Israel’s population growth rate falls to all-time low

For the first time ever, Israel’s annual growth rate falls below% amid declining birth rates, a rise in the number of deaths, and high levels of negative migration.

By World Israel News Staff

The annual growth rate of Israel’s population fell this year to the lowest level in the country’s history, according to a report released Wednesday by an Israeli think tank.

The analysis, published by the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies, projected that Israel’s annual population growth rate slipped below 1% in 2025.

With the exception of years with unusually high immigration, Israel has typically had growth rates of 1.5% to 2.5% per year, a trend that has remained relatively steady since 1950.

Only twice has the growth rate fallen below 1.5% per year, including the previous recorded lows of 1.42% in 1981, followed by another record low of 1.35% in 1983.

This year, however, according to the Taub Center report, growth fell to 0.9%, less than half the level recorded a decade ago, when annual growth still topped 2%.

The report’s authors pointed to three separate factors contributing to the total decline in population growth, including a rise in mortality, a significant increase in emigration from Israel, and lower fertility rates.

Life expectancy remains high in Israel, and has risen in recent years, the report found, averaging 83.7 years as of 2023, placing it in the top four of OECD countries, behind only Switzerland, Japan, and Spain.

Nevertheless, the absolute number of deaths has risen from 46,000 per year in 2018 to 51,000 last year, driven by the country’s age structure, with a large number of Israelis born during the period of high birth rates now entering their 70s and 80s.

The total number of deaths per year is expected to rise by 71% among Jews by the year 2040, and by 111% among Israeli Arabs.

The decline in Israel’s growth rate is also the result of a long-term downward trend in total fertility rates.

While Israel’s population has grown significantly over the past 20 years, rising from 7 million to 10 million – a 43% increase – the number of births has increased only moderately, from 144,000 live births to 181,000 – a 25.7% increase. Over the past few years, the absolute number of live births has plateaued, peaking at 185,000 in 2021, with fewer than 182,000 live births last year.

This decline was reported among all ethnic groups except Jews. Total fertility rates have declined sharply among Druze, Christian, and Muslim women since 2005, while the rate for Jewish women has stabilized at a level higher than in 2005.

Currently, Israeli Jewish women have a total fertility rate twice that of either Druze or Christian women, and 0.4 points higher than Muslims.

The Taub Center predicts that by the end of the 2030s, Jewish total fertility rates will decline across the board, with non-Orthodox Jewish women predicted to have a total fertility rate of 1.7 children per woman, compared to 2.3 children per woman in the national-religious sector, and a 4.3 TFR for ultra-Orthodox women.

A similar trend is projected for the Arab sector, with secular Arab women expected to have a TFR of 2.0, and religious Arab women a TFR of 2.7.

The largest direct factor in the decline in Israel’s population growth, however, came from negative migration, with the number of emigrants exceeding the number of immigrants this year by an estimated 37,000.

Last year, 26,000 more people left Israel than immigrated to it.

The bulk of the emigrés are former immigrants, with a large number of former residents of Eastern European countries. One in three Israeli citizens who left in 2025 was not Jewish according to Jewish law.

Although non-native Israelis made up the majority of those emigrating from Israel, the number of native-born citizens who departed also rose this past year, while the number of Israeli citizens moving back to Israel declined.