Against the backdrop of a war that continued through the past year, 69,300 Israelis chose to leave the country in 2025, compared with just 19,000 who returned. The figures emerge from data published Wednesday by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics to mark the start of the new civil year.
According to the CBS, Israel’s population currently stands at 10.178 million. Of these, 7,771,000 are Jews and others, accounting for 76.3% of the population; 2,147,000 are Arabs, or 21.1%; and 260,000 are foreign residents, or 2.6%.
During 2025, Israel’s population grew by about 112,000 people, an increase of 1.1%, which includes both natural population growth and migration. The growth rate was identical to that of 2024 but lower than in 2023. CBS said the primary reason was the high number of Israelis emigrating abroad.
The CBS data also address Israel’s international migration balance, defined as the difference between the number of people entering the country to live in Israel and the number leaving it. As of the end of 2025, the international migration balance was negative, at about 20,000.
The main factor behind the negative balance was emigration by Israeli residents. In 2025, 69,300 residents left Israel, while only 19,000 returned.
In addition, the CBS reported that the number of new immigrants stood at 24,600, about 8,000 fewer than in 2024. The number of people arriving through family reunification was 5,500, down about 2,500 from the previous year.
Israelis who emigrate are counted by the CBS only after spending a full year abroad and meeting two cumulative criteria: at least 275 days spent outside Israel during that year and a continuous initial period of at least three months abroad. As a result, the figure for emigrants in a given year also includes people who left Israel the previous year. Similarly, the 2024 emigration figures included those who left in 2023, and so on.
This method of counting explains the discrepancy between the CBS figures and data published earlier Wednesday by the Taub Center, which estimated Israel’s population growth at a lower rate of 0.9%.
The CBS data further show that about 182,000 babies were born in Israel over the past year. Approximately 76% were born to Jewish and other mothers, and about 24% to Arab mothers.
By contrast, about 50,000 residents died during 2025, around 2,000 fewer than in 2024, though still higher than the number of deaths recorded in 2023.