There are now more than 10 million Israelis. The Central Bureau of Statistics put the country’s population at about 10,305,000 in its annual figures released ahead of Rosh Hashanah. Take out the 304,000 foreign nationals living here and what’s left is 7,828,000 Jews and others plus 2,173,000 Arabs. That comes to 10,001,000, the first time the count has cleared the line.
The photo shows what that density looks like on a sunny winter afternoon. Ben Gurion Boulevard in Haifa’s German Colony is packed from one sidewalk to the other, a slow crowd drifting downhill in jackets and sunglasses, a few kids riding on their parents’ hips. Hundreds of white woven orbs hang on cables over the street, and halfway down a Christmas tree is dressed in the same white balls. At the bottom the boulevard opens onto the port, with a cargo ship sitting in the bay and a crane over the waterfront. Haifa marks Hanukkah and Christmas side by side every December, and a mixed city is a fair place to picture a country that’s 78.3% Jews and others and 21.7% Arabs.
The headline number needs one clarification. Israel’s total population, foreigners included, went past 10 million back in late 2024. The milestone this week is the narrower one. A year ago, with foreign nationals set aside, the figure was 9.89 million.
Births still carry the growth
About 182,000 babies were born over the past Jewish year and about 50,000 people died. That natural increase of roughly 132,000 did nearly all the work. Net migration took about 8,000 off the total, leaving growth of around 124,000, or 1.2%. Last year’s report had growth at about 101,000 and 1%.
Israel’s fertility rate stands at 2.88 children per woman. The OECD average is 1.41. No other developed country comes close, and it’s the reason Israel keeps adding six figures a year while most of Europe shrinks. Life expectancy is 81.4 years for men and 85.9 for women.
The migration gap narrowed
On the inflow side, about 24,000 new immigrants arrived, another 4,000 came through family reunification and roughly 21,000 Israelis moved back after living abroad. Against that, 57,000 Israelis were counted as having emigrated. A year ago the bureau counted about 79,000 leaving and a net migration loss near 28,000, so the hole has shrunk to less than a third of that size.
The emigration figure lags. The bureau only classifies someone as an emigrant after most of a year abroad, so each year’s number includes people who actually left the year before. The spike that followed October 7 is still working its way through the data.
Returns are the soft spot. Under the bureau’s calendar-year count, 18,800 Israelis came back during 2025, down from 24,200 in 2024, while 69,500 were recorded as leaving. A Knesset Research and Information Center report published in August pointed to what keeps people away: long waits to get back onto state health insurance, and much less help from the state than new immigrants receive.
The foreign-national population also grew, to 304,000 from about 260,000 in last year’s report.
At the current pace, 11 million Israelis is less than a decade away.
Leave a Reply