The Israeli government inter-ministry team, which was set up to examine use of disabled parking permits, will today publish its findings. The main measures recommended will be the re-examination of all existing vehicle permits and the establishment of new rules for eligibility for disability permits, based on National Insurance entitlements and without the tests currently used at the Licensing Office.
The team comprised representatives from the Ministry of Finance, including the Budget Division and the Accounting Division, the National Insurance Institute, and the Ministry of Transport. "Globes" has learned that at the request of the Ministry of Transport, the findings will be published today, but were prepared earlier, and only permitted for publication after the Likud primaries.
The team's professional work is based on the fact that at the end of 2025, there were 446,000 disabled people in Israel eligible for a disabled vehicles permits, and 655,000 vehicles associated with them. This is a jump of 322% in a decade, while the rate of those eligible for general disability increased by only 46%.
The number of license plate approvals soared, and the rate of vehicles eligible for a license plate in Israel, which stood at 6% in 2014, reached 17% last year. For international comparison, in Australia, the UK, and New York, the rate of vehicles is only 5%-7%.
"Lack of clear professional interpretation"
The team’s report says, "Over the years, a reality has emerged whereby most applicants for a disabled parking permit apply to the Ministry of Transportation and its doctors. These doctors are employed by external providers and only review documents, without being trained to determine disability and without conducting a physical functional examination, and they are the ones who make most of the decisions on the granting of a parking permit. This state of affairs, along with the lack of a clear professional interpretation of the provisions of the section and the lack of an appropriate mechanism for examining the disabled applicants and monitoring the work of the doctors, leads to a failure in implementation and a lack of uniformity and clarity regarding the eligibility criteria, which leads to a major increase in the number of disabled permits in a way that harms the disabled population and the rest of the country's residents."
The team's work also revealed that out of 485,000 records of people who received a disabled permit from the Ministry of Transport, 128,000 were not recognized by the National Insurance Institute at all.
"Although it is possible that some people did not apply to the National Insurance Institute for various reasons, even though they are disabled (for example, due to failure to meet an income test or because they were recognized by another body), there is concern that in the vast majority of these cases are people who do not meet the conditions for determining a degree of disability at all, and certainly not one that exceeds 60% as required by law, even before the mobility function test required by law is performed."
From now on, the team proposes that the licensing authority will base itself on the medical examinations and conclusions approved by the National Insurance Institute, and will include only the following groups: blind people, mobility allowance recipients with a mobility disability level of 60%, disabled child allowance recipients only with certain disabilities, nursing care allowance recipients of level 4 or higher (out of 6 levels), and recipients of certain additional allowances. In cases where Israeli residents are not eligible for a National Insurance allowance due to an income test, a separate procedure will be held.
The team did not stop there and decided to examine the existing inventory of certificates according to the established tests. The team estimates that many certificates whose validity will expire in the next two years will not necessarily be renewed.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on August 18, 2026.
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