What an Israeli Election Costs: The Bill, Line by Line

The short version

The 27 October election will cost Israel about NIS 4 billion, by the most quoted estimate. Almost all of it falls into two buckets.

• The state's bill: about NIS 1 billion. This pays for running the vote, the polling-station staff, security and cyber protection, and the public money parties receive for campaigning.
• The day off: about NIS 2.68 billion. Election day is a paid holiday. The Manufacturers Association estimates one day of wages for every salaried worker at that figure. This is lost output, not a government payment.

The two add up to about NIS 3.7 billion. The widely quoted NIS 4 billion total is slightly higher and no source explains the gap.

Per eligible voter, that is about NIS 545 for the whole bill, or about NIS 140 for the state's part. There are 7,331,981 eligible voters this year. That is our arithmetic, not an official figure.

This article prices the election. It does not judge whether any election was needed. That is a political question.

What the state pays, line by line

The Finance Committee approved the Central Elections Committee's budget on 16 February 2026 at about NIS 690 million. It had asked for about NIS 740 million. The cut of NIS 50 million removed its whole contingency reserve.

Israel Hayom's budget analysis (20 August 2026) breaks the roughly NIS 1 billion election line down like this:

The state budget book lists "elections and party financing" at NIS 976 million, raised to NIS 1.027 billion after transfers. The two views agree at about a billion shekels.

How party funding works. One funding unit is NIS 1.835 million per sitting MK. Parties get an 80% advance before the vote. Each faction also gets a fixed 1.4 units, about NIS 2.6 million, whatever its size. A new list that posts its financial guarantees gets 2 units, about NIS 3.7 million, and can reach 10 units, about NIS 18.3 million, after final lists are filed.

Other items we could price: a NIS 25 million public information campaign, and inspectors with cameras at polling stations. The committee chair said the budget was "tight from the start" and that it may need to ask for more.

What we could not find: a separate figure for printing ballot slips, and a 2026 breakdown for police and security. We do not state either.

Election day itself: about NIS 97 million

Israel Hayom puts the day's direct cost at about NIS 97 million. Most of it is wages.

• About 13,000 polling stations, with an average of five workers each, about 60,000 people.
• Committee-member wages: NIS 83.5 million, or about NIS 6,423 per worker including employer costs.
• Transport to polling stations: NIS 1.1 million.
• Food for staff: NIS 1.5 million.

That works out to roughly NIS 7,500 per polling station for the day. That is our arithmetic.

The State Comptroller's 2025 report shows how fast the human side has grown. Staffing rose from about 46,000 (22nd Knesset, 2019) to about 73,000 (25th Knesset, 2022). Actual wage spending rose from NIS 157 million to NIS 257 million. Spending on election oversight, including an extra secretary and cameras at each station, rose from NIS 17 million to NIS 70 million by the Comptroller's count. The committee puts that rise at NIS 17 million to NIS 32 million.

The figures for 2022 count all staff. The 2026 figure counts polling-station workers. They are not a like-for-like comparison.

The private-sector bill

This is the part with a firm number behind it.

The rule. Election day is a statutory day off. An employee who has worked for the same employer for at least 14 consecutive days before the vote is paid for the day as if it were a working day. Essential services keep running: transport, fuel, food stores for limited hours, hospitals, security, press. Other employers may ask staff to work only with their consent. Israeli law sets no rate for people who do work. The customary pay is 200%, or regular pay plus an equal amount of time off. An employee who works must be allowed to go and vote.

The cost. The Manufacturers Association's economic research department puts the private-sector cost at about NIS 1.82 billion.

• 2.54 million private-sector employees.
• Average monthly wage NIS 15,776 (Central Bureau of Statistics, July 2025 to June 2026).
• One day of pay for each worker, or double for those who work.

We checked the arithmetic. At 21.67 working days a month, a day's wage averages about NIS 728. Times 2.54 million workers is about NIS 1.85 billion. That matches the published figure.

The public sector adds about NIS 0.86 billion (1.583 million employees at an average of NIS 11,908). Industry alone loses about NIS 342 million of output on the day.

The trend. The same association put the 2022 election at NIS 2.14 billion for the day off, with NIS 1.9 billion on businesses and NIS 0.9 billion on public finances. The 2026 total is up 25%. Ynet attributes the rise mainly to higher wages and inflation.

Small businesses. A study by economist Roby Nathanson for the Lahav business chamber, reported in December 2019, put the cost of a day off to small and mid-size businesses at NIS 2.5 billion to NIS 3 billion. A 2022 estimate from the same economist gave small and mid-size businesses 43% to 53% of the bill, about NIS 645 million to NIS 745 million. Commissioned studies differ by a factor of three. Treat any single figure for small businesses as a rough estimate.

Who pays. Employers do, in two ways. Most pay a full day's wages for no work. The ones who stay open pay double. Neither the 1.82 billion nor the 2.68 billion is money the government spends.

The other side: the day-off boom

Not every business loses. A free Tuesday sends people to malls, beaches, parks and restaurants.

The Macro Center for Political Economics said restaurants and entertainment gain about NIS 1 billion from the day off. It did not subtract that from the losses, because different industries win and lose. No one has published a clean net figure.

What the record shows from earlier election days:

• April 2019. The Nature and Parks Authority counted about 150,000 visitors to national parks and nature reserves by midday. Tens of thousands more went to beaches. Traffic jammed Tel Aviv and the coastal highway. Intercity public transport was free all day.
• March 2021. The Ofer Bilo outlet mall expected 60,000 to 80,000 customers against about 25,000 on an average day. Hutzot Hamifratz near Haifa expected at least 30,000 against a usual 15,000. Card spending between 9 a.m. and noon was NIS 316.5 million, 5.8% below the previous election, with COVID limits in place.
• February 2024 (municipal elections). Card spending between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. was over NIS 928 million. That is 12.9% above the November 2022 municipal day, and well above NIS 524 million in 2018. Ofer Malls reported 80% more visitors than on a regular day in the same hours. Shopping chains ran election-day sales.
• 27 October 2026. The Petah Tikva zoo opens specially. The Jerusalem Biblical Zoo and Aquarium, science museums and mall festivals have programs. A cinema chain offers NIS 27 tickets.

Some of this spending would have happened on another day, so the boom is partly a shift in time rather than new money. The record does not settle how much.

The holiday also has a purpose. Municipal and national election days are national holidays to encourage turnout. Turnout in 2022 was 70.63%, or 4,794,593 of 6,788,804 eligible voters.

Five elections in under four years

Israel held five national elections from April 2019 to November 2022. See The Netanyahu Divide: Five Elections, Two Blocs for why. The bills ran like this.

The Macro Center put the first four rounds, from 2019 to 2021, at about NIS 14 billion, or about NIS 3.5 billion each. Adding the roughly NIS 3 billion estimated for 2022 gives about NIS 17 billion for five. That sum is ours, and it mixes two methods.

Comparing across years. Sources define "direct cost" differently. Some include party funding and some do not. Do not read the table as a clean trend.

What officials said at the time. In 2019 the Finance Ministry said a caretaker government spends less. A budget official also noted that a new election would avoid about NIS 2.25 billion a year in costs tied to the outgoing government's coalition agreement. The Finance Ministry said the cost of the vote itself would have to come from cuts elsewhere.

Was it wasted?

The numbers support three plain statements.

1. The vote itself is the smaller bill. Running an election costs the state roughly NIS 0.5 billion to NIS 1 billion. The paid day off is estimated at NIS 1.5 billion to NIS 2.7 billion per round.
2. The cost per voter is steady. The 2022 election cost about NIS 79 per eligible voter to run. The 2026 operating budget of NIS 593 million is about NIS 81 per eligible voter. That is our arithmetic.
3. Repeated rounds multiply the bill. Each extra election added the same fixed costs again.

Whether that was "wasted" depends on a judgment the numbers cannot make: whether the vote was needed, and who was responsible for it. Economists also disagree on how to count a paid day off. As a loss of output it is large. As a holiday that people spend on leisure it is partly a transfer.

Where the numbers are shaky

• The NIS 4 billion total has no stated author and exceeds the sum of its parts by about NIS 0.3 billion.
• Day-off estimates for the same election range from NIS 1.5 billion to NIS 2.68 billion, depending on method and who commissioned them.
• The 2026 figures are budget numbers. The State Comptroller audits actual spending later.
• Direct costs and party funding are counted differently across sources and years, so older and newer figures do not line up exactly.

Sources

• Democracy isn't cheap: Election Day will cost Israel $1.3 billion (Ynet)
• Election cost to the economy: NIS 4 billion (Ynet, Hebrew)
• Israel's Oct. 27 election expected to cost economy about $1.3 billion (VINnews)
• Budget analysis: what election day costs (Israel Hayom, Hebrew, 20 Aug 2026)
• 2026 Central Elections Committee budget approved, NIS 50 million cut (Calcalist, Hebrew)
• The Central Elections Committee: what you need to know (Israel Democracy Institute)
• State Comptroller, elections report, May 2025 (Hebrew)
• Israel's fifth election since 2019 to cost NIS 79 per potential voter (Times of Israel)
• Expected upcoming election will cost Israel up to NIS 2.9 billion (Times of Israel)
• Four elections in two years cost Israel $4.24 billion (Jerusalem Post)
• Serial elections are costing Israel billions of shekels, industrialists warn (Ynet, 2019)
• Election costs: over a billion shekels, and then some (Hamodia, 2019)
• No budget to cover the cost of a new election, Finance Ministry says (Haaretz, 2019)
• Election day expected to cost small businesses 3B shekels (Israel Hayom, 2019)
• With election day a holiday, Israelis throng to national parks and beaches (Times of Israel, 2019)
• On Election Day, Israelis vote for shopping as malls report heavy traffic (Haaretz, 2021)
• Israelis line up at shopping malls more than ballot boxes (Ynet, 2024)
• Election-day attractions, 27 October 2026 (Israel Hayom, Hebrew)
• Election Day for the 26th Knesset: employer obligations (Shibolet)
• 2026 Israeli elections: what you need to know (Times of Israel)