How to find a sublet in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem

On Facebook, each city has several big sublet groups, there are groups for religious and kosher-keeping renters, and there are English-language groups that promise “no agents”. New posts go up all the time and people answer by message, but anyone can post, profiles can be fake, and the checking is up to you.

You'll see the Hebrew phrase mipe la'ozen, “from mouth to ear”, all over sublet searches. Mostly it's a name that several big Facebook groups for apartments and sublets go by, and they work like any other group. In the plain sense it's word of mouth: friends, colleagues, a friend of a friend leaving for six months, plus WhatsApp groups for your neighbourhood or workplace. That channel is smaller, but when you know someone in the chain, it's far easier to check who's behind the apartment.

Yad2, Israel's big classifieds site, has its own sublet category inside its rentals section, searchable by area. The catch for newcomers is that most listings are in Hebrew, though your browser's translate feature gets you most of the way. English speakers also use Janglo, an English-language classifieds site with rental listings, and the English-language Secret Tel Aviv Facebook group, where people post and ask about sublets.

Dedicated sublet sites and apps, plus Airbnb's monthly stays, put dates, photos and a price in one place. It's worth checking what each one actually verifies and what it doesn't. On Home Sublet, for example, a booking request isn't a booking until the host approves, there are no agency fees, and only renters who stayed 30 nights or more can write a review.

The academic year at Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University opens in October, so if you're coming to study you'll want a place settled before then. On the other hand, hosts post a sublet once they know they're leaving, and sometimes that's only a few weeks ahead. So start looking a month or two before your dates, and keep checking new posts right through the last few weeks.

A good, fairly priced place in a big group gets a lot of replies, fast. Have your dates, a monthly budget and a two-line intro ready to paste: who you are, what brings you to the city, how many of you there are. A first message with all of that saves the host a round of questions, and beats “still available?”. Speed is no reason to skip the checks, though, and anyone pushing you to decide on the spot has already told you something.

Start with the dates: exactly when you move in and out, and whether there's a few days' give. Then the price, and above all what it covers: electricity, water, gas, internet, arnona (the municipal property tax) and va'ad bayit (the building's maintenance fee). Ask how much the deposit is, and when and how it comes back. Get the answers in writing, even if it's just a message.

A sublet is usually somebody's actual home. Ask what stays behind: clothes in the closets, plants to water, a cat to feed. If it's a shared flat, ask who else lives there and how much noise comes up from the street or the bar downstairs. And ask straight out whether the landlord knows and agrees, and how the key handover will work.

Then the building: which floor, is there a lift, is there air conditioning in the rooms, and where is the mamad (the reinforced safe room) or the nearest shelter. Since the early 1990s, new residential building in Israel has had to include a protected space, but by an estimate Globes published in March 2026, more than two thirds of the apartments in Tel Aviv and in Jerusalem are in buildings with neither a mamad nor a mamak (a shared safe room on each floor). If that's the case, find out where the nearest shelter is, in the building or a public one, and how long it takes to get there. In Jerusalem some renters care about a Shabbat elevator; it's a feature of the building, worth asking about like anything else.

A familiar pattern: you're asked for a deposit or a “holding fee” to reserve the place before you've seen it. A variation: the person posting is “abroad” and promises to send the keys by courier or post once you've paid. The answer to both is the same. No viewing, no money.

Watch for pressure (“three other people want it, decide by tonight”), a price far below similar places nearby, and anyone who won't meet or even do a video call. The listing that looks too perfect is exactly the one to check twice. Another one members of sublet groups have warned about: someone you don't know messages you on Facebook to recommend a “great sublet” they saw. Don't take the conversation further.

A harder one to spot: the person letting the place isn't allowed to. In 2015, Tel Aviv police arrested a suspect who would take a sublet for a single week, let the apartment on to renters for several months, collect thousands of shekels up front and vanish. The complaints came from tenants on Zamenhof, Dizengoff and Bograshov streets. The check is simple, and only awkward the first time: ask to see a lease in the host's name and the landlord's consent, and meet at the apartment itself, not in a café.

Section 22 of Israel's Hire and Loan Law, 1971 says a tenant may not sublet without the landlord's consent, and for an apartment that consent must be given “in advance and in writing”. If the landlord refuses on unreasonable grounds, or attaches unreasonable conditions, the tenant may sublet anyway, and a court can settle the dispute. And towards you, the subtenant, the landlord has no duty to hand the apartment over on time: as Kol Zchut explains, that obligation is your host's.

For you as a renter, the practical point is to see the signed approval before you pay, because if the landlord doesn't know and finds out midway, you could be flat hunting all over again. On Home Sublet, a listing with the “landlord approved” badge comes with a signed approval we keep on file. No badge? Ask the host.

Rent and deposit go to the host at the key handover, not a day earlier, in cash or by a local transfer you've both agreed on. For every sum (rent, deposit, refund) get a signed, dated receipt, and a screenshot of the bank transfer is a reasonable substitute. Home Sublet doesn't move money, so any request to “pay through the site” is a scam.

Arnona is a municipal tax that falls on the occupant, and the city sends the bill to whoever is registered with it as the occupant. In a sublet the practical question is who actually pays, so agree in writing whether arnona, va'ad bayit, electricity, water, gas and internet are included in the monthly price or paid on top by the bill. If they're on top, ask to see a recent bill so you know roughly what to expect.

On move-in day, photograph or video the whole place, including damage that's already there: a stain on the sofa, a broken shelf, an AC that drips. Send it to the host the same day. The deposit comes back the way you agreed, and those photos are what save an argument on move-out day.

Before you pay a single shekel, run through this: you've seen the apartment and the host, in person at the apartment or at least on a video call from it; they've shown you a lease in their name and the landlord's consent; the dates, the price and what it includes are in writing; you've agreed on the deposit and how it comes back; and money moves only against keys, with a signed receipt for every sum. Missing one? Stop and ask.