General information, current as of 2026; not legal or tax advice. The links below go to official US government sources.
1. Social Security: You Can Still Collect It Here
US citizens can receive Social Security payments while living in Israel, which is not a restricted country. The US Embassy’s Federal Benefits Unit in Jerusalem handles retirement, survivors, and disability claims for residents of Israel.
- US Embassy Jerusalem, Social Security (il.usembassy.gov/social-security)
- SSA Office of International Operations (ssa.gov/foreign)
The trap nobody mentions. There is no US-Israel Social Security totalization agreement. If you are self-employed in Israel, you can be taxed for Social Security on both sides with no credit. Worth a conversation with a cross-border accountant. (Confirm Israel is absent from the official list at ssa.gov/international/agreements.)
2. US Taxes: You File Every Year, for Life
US citizens and green-card holders file a US return no matter where they live. Two filings surprise people.
- FBAR (FinCEN Form 114), if your foreign accounts total over $10,000 at any point in the year (fincen.gov)
- Form 8938 (FATCA), with higher thresholds for those living abroad (irs.gov FATCA summary)
- Behind on filing? The official catch-up path is the IRS Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures (irs.gov streamlined page)
- IRS overview for citizens abroad (irs.gov)
3. Medicare: It Does Not Cover You in Israel
Medicare almost never pays for care outside the US. If you keep Part B, you pay premiums for coverage you cannot use here; if you drop it and later move back, you face late-enrollment penalties for life. Make this choice on purpose, not by default.
- Medicare coverage outside the US (medicare.gov/coverage/travel)
4. The Part the Government Pages Never Mention
Social Security, taxes, and Medicare are the known worries. The one almost no American family in Israel has handled is this question. If you are incapacitated, or you die, what happens to your US assets, the IRA, the brokerage, the house back home?
- If you have a stroke and cannot sign, who can touch your US accounts? A US bank will not honor a foreign document, and your children cannot simply step in. Without the right US power of attorney, the answer is a US court, from 6,000 miles away.
- When you die, your US assets pass through US probate in the state where they sit, public, slow, and expensive, unless they are structured not to.
- If you or your spouse is not a US citizen, there is no estate-tax treaty between the US and Israel. The default exemption on US assets for a non-resident non-citizen is just $60,000, and the wrong setup can get the same money taxed on both sides. See how cross-border estate planning fixes this →
Will My Israeli Power of Attorney Work at My US Bank?
Clients are often confused about which document a US bank will accept, and ask me, “Will the Israeli power of attorney work?” No, and the answer surprises almost everyone who asks it. A US bank, brokerage or IRA custodian will not accept a foreign power of attorney, and a Hebrew document carrying an apostille does not change that. The institution wants an instrument drafted under the law of the state where the account sits, executed with the formalities that state requires, and the compliance officer reading it is working from a checklist rather than forming a view about your family.
The fix is ordinary. A US durable power of attorney, signed while you can still sign, sits alongside your Israeli documents and does the US-side job those documents cannot do. Florida adds a detail no foreign form carries, because two of the powers that matter most in a cross-border family, making gifts and changing a beneficiary designation, have to be initialed separately by the person signing or they do not work at all. How a Florida power of attorney is built →
Three Questions to Sit With
- If your father had a stroke tomorrow, who could sign for his US accounts, without going to court?
- Do your parents have a US HIPAA form? Without it, a US doctor can legally refuse to talk to you.
- Who is your US person if something happens to you here?
If you do not have a clean answer to all three, that is a short conversation worth having.
Get your US side in order, from anywhere.
Book a free 30-minute cross-border check. We handle US estate, tax, and elder-law planning for Americans in Israel and across the States, wherever you are.
Book your free consultFrequently Asked Questions
Can I Collect US Social Security While Living in Israel?
Yes. Israel is not a restricted country, so US citizens can receive Social Security payments while living there. The US Embassy’s Federal Benefits Unit in Jerusalem handles claims. The trap nobody mentions is that there is no US-Israel Social Security totalization agreement, so if you are self-employed in Israel you can be hit for Social Security tax on both sides with no credit. That one is worth a conversation with a cross-border accountant.
Do I Still Have to File US Taxes if I Live in Israel?
Yes. US citizens and green-card holders file a US return for life, wherever they live. Two filings catch people by surprise, the FBAR (if your foreign accounts total over $10,000 at any point in the year) and Form 8938 under FATCA. If you have fallen behind, the IRS Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures are the official catch-up path. This page links to the government sources for each.
Does Medicare Cover Me in Israel?
Almost never. Medicare generally does not pay for care outside the US. If you keep Part B you pay premiums for coverage you cannot use in Israel; if you drop it and later move back, you can face late-enrollment penalties for life. It is a real decision to make on purpose, not a default to drift into.
What Happens to My US Assets if I Die or Am Incapacitated in Israel?
This is the part the government sites never cover, and it is the one that bites hardest. If you cannot sign, a US bank will not honor a foreign power of attorney, so without the right US document your family may need a US court to reach your US accounts. At death, your US assets go through US probate in the state where they sit, unless structured otherwise. And if you or your spouse is not a US citizen, there is no US-Israel estate-tax treaty, so the default exemption on US assets can be as low as $60,000. These do not fix themselves.
Who Is My "US Person" if Something Happens to Me?
It is the question most people who made aliyah have never answered. If you are incapacitated, who can legally act on your US accounts? If you die, who handles your US assets? Without a US power of attorney, a US health-care directive with a HIPAA authorization, and US assets structured to avoid probate, the answer is usually a US court, from 6,000 miles away. Naming and empowering a US person now is the fix.
What I See When Someone Finally Asks About the US Side
In 14 years of law practice, the Americans in Israel who call me have usually been told by someone that none of this applies to them any more.
Whoever told them that was being kind rather than careless. Aliyah feels like a clean break, the Israeli tax authority is the one sending letters, and the US paperwork sits in a drawer in a country nobody in the household lives in. I review account histories that nobody disclosed for years, and the person sitting across from me is almost never hiding anything, because they believed what they were told.
I have a few take-home points.
The first is that the catch-up program everyone reaches for asks you to swear the failure was not willful. I have come across a case where an American finance executive living abroad took that route in the year his Swiss bank was about to hand his name to the government. The executive had already moved two accounts to a second Swiss bank after the first one started asking about his taxes, and had listed his wife as the owner of both. His certification blamed the delay on reasonable attempts to comply with difficult administrative requirements. A jury convicted him of a federal false-statement crime for the certification itself, and the appeals court left that conviction standing while sending his sentence back to be redone after two other counts fell away. The accounts he eventually reported held $84,264,354 and $9,148,420.
The second point is what the case means for someone whose balances have four digits rather than eight. Almost nobody I screen is that man, and working out which one you are is the whole job. Willfulness is a legal call about your own history rather than a box on a return, so I make it once, early, before anything is signed and while the conversation is still privileged.
The third is that the programs themselves move. A fifth named catch-up route, the Delinquent FBAR Submission Procedures, existed until July 2026, when the government removed the page with no announcement, so anyone working from a bookmark is now following stale instructions.
Practice pointer. Get the willfulness call made before you choose a program rather than after. Handled here are the screening that tells you which forms you actually owe, the willful versus non-willful call, and the Voluntary Disclosure Practice from preclearance through the closing agreement, all under attorney-client privilege. Referred out are the streamlined submissions and the return preparation themselves, which go to an international tax preparer once the call has been made, so nobody pays attorney rates to fill in a Schedule B. The conversation that sorts out which situation you are in is the free consult.
Avoid letting a return preparer decide the willfulness question as part of a filing engagement. A preparer's file does not carry the privilege a lawyer's does, and the certification is the first document a prosecutor reads.
An honest limit belongs here. Israeli tax is Israeli counsel's work and I do not opine on it, the definitive classification of an Israeli pension goes to a US-Israel cross-border adviser, and the willfulness answer turns on facts I have not heard yet. What I can tell you at no cost is which question you are actually facing.
Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., admitted in Florida since 2012. General information rather than advice on your situation.
Updated on September 8, 2026. By Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. Attorney Kevin Klagge represents families, businesses, and international clients in estate and tax planning, business structuring, and international law, with a focus on Florida legal tools. He litigates estate and business issues in court. General information, current as of 2026; not legal or tax advice, and verify benefit specifics with SSA, the IRS, or your advisor. No attorney-client relationship is created by reading this, and please do not send confidential information until we have agreed to represent you. We provide US estate, tax, and elder-law planning for Americans in Israel and across the States, from Miami.