, plus 20% for each month on the total of the delayed wages and the linkage differentials (proportionally for part of a month).

The Regional Labour Court may reduce the compensation or cancel it if it is satisfied that the wages were not paid on time because of a bona fide error, because of a circumstance over which the employer had no control, or because of a genuine dispute about the very existence of the debt — provided that the amount not in dispute was paid on time (section 18). So there is no amount that can be known in advance.

Severance pay has a separate arrangement: it is treated as delayed if it is not paid within 15 days of the date it fell due, and the compensation for its delay is calculated differently (section 20). A detailed explanation with examples is in the guide to late payment of wages (Hebrew). Sections 17 and 18 are available in English on the key statutory provisions page (unofficial translation; the Hebrew text governs), and severance pay itself is covered on the severance pay page.

My employer did not pay overtime: what is due, and how is it proven?

Under section 16(a) of the Hours of Work and Rest Law, 5711-1951 (חוק שעות עבודה ומנוחה, התשי״א-1951), the employer pays, as a rule, at least 125% of the regular wage for the first two overtime hours in a day, and at least 150% for each overtime hour after that. Pay for work during the weekly rest is, as a rule, at least 150% of the regular wage (section 17). For these purposes the "regular wage" includes all the supplements the employer pays (section 18).

For an employee to whom the Hours of Work and Rest Law applies, a "global" salary set as "including overtime" is treated as a regular wage only, and the overtime pay is due on top of it — unless a collective agreement approved for that purpose provides otherwise (section 5 of the Wage Protection Law). The Hours of Work and Rest Law does not apply, among others, to employees in management positions or in positions that require a special degree of personal trust, or to employees whose conditions of work do not allow the employer any supervision of their hours of work and rest (section 30(a)(5)–(6)).

What about proof? In a wage claim in which the hours of work are in dispute, an employer who did not produce attendance records from a working-hours register, to the extent that it is required to keep one, bears the burden of proving that the employee was not at the disposal of the work during those hours. For overtime, the burden shifts to the employer for up to 15 overtime hours a week or 60 a month (section 26B(a)–(b) of the Wage Protection Law). So keep any record of your hours. More on the calculation in the guide to overtime pay (Hebrew).

My employer did not pay into my pension or did not pay recuperation pay: what can I do?

Pension. Under the extension order on increasing pension insurance contributions in the economy (2016), since the wages for January 2017 the employer contributes at least 6.5% to the benefits component (tagmulim) and 6% to the severance component, and the employee 6%. The first check is a comparison between the payslip and the pension fund's report, month by month: what was deducted, what was contributed and what actually reached the fund.

Where an amount did not reach the fund, section 19A of the Wage Protection Law treats it as delayed wages, as explained above, and adds delayed-wage compensation to it (section 19A(b)). An employer who deducted amounts from an employee's wages and did not transfer them to the body for which they were intended commits an offence (section 25B(c)).

Recuperation pay. The right to recuperation pay (דמי הבראה) derives from the extension order on employer participation in recuperation and holiday expenses. An employee is entitled to it after completing one year of work with the employer; the number of recuperation days rises with seniority, and the payment is proportional to the scope of the position. In the private sector, the order sets 5 days for the first year, 6 days for each of the second and third years, 7 for the fourth to tenth, 8 for the 11th to 15th, 9 for the 16th to 19th and 10 from the 20th year; for the 2026 recuperation year, a recuperation day is valued at ILS 451.50. Where the employer did not give a payslip, or gave one that did not include a recuperation-pay component, there is a presumption that the wages paid were a regular wage that did not include it, unless the employer proves otherwise (section 26B(c) of the Wage Protection Law). The contribution rates, and how to check them against the fund, are covered in the guide to mandatory pension contributions (Hebrew).

What should I keep, and how do I start: a letter of demand or a claim?

You do not need to send any document before we have spoken. Just find and keep what you have:

• payslips — where you have them, from previous years too;
• attendance reports, or any other record of your working hours: a diary, emails and messages;
• the employment contract, or the notice to the employee of the terms of employment;
• bank statements, which show when the wages actually arrived and in what amount;
• an annual or quarterly report from the pension fund or provident fund;
• correspondence with the employer about the wages.

The first step is usually a clear letter of demand: it sets out which components were not paid and for which period, and gives the employer an opportunity to pay before proceedings begin. If payment does not follow, the claim goes to the Regional Labour Court: under section 24(a)(1) of the Labour Court Law, 5729-1969 (חוק בית הדין לעבודה, התשכ״ט-1969), and section 26A(a) of the Wage Protection Law, that court has exclusive jurisdiction over a claim by an employee against an employer arising from the employment relationship. The stages and time limits of the proceedings are set out in the guide to Labour Court procedure (Hebrew). Alongside the proceedings in the Labour Court, the Ministry of Labour also accepts complaints against employers for breach of the labour laws.

How long do I have to file a wage claim?

Under sections 5(1) and 6 of the Prescription Law, 5718-1958 (חוק ההתיישנות, התשי״ח-1958), a wage claim is, as a rule, time-barred seven years after the day the cause of action arose. But some rights expire much sooner:

In practice: someone who received the wages late and waits may lose the delayed-wage compensation even while the wages themselves can still be claimed.

And once a claim has been filed? According to the Judicial Authority's annual report for 2023, the average life of a case in the Labour Courts was 12.2 months in a labour dispute before a judge, 8.3 months in a labour dispute before a registrar, and 5.4 months in an expedited-hearing case. That is an average for each type of case, not a promise about any particular case. The stages and time limits are set out in the guide to Labour Court procedure (Hebrew).

How does this practice handle a wage claim?

Yaron Meiri is a lawyer and a certified public accountant, a member of the Israel Bar Association and of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants in Israel. So the calculation — what was not paid, in which month and in which component — and the legal analysis are done by the same person, from the payslips and attendance reports themselves. The accounting review is part of the legal service and is not a separate accounting engagement. No outcome, and no length of proceedings, can be promised in advance.

The practice is independent and deliberately small: your matter is handled by the person you meet at the first meeting, from the first letter to the judgment or the settlement.

1. Contact. On WhatsApp, by phone or through the form. Say briefly what was not paid and for which period. Documents come after we have spoken.
2. First call. We go through the facts and say frankly whether there is a legal matter here, which documents are needed, and whether this is the right practice for it.
3. Calculation and plan. If we go ahead: a calculation of the unpaid components against the law, the extension orders and the contract, and then a letter of demand or a claim — depending on the circumstances and the timetable.

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This page is general information about Israeli employment law, written for English-speaking readers. It is not legal advice, does not create an attorney-client relationship, and is no substitute for advice on your own facts. The governing text of every statute cited is the Hebrew original. Past results do not guarantee similar results in the future.