A reserve month costs the economy 68,000 shekels
On 25 August 2026 the chief economist at the Finance Ministry published an updated review of what reserve duty costs the Israeli economy. A month of reserve service by someone aged 31 to 39 costs about 68,000 shekels. For ages 22 to 30 the figure is about 39,000. The previous estimate, from 2024, was 54,000 and 33,000. That is a 26% increase for the older group and 18% for the younger one.
The review builds the number from four components. Output the worker would have produced while absent. Seniority and experience not accumulated, the kind that matters in the civilian labour market. Damage to the employment of a spouse, mostly in households with young children. And for conscripts, delayed academic studies.
The increase does not come from longer service. It comes from who serves. Reservists earn more than comparable workers who do not serve. In 2023, before the war, their average monthly wage was 18,841 shekels against 13,310 in the comparison group, a gap of 42%. The higher the pay of the person who is absent, the more output the economy loses.
The figure that concerns the self-employed
One number in the review lands directly on readers here. Self-employed people make up 8% of reservists, against 14% of the comparison group. The ministry ties the gap to the fact that the financial damage of being absent falls on a self-employed person directly and in full.
The logic is plain. A salaried reservist keeps drawing pay from an employer, and the employer is reimbursed by the National Insurance Institute. A self-employed person who shuts the business for three weeks stops earning for those three weeks, while fixed costs keep running. Rent, leasing, software subscriptions and tax advances do not pause for a call-up order.
How your benefit is set
Reserve pay for a self-employed person is not calculated from what the business actually earned in the month before service. It is calculated from the gross advances reported to the National Insurance Institute in the three months before service, divided by 90. The monthly advance itself is derived from gross annual income divided by 12.
That has a practical consequence. Someone whose advances sit below real profit, whether because revenue grew or because they asked to reduce advances during a slow stretch, receives a correspondingly low daily benefit. The daily ceiling is 1,730.33 shekels and the floor is 328.76 shekels, both effective 1 January 2026.
The gap closes later, though not immediately and not always in your favour. Once the Tax Authority issues the annual assessment, the National Insurance Institute recalculates. If the new figure is higher, the difference is paid automatically. If it is lower, a debt is created and collected. A benefit that looks generous in real time is not necessarily money you keep.
What is actually under your control
The advances. A self-employed person who knows their advances no longer reflect current profit can ask to have them updated at the National Insurance Institute. The request affects the months counted from that point on, so it is worth something only if it is early. After the call-up order arrives it no longer changes the three months being examined.
Keep the service confirmations and the benefit statements too. Reserve pay enters the assessment for that tax year, and that assessment is what feeds the recalculation. File a return without those details and the difference may surface only once it has become a debt.
For how National Insurance advances are set in the first place, and what moves them during the year, see the guide on bituach leumi for the self-employed.