A landmark new study conducted by Tel Aviv University researchers has uncovered an unprecedented surge in Israeli emigration, with nearly 270,000 citizens leaving the country between the start of 2023 and the end of 2025 — the highest three-year total recorded in the nation’s modern history.
Drawing on official datasets compiled by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics and other state agencies, the research found a consistent upward trend in long-term departures. More than 86,000 Israelis exited the country for stays of three months or longer in 2023, and that number climbed to over 90,000 in both 2024 and 2025. This puts the annual average of long-term departures at roughly 90,000, a sharp 50% increase from the pre-pandemic average of 60,000 departures per year recorded between 2010 and 2019.
Unlike previous official emigration reports that only counted citizens who left for a full year or more to count as long-term emigrants, the Tel Aviv University study expands this definition to include anyone spending a minimum of three months outside Israeli borders. Study co-author Itai Ater explained to local outlet Haaretz that this adjusted methodology captures a far more accurate picture of the actual scope of outward migration. The study’s final counts also exclude recent immigrants from Ukraine and Russia who left Israel within three years of arriving, focusing only on long-term residents who had lived in the country for at least three years before their departure.
Ater emphasized that while the current cumulative numbers do not yet pose an immediate threat to Israel’s national resilience, the steady upward trajectory demands urgent action. “In 2025, we again see deeply troubling numbers of Israelis who left the country for a significant period, adding to the emigration wave of 2023 and 2024,” he said. “But looking ahead, and unless there is a change, there is growing concern that emigration from Israel will increase to a level that endangers the country’s security and economy.”
Compounding these concerns, earlier Tel Aviv University research has already confirmed that the emigration wave is disproportionately driven by highly skilled workers: a significant and worrying share of departures are doctors, PhD-holding researchers, engineers, university academics, and high-income professionals. While some skilled labor outflow has been observed in other developed economies, the institution notes that this brain drain carries unique risks for Israel. The country has limited natural resources, and its entire economic model is built around leveraging its skilled, innovation-focused workforce.
The study’s authors warn that the current trend could soon trigger an irreversible domino effect. As more people leave, the incentive grows for friends, family members and professional networks to join them, creating a self-reinforcing cycle that becomes harder to break the longer it continues. “Once emigration numbers cross a certain threshold, reversing the trend will be extremely difficult, perhaps impossible,” the university stated in its release of the study findings.
The release of the unprecedented data has sparked fierce cross-party criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling government from Israeli lawmakers. Gilad Kariv, chair of the Knesset’s Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs and a member of the left-wing opposition Democrats party, took to social platform X to condemn the government’s inaction. “Israel is facing a tsunami of emigration, and the government is doing nothing about the issue,” Kariv wrote. He called the emigration wave a “strategic threat to Israel’s future” that is directly tied to the government’s policy agenda, specifically the controversial judicial overhaul launched in early 2023 that sparked months of mass nationwide protests.
Centrist-right opposition lawmaker Meirav Cohen of the Together party also joined the criticism, drawing a pointed connection between the government’s policies toward Gaza and the growing outflow of Israeli citizens. “They declared they would carry out voluntary emigration from Gaza,” Cohen said on X, referencing the government’s widely criticized plan to encourage the expulsion of Palestinian residents from the Gaza Strip. “In the end, the October 7 government encouraged voluntary emigration from the State of Israel.”
This report was originally framed by independent regional outlet Middle East Eye, which provides specialized, unfiltered coverage of the Middle East and North Africa region.