27 October is a statutory day of rest — what the law actually says about your pay, and what it does not

Why we wrote this from the statute

Ahead of every election, dozens of "workers' rights on election day" guides appear, mostly from payroll sites and law firms, mostly quoting each other. Some of the figures in them are not in the statute at all but in case law or in custom. So we opened the statutory text itself and read it. This is what it says.

The day of rest itself

Basic Law: The Knesset, section 10 (text current as of 22 December 2025):

> "Election day shall be a day of rest, but transport services and other public services shall operate as usual."

That is the whole section. Two direct conclusions:

Election day, 27 October 2026, is a statutory day of rest.
Someone working in transport services or other public services is not covered in the same way, because the law expressly provides that those services "shall operate as usual".

The right to pay

Knesset Elections Law [Consolidated Version], 5729-1969, section 136 — "Right to wages for election day":

> "An employee who worked for an employer for at least 14 consecutive days close to election day, and likewise an employee who worked on initiated works at one of the public institutions for at least 14 days out of the two months preceding election day, shall be paid by the employer the wage the employee would have earned there on election day had it not been a day of rest."

What that means in practice:

The condition is 14 consecutive days with the same employer, close to election day. Not a year of seniority, not a particular contract size.
What is paid is the wage you would have earned that day but for the day of rest. So someone who would not have been working on 27 October anyway does not gain an extra day from this section.
Workers on "initiated works" at a public institution have their own track: 14 days out of the preceding two months.

What the law does not say

The section sets no rate for someone who does work on election day. The "200%" figure that appears in many payroll guides is not written in section 136 and is not written in section 10 of the Basic Law. It is attributed to custom and case law, and we did not open the judgments themselves — so we will not publish it here as a binding number. If you are required to work on 27 October and want to know what you are owed, that is a question for whoever represents you — a union, a works committee, or an employment lawyer — not for an article.

This is exactly the kind of number we would rather withhold than get wrong. Readers sent to demand the wrong sum pay for it, and we do not.

Two sections almost nobody knows

While reading the law we came across two sections directly relevant to this community and to olim, and almost never discussed:

Section 134a — transporting voters. Transporting people entitled to vote from one locality to another and back, for the purpose of voting, is funded from the state treasury through the Central Elections Committee, on routes and for distances the committee determines. This is not a party service — it is a state mechanism. Anyone registered at a polling station in a locality other than where they actually live should check with the committee whether their route is included.

Section 133 — absorption centres. The public halls in absorption centres where meetings are customarily held shall be made available by those in charge of the centres to all factions and candidate lists for election meetings; those in charge shall allot every list space to post its platform; and as regards freedom of entry and freedom of campaigning, "absorption centres shall be treated as any other locality".

In other words: for election-campaign purposes, an absorption centre is not the centre director's private domain. The space belongs to everyone or to nobody — not to one party.

Sources

Basic Law: The Knesset, section 10 — text current as of 22 Dec 2025 · read in full 16 Sep 2026
[Knesset Elections Law [Consolidated Version], 5729-1969, sections 133, 134a, 136](https://www.nevo.co.il/law_html/law01/190_026.htm) · read in full 16 Sep 2026
Davar — list-approval date and election date, 8 Sep 2026 · verified 16 Sep 2026