Last Updated on December 10, 2021
Step-by-step instructional video for paying your Israel municipal property taxes online – Arnona
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to another Anglo–List video: “Step-by-step instructions for paying your municipal property taxes online.”
Digital payment platforms are meant to make our lives easier but for new Olim, with basic Hebrew skills, it can be especially difficult navigating them, so we are delighted to be able to share the next in our series of step-by-step English instructions with you.
Before we start the payment process, let’s talk a little bit about Arnona.
What exactly is Arnona? Arnona is a municipal property tax. Whether you are residing in your own home or a tenant, you are responsible for paying the Arnona bill.
Arnona covers such things as street lights, garbage collection and other general municipal services. Some municipalities and regional councils have a combined water and Arnona bill, while others have separate bills for each.
Arnona is calculated by multiplying the square meterage of your dwelling and other common areas, like stairwells and lobbies with the current municipal rate. Rates vary from city to city and town to town. Cities are often divided into zones; A, b, c or d – Alpeh, Bet, Gimmel, Dalet and residents in the more affluent suburbs or neighborhoods in zone Aleph for example, will pay more than those in zone Gimmel or Dalet.
At the beginning of the fiscal year, your municipality might send you a bill for the upcoming year wherein they offer you a selection of payment alternatives; a single upfront payment for the year ahead, two payments for 6 months each etc., etc., but most of us choose to pay our Arnona in 60-day cycles.
Remember, if you pay your utility bills past the due date, you will be responsible for late fees. The late fees are not huge amounts, but of course, if you are not careful, those numbers can add up.
New olim are entitled to a 12-month Arnona discount and currently the discount is between 70% -90% but the figure can change if the Aliyah benefit package changes. Other sectors of the community are also entitled to Arnona discounts; the disabled, students, single parent families to name but a few. You can find the full list in our website in the article – “Are you entitled to an Arnona discount?”
There are a few ways to pay your Arnona; a monthly debit via your bank account, via you’re your local municipal website or via the CityPay payment portal. CityPay enables you to pay a host of bills like water, parking fines, school fees and many others.
Like the Haifa one shown here, some municipalities and regional council websites will connect you directly with the CityPay payment portal, but if not, you need to access City Pay via a Google search.
In your web browser enter the keyword phrase ‘CityPay israel’
The first result is the one you need – w w w.CityPay.co.il
Just click on the link to enter the website
The CityPay link automatically directs you to a website with the URL w w w .city4u.co.il
As we’ve mentioned in previous videos, CityPay is a Hebrew website and it has NO English interface so you’ll need to learn a few important Hebrew keywords in order to take full advantage of the site.
First you need to know how to recognize the name of your city or town in Hebrew and select it from the drop-down menu on the right-hand side of the webpage as we’ve illustrated here in orange.
You will also have to identify the Hebrew word for the utility you wish to pay from the drop down menu on the left-hand side as illustrated here in green.
In this video we are paying Arnona and the Hebrew spelling of the word Arnona is like this – ארנונה
Two other important Hebrew terns you should be able to recognize for purposes of paying your bill, are MISPAR MESHALEM – customer or client number and MISPAR MISLAKA – clearing number as we have shown here.
Make sure you have your water bill on hand, your Teudat Zehut number and your credit card details in order to proceed with the payment process.
Once you have selected your municipality or regional council, the utility you wish to pay click on the CONTINUE button and a new screen will pop up and you can commence payment.
Step 1 of the online payment process.
The first thing you need to fill in in the spaces provided is the MISPAR MESHALEM or client number which is usually a Teudat Zehut number, as illustrated here in green followed by the clearing number – that’s the MISPAR MISLAKA – shown here in yellow. Extract the corresponding information from your actual bill. Click on the DISPLAY AMOUNT button, as shown here in blue, and the amount due will automatically pop up, as shown in red. That number should correspond with the amount reflected on the actual bill which is also circled in red.
Click on the CONTINUE button to proceed or on the GO BACK button if you need to change an entry.
In step 2 of the payment process you are required to fill in your personal details and contact information. Three of the four fields are mandatory; name, telephone and email. Details can be filled in in Hebrew or in Latin letters.
Click on the CONTINUE button to proceed to the next step.
Step 3 of the online payment process asks you to choose payment terms. There are 2 options – the first option is a regular and immediate payment and the second option is a credit payment in installments. If you choose installments you will have to pay some interest.
For the purposes of this video, we will be making a regular and immediate payment. Fill in your credit card and Teudat Zehut details and thereafter select ‘REGULAR PAYMENT’ selection as shown here in green and then click on the CONTINUE button.
Step 4, is the payment confirmation section. Payment is confirmed together with a transaction reference number. If you’d like to make additional payments via the CityPay portal you can do so by clicking on the grey MAKE AN ADDITIONAL PAYMENT button. At this stage you can choose to print your receipt by clicking on the PRINT icon.
Earlier in Step 2, you provided your email address when you filled in your personal contact details and a receipt of payment will be sent directly to that inbox as well.
You can see on this specific receipt; payment was made for 2 sixty-day cycles and one of the payments is slightly more than the other and that’s the one which includes late fees.
With that we have completed the payment process.
We hope you have enjoyed this video, and if so, please give us a thumbs up and share the video with your friends. If you have a comment please share it in the comment section below where we will also be posting other useful links on all aspects of housing, home ownership and renting in Israel.
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