B1 Work Visa for Experts in Israel
Has your company landed a gig in Israel, which requires your employees on site?
Whether you send your employees to Israel for training or long-term to surveil a construction project: Foreigners, who want to work in Israel, need a work permit (B1) to do so. In most cases, the employee will need such permit before entering Israel and commencing his work.
For those cases, Israeli law has established the B1 work visa for experts. The application for a B1 Visa has to be filed with the Israeli Ministry of Interior. The application procedure consists of various steps and can last more than two months: Documents and forms have to be handed in, the employee has to visit the Israeli embassy in his home country and even after his arrival to Israel, the employee has to present himself at the ministry of Interior.
Our law firm specializes in obtaining B1 Work Visa for experts and takes care of the entire application process for you.
Expertise- General Requirement
Obviously, one has to be an expert on their field in order to be granted a B1 Work Visa for Experts. Hence, the focus of the application is put on convincing the Israeli authority that that very employee is indeed needed for that very job in Israel. In order to do so, the employee’s expertise and qualification have to be proven to the Israeli authority, as well as the fact, that there is no fitting substitute for them on the Israeli job market.
Types of Visa
There are three types of B1 Work Visas for Experts: The visa for 45 days, for 3 months and for a year.
For most types of visa, your employee will need also an entry and residence permit to Israel, which have to be organized besides the working permit.
Visa for a Year
In order to grant a Work Visa for a year, Israeli authorities will assess the special skillset of the expert, whether there is a need for him on the job in Israel and whether his life and labor conditions comply with Israeli law and are granted by the employer.
During his entire stay in Israel, the foreign expert’s salary has comply with a minimum wage, which sums up the double of the current average salary on the Israeli job market ( currently: 20’856 NIS, ca. 5000 Euro), also, the foreign expert needs an health insurance.
Regarding non-academics, authorities are entitled to set additional conditions to their own discretion, e.g. a bank guarantee of up to 40,000 NIS, which will be reimbursed 12 months after your employee’s the departure from Israel.
The application process holds two tracks fort he employee:
-
The first step is to obtain a provisional permit. In order to achieve that, various documents, such as application forms, affidavits, diploma etc. have to be handed in online. For academics, there are way less documents to be handed in then for non-academics.
-
As the employee receives his provisional work permit, the Israeli Ministry of Interior grants the employee an entry permit to Israel. The employee has to retrieve said entry permit at the Israeli embassy in his home country.
-
Upon arrival in Israel, the employee has to have his provisional permit renewed within a month or it will expire.
The 1 year Work Visa can only be extended four times.
Visa for 90 Days
The application process and its duration for the 90 Day Work Visa are identical to the one for a visa for a year- Thus , the advantage of the 90 day visa is that is does not require a minimum salary and academics and non-academics are treated equally.
Visa for 45 Days
If you only need your employee onsite for a max. of 45 days and especially, if you need him urgently, you can opt for the fast-track application process of the 45 –Day- Visa.
The advantages of this type of visa are the lack of a required minimum salary, its rapidity (6-10 business days) and that the employee may enter the country and start his work directly after obtaining the permit, he does not have to visit the embassy in his home country first. Further, academics and non-academics are treated equally.
Important: The 45 –Day- Visa cannot be extended. If the works in Israel last longer, the employee must leave the country and begin a regular visa application process (see above). Also, an employee will be granted only one 45-Day -Visa per year.
NOTE: Working without a work permit is a criminal offence, both for the employer and the employee and will be persecuted.
For further information, click here.