Same-sex marriage: what is registered in Israel, what is recognised, and how couples separate
Israel has no civil marriage, and same-sex couples cannot marry in the country. But a couple married abroad, and since 2023 also in an online ceremony held under foreign law, is registered as married in the population registry. This page explains what registration gives, what it does not, how children and property are arranged, and what happens on separation.
"The rights flow from the relationship. Registration adds certainty. The agreement and the will add protection."
Adv. Ester Efrati · Head of the Family and Inheritance Department
Why marriage in Israel is not possible
Marriage and divorce of Jews in Israel are conducted under Jewish religious law, in the Rabbinical Court, so provides the Rabbinical Courts Jurisdiction Law. Members of other religions are subject to the courts of their community. Israel has no civil marriage route, and none of the religious systems performs a marriage between two people of the same sex.
The petition to change this in the Supreme Court was dismissed. The court held that the question is for the legislature, not the courts, even while acknowledging the harm the arrangement causes.
What remains open is the indirect road: marriage under foreign law, and its registration in Israel.
Rabbinical Courts Jurisdiction (Marriage and Divorce) Law, 5713-1953, sections 1-2 · HCJ 7339/15 Association for Civil Rights v. Minister of the Interior (2017). Checked September 2026.
Registering a marriage performed abroad
As early as the 1960s the Supreme Court held that the registration clerk's role is that of a registrar, not a judge: when presented with a public marriage certificate from a foreign state, the clerk must register the couple as married, without examining the validity of the marriage under Israeli law. This is the Funk-Schlesinger rule.
In 2006 the Supreme Court applied that rule to same-sex couples who had married in Canada. Since then, a same-sex couple married in a country where this is lawful is registered in Israel as married, and their personal status in the registry changes from single to married.
Registration is not a determination that the marriage is valid. It is a record of a fact that occurred elsewhere. That distinction is the key to everything that follows.
HCJ 143/62 Funk-Schlesinger v. Minister of the Interior · HCJ 3045/05 Ben-Ari v. Director of the Population Administration (2006). Checked September 2026.
An online ceremony under foreign law
In recent years a further road has opened: a civil marriage ceremony conducted by video call by an officiant in the State of Utah in the United States, while the couple are in Israel. The Population Authority initially refused to register such marriages.
The Supreme Court rejected the state's position and held that these marriages too are registered, under the same rule: a foreign public certificate requires registration. Since 2023 this route has been available, without a flight, to same-sex couples as well.
Here too the limits of registration must be remembered. It opens the door to rights and administrative recognition, but it does not make the couple married under Jewish religious law, and it does not move their separation to the Rabbinical Court.
Administrative Appeal 7368/22 Brill v. Minister of the Interior (2023). Checked September 2026.
What registration gives, and what it does not
In practice, most of the rights of same-sex couples in Israel do not depend on registration as married. They flow from the recognition of common-law spouses, which has applied to same-sex couples for years: National Insurance, taxation, pension and survivors' rights, rights against an employer, inheritance by law where there is no will.
Registration as married adds certainty. It removes the need to prove afresh each time that the two are a couple, and it carries weight before authorities and abroad. What it does not give: religious recognition, and the jurisdiction of a religious court.
- Flows from the relationship itself: National Insurance, taxation, pension, inheritance by law, workplace rights.
- Flows from registration: personal status "married" in the registry and in documents, evidentiary certainty, recognition before bodies abroad.
- Flows from neither: validity under Jewish religious law, and the possibility of divorcing in the Rabbinical Court.
Children: parentage orders, surrogacy and adoption
When a child is born to a family of two parents of the same sex, only one of them is the genetic parent. The second parent obtains status through a judicial parentage order of the Family Court, based on the relationship and the child's welfare. Without the order, the second parent is not a parent in the eyes of the law, even while raising the child from day one.
The surrogacy route in Israel has been open since 2022 to male couples and single men as well. Surrogacy abroad remains common, and there a court-ordered genetic test is required to register the child, followed by a parentage order for the non-genetic parent.
Adoption is open to same-sex couples too, but it is a long process that depends on the Child Welfare Service. All of these routes are best planned before the child is born, not after.
Embryo Carrying Agreements (Approval of Agreement and Status of the Newborn) Law, 5756-1996, as construed in HCJ 781/15. Checked September 2026.
Property and a financial agreement
The property of a same-sex couple married abroad and registered is governed, in practice, by the sharing rules that apply to common-law spouses, and claims to sharing are examined by reference to the way of life and the shared intention. That is uncertain ground, especially where an asset was brought into the relationship, a business or an inheritance.
A financial agreement resolves the uncertainty. It sets out in advance what is shared and what is separate, what happens on separation and what happens on death, and it is approved by the Family Court. For same-sex couples it matters even more than for others, because the default that applies to them is less clear.
Alongside the agreement, a will. A common-law spouse inherits by law only on the conditions the Succession Law sets, and a will removes all doubt, including as against the family of origin.
Separation and divorce
Since the Rabbinical Court does not recognise these marriages, separation does not pass through it. Same-sex couples married abroad and registered in Israel apply to the Family Court, which has jurisdiction over the dissolution of the relationship and everything that goes with it: property, children, maintenance.
The case law has held that for Jewish same-sex couples, divorce is effected by a declaratory judgment rather than by a marriage-dissolution proceeding. The court also orders the correction of the registration in the population registry.
The proceeding is held in camera. Where there is a financial agreement, it sets the order of things. Where there is none, the separation begins with the question of what was shared at all, and that is a question better answered in advance.
Where a lawyer makes the difference
Registration as married is one step in a whole system of arrangements, and most of them do not come with it. The choice between marriage abroad and an online ceremony, the preparation of the documents for registration, the agreement that settles property, the parentage order that protects the second parent, and the will that closes the question of inheritance: each is a separate arrangement.
A lawyer who accompanies the family as a whole sees where one arrangement affects another: a financial agreement that does not address children, a will that contradicts it, or a registration made without checking what it changes in status before another authority.
And when the family separates, whoever prepared the arrangements in advance comes to court with answers, not questions.
In summary
In summary, same-sex couples cannot marry in Israel, but a marriage performed abroad, and since 2023 also an online ceremony under foreign law, is registered in the population registry. Registration gives certainty and administrative status, most rights flow in any case from the relationship, and parenthood, property and inheritance are settled by separate arrangements. Separation is handled in the Family Court.
The law here is built from case law rather than a single statute, and each arrangement depends on its neighbours. Advance preparation is what separates a protected family from one that discovers the gaps at the hardest moment.
Contact us to examine the arrangements that suit you and for information on the steps ahead of you.
What people ask us about same-sex marriage
Can same-sex couples marry in Israel?
Are online ("Utah") marriages registered in Israel?
What does registration as married give?
Is a financial agreement needed?
How does the second parent become a parent in law?
How do couples divorce?
Does a same-sex partner inherit without a will?
All pages in the Family and Inheritance department
The separation itself
The divorce processLeaving home before divorceReconciliation or divorceRequest for dispute resolutionDissolution of marriageEconomic abuseRestraining orderBreach of a divorce agreementThe children
Child supportChild support claimIncreasing or reducing supportSupport for a child born outside marriageCollecting support through National InsuranceSpreading a maintenance debtCustody and parenting timeShared parentingThe tender years presumptionChanging a custody arrangementRelocating abroad with the childrenParental alienationDealing with an alienating parentGuardian ad litemSurrogacyPaternity claimThe Youth (Care and Supervision) LawVisual parenting plan builderProperty and agreements
Prenuptial agreementSame sex prenuptial agreementSame-sex marriageNotarised prenuptial agreementDissolution of joint ownershipCareer assets and goodwillSelling the apartment on divorceCommon law partnersInheritance and estate planning
Wills and inheritanceInheritance between same-sex partnersEstate planningWills in estate planningIntergenerational transfer in estate planningTrustsDynasty trustSpecial needs trustInheritance orderProbate orderAgreements between heirsInheritance disputes between siblingsContesting a willNo-contest clause in a willBefore the ceremony, establish what registration gives and what must be completed
A short consultation meeting in which we examine which marriage route suits you, what is required for registration in Israel, and which arrangements, a financial agreement, a parentage order and a will, complete what registration does not settle.