How to Access Bituach Leumi (National Insurance) from Abroad

Today you can use Bituach Leumi (the National Insurance Institute) from abroad without a VPN: in our check on 23 October 2026, both its website and its online account loaded normally from abroad. What usually stops people abroad is not the connection but the login: the one-time code goes to the details on file, often an Israeli SIM that is no longer in use. So register for the personal service site before you leave, while your Israeli number still works.

Set it up before you need it

1. Register for the personal service site, ps.btl.gov.il.
2. Set a permanent user code and password, so you are not dependent on a code.
3. Check that the mobile number and email Bituach Leumi has for you are current.
4. Save the line for callers abroad: +972-8-9369669, Sunday to Thursday 8:00–15:00 Israel time, in Hebrew, English and Russian (Bituach Leumi). It handles general information, personal inquiries, ordering certificates, payment vouchers and forms, and paying contribution debts. Claims, documents and changes to personal details go through the website, not the phone line.

Logging in from abroad

To log in with a one-time code, you enter your ID number and choose SMS, a voice call or email. The phone field accepts only Israeli mobile prefixes and must hold the number registered with Bituach Leumi. If that SIM is gone and your email isn't set up, the code goes nowhere, and you may only find out when a claim or a payment is due. With a permanent user code and password you skip the code altogether. The login page also offers entry through the government's national identification system (as we saw it in our check), and gov.il says Israelis abroad can register a foreign mobile number there (gov.il).

If something goes wrong

• The code doesn't arrive. It goes to the phone or email on file. Log in with the user code and password or through the national identification system, choose email, or call the line for callers abroad.
• The password is rejected or the account is locked. That is a login problem, not an access-from-abroad problem; reset the password or call.
• The site doesn't load. Try another browser, switch off an ad blocker and try again later; maintenance and outages happen. If no Israeli site you try will load from abroad, see An Israeli website says 'access denied'.

What you can do without the website

From public sources — Bituach Leumi line for callers abroad, Bituach Leumi call centres, Bituach Leumi foreign relations unit, Bituach Leumi public complaints division, in Hebrew:

• Line for callers abroad: +972-8-9369669, Sunday to Thursday 8:00–15:00, in Hebrew, English and Russian. For personal matters you need your teudat zehut number and your four-digit secret code, which you can issue on the website; without it you'll be asked a few questions to confirm it's you.
• National call centre: *6050 or 04-8812345, Sunday to Thursday 8:00–17:00, in Hebrew, Arabic, Russian and Amharic. *6050 is an Israeli number; 04-8812345 is a regular number, dialled from abroad as +972-4-8812345.
• Information and support centre for senior citizens and their families: *9696 or 02-6463400 (+972-2-6463400 from abroad), with answers in Russian and English too.
• Foreign relations unit (תחום קשרי חוץ) — social security agreements with other countries and the insurance-period certificates they require. Inquiries with documents go through the website; fax 02-6512683; post: המוסד לביטוח לאומי, תחום קשרי חוץ, רחוב יפו 217, ירושלים 9199908. From abroad, call the line +972-8-9369669 about the unit's matters; it also books phone appointments. The unit no longer takes walk-in visitors.
• Complaints (אגף פניות הציבור): online form; post: האגף לפניות הציבור, רחוב יפו 217 ירושלים 9199908; fax 02-6525038; phone 02-6709070 (+972-2-6709070 from abroad), Sunday to Thursday 13:00–15:00, only about complaints already filed.

These pages give no email address: written requests go through the website, by post or by fax. Bituach Leumi doesn't name a separate branch for people living abroad.

When it was closed to visitors from abroad

On 8 December 2021, after a cyberattack, Bituach Leumi took its site offline for two hours and then kept it closed to visitors from abroad only, while it opened again from Israel (Kipa). In April 2014, ahead of an expected cyberattack, Israel restricted foreign traffic to some government websites for several days, and electronic payments from abroad for government services were to be refused for that period (GigaLaw). Both were temporary; on such a day, the phone line is the fallback. But they show that access from abroad can disappear without warning, and you usually find out at the worst moment, when a claim or a payment is due. It is calmer to have a fallback ready in advance, the line for callers abroad or an Israeli IP, than to look for one in a hurry, trying one VPN after another.

Residency and neighbouring services

Bituach Leumi can review your residency, and with it your contributions and health insurance, if it has information that you have moved your life abroad. See how to keep Israeli health insurance while living abroad.

Two neighbouring services behave differently. The Israel Tax Authority sites (tax refunds, residency) and the pension clearing house (HaMislaka HaPensionit), which shows all your pension savings in one place, don't open from abroad, although they work from Israel; see Israel Tax Authority from abroad and Your Israeli pension fund from abroad.