The government on Sunday approved a plan to ease licensing requirements for immigrant psychologists, allowing officials to be more flexible in evaluating psychology degrees, clinical training and professional experience obtained outside Israel.
Under the decision, put forward by Health Minister Haim Katz and Immigration and Absorption Minister Ofir Sofer, licensing authorities will be able to consider differences in psychology training programs across countries and recognize foreign qualifications as equivalent to Israeli requirements when they meet legal and professional standards.
About 50 psychologists from around the world have already applied this year to immigrate to Israel and practice their profession, the ministries said. The new policy will allow professional committees to begin reviewing their credentials even before they arrive in the country.
“Today, the State of Israel needs mental health professionals more than ever,” Sofer said. “Immigration brings high-quality and experienced human capital, and it is our duty to remove unnecessary barriers that prevent professionals from integrating into their profession.”
The move follows similar efforts to remove licensing barriers for other regulated professions, and comes amid a widespread lack of psychologists to deal with the mental health crisis since October 7, 2023.
Get The Times of Israel’s Daily Edition
by email and never miss our top stories
By signing up, you agree to the terms
Immigrants have long complained that Israel’s lengthy licensing processes for professions like medicine, engineering, social work, education, and finance prevent them from finding jobs in their fields, and in some cases, discourage them from moving to Israel.
New immigrants arrive in Israel on a Nefesh B’Nefesh charter flight, August 20, 2025 (Zev Stub/Times of Israel)
More than 1,000 immigrant physicians have joined Israel’s health system over the past two years through initiatives designed to streamline the process, through a joint program with the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Development of the Negev and Galilee, the Jewish Agency and Nefesh B’Nefesh, the Immigration and Absorption Ministry said.
Other efforts to increase immigration in recent years have included offering new immigrants and returning residents arriving in 2026 a zero-percent income tax rate for their first two years, and an exemption for self-employed US citizens from double-paying social security for their first five years.
A total of 22,522 new immigrants arrived in 2025, including some 8,500 from Western countries like the United States, France, Britain, and Canada, according to the Immigration and Absorption Ministry.
The Central Bureau of Statistics has previously said more than 69,000 Israelis left the country in 2025, indicating a negative migration balance for the second straight year.
We can’t do this work alone.
The war with Iran has been draining for all of us in Israel. But when I heard about a high casualty incident – ballistic missile impacts in Arad and Dimona that left nearly 200 people wounded – I drank a cup of coffee, packed a bag, and headed south.
There, I spoke with Shilgit, the head of an after-school program for underprivileged youth. Standing outside her destroyed center, Shilgit said it was a miracle that no children were hurt and spoke about the community coming together in the hours since.
As a Times of Israel reporter, I’m committed to telling stories of resilience like Shilgit’s. But my colleagues and I can’t do this alone. If you value work like this, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to keep real human reporting like this going.
— Stav Levaton, military reporter
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
You’re a dedicated reader
That’s why we started the Times of Israel – to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you,
David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel