How to Read Your Israeli Pay Slip — A Tlush Maskoret Guide

A practical guide to every section · ~6 min read

Every salaried Israeli employee gets a monthly tlush maskoret — the pay slip — dense with abbreviations and Hebrew accounting jargon. Once you know the layout, it's not as opaque as it looks. Here's how to read every section.

Top — the header

Three blocks of information sit at the top:

• Company side: name, tax file number (תיק ניכויים), corporate registration number, address.
• Employee side: employee number, ID number (תעודת זהות), department, employment start date, marital status (e.g. ר+0 = single, no children), seniority (וותק), bank for direct deposit, and your address (לכבוד = "to:").
• Period: which month this slip covers, the print date, and which page of how many.

The earnings table

Each line is one earnings component. Common codes you'll see:

• 001 משכורת — base monthly salary (the contracted figure)
• 009 שעות נוספות — overtime
• 004 נסיעות — travel allowance (capped at ₪22.60/day, fully taxable)
• 024 שווי ארוחות — meal voucher value (Cibus / Tenbis): you get the voucher, you pay tax on its value
• 072 שווי ביטוח בריאות — employer-paid health insurance benefit
• 091 זק.השתלמות — Keren Hishtalmut "spillover": when your employer's KH contribution exceeds the cap, the excess is taxable income

Two columns matter most: התשלום (cash payment) and שווי למס (taxable benefit, no cash). Their sum equals שכר חייב מס — your taxable income for the month.

Mandatory deductions (ניכויי חובה)

The standard list — almost always present:

• מס הכנסה — income tax (from the bracket calculation, minus credit points)
• ב.לאומי — national insurance (Bituach Leumi)
• מס בריאות — health tax
• קרן השתלמות / קר"ש — your Keren Hishtalmut (KH) contribution, typically 2.5%
• פנסיה / גיל — your pension contribution, typically 6%

Optional deductions (ניכויי רשות)

Anything you've authorized: union dues, employee loans, garnishments, supplementary insurance, retroactive corrections, and so on. A negative figure here is a refund — your employer is paying back money that was previously withheld.

The summary block

• שכר נטו — net (gross-pay minus all deductions, before any final adjustments)
• לתשלום — what actually lands in your bank
• שכר חייב מס — taxable salary (this month and year-to-date (YTD) cumulative)
• שכר ב.לאומי — Bituach Leumi base
• שכר מבוטח — pensionable salary
• בסיס קרה"ש — Keren Hishtalmut base
• אחוז מס שולי — your cumulative marginal rate, year-to-date annualized; this can be higher than the monthly rate suggests if a bonus pushed your YTD income up

The right-side block — employer costs

Most slips also show employer-side contributions: pension+severance (≈14.83% of pension base), KH contribution (7.5%), and the employer's Bituach Leumi portion. These don't reduce your net, but they're useful to understand your true cost to the employer — typically 25–30% above your gross.

Key things to verify

A 2-minute review per slip catches most errors before they become annual headaches:

• Credit points (נק. רגילות): should match your situation — single male is 2.25, female 2.75, parents add more, recent graduates, immigrants and discharged soldiers add more still. If it shows the wrong number, file Form 101 with HR.
• Pension and KH bases: usually equal your pension-eligible salary (basic + overtime). Travel allowance and one-time payments should not be in this base.
• Cumulative figures: the YTD totals should match what you've actually been paid. If you switched jobs mid-year, your new employer needs Form 101 plus your previous tlush slips to set the correct cumulative.
• Taxable benefits: every line in שווי למס should correspond to something real — a meal voucher, a company car, a phone benefit. Unfamiliar lines are worth asking about.

Payroll departments are used to questions about pay slips. If something doesn't reconcile, ask — a careful read of one slip a month saves nasty surprises at year-end (טופס 106) reconciliation.