Report: Disabled Parking Permits in Israel Soared 501% in Less Than Two Decades

State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman published a scathing report today (Tuesday), revealing that Israel’s disabled parking permit system has spiraled out of control. As of 2025, about 669,000 vehicles in Israel are linked to a disabled permit, accounting for roughly 17% of all vehicles in the country. In practical terms: one out of every six cars receives designated parking benefits.

According to the data exposed in the report, Israel had about 74,000 disabled parking permits in 2006. By 2025, that number had climbed to about 445,000 permits, linked to 669,000 vehicles. That amounts to a 501% surge in less than two decades, while Israel’s population grew by only 43% during the same period. For comparison, in 2014, vehicles with disabled permits made up just 6% of all vehicles on the road.

One of the most troubling findings in the report concerns the mechanism for approving applications in the Licensing Division of the Transportation Ministry. In 2024, the division’s doctors approved more than 93% of all applications for parking permits, without any in-person meeting with applicants and without a direct medical examination.

The report shows that between 2022 and 2024, some doctors provided by an outside consulting company to the ministry made as many as 480 decisions in a single day. In other words: an average of just a minute and a half to read a medical file and make a decision. The Transportation Ministry paid the company only 12.05 shekels for each eligibility review, creating a financial incentive to process the highest possible number of requests in the least possible time.

Sami Kohonai, deputy director of the Transportation Audit Division who wrote the report, explained the structural problem: "Those who go to the committees go through an orderly process in which they are physically examined. But the residual population applies to the Transportation Ministry, and they have no way to deal with it." She added: "We saw applications submitted with the same medical documents over and over again, sometimes even 20 times, and in the end, after being rejected again and again, they were approved. That shows there is a problem with judgment."

According to estimates by the Transportation Ministry itself, about 150,000 permits were issued improperly, some of them through criminal networks that trafficked in forged permits using falsified medical documents. That led to an undercover police investigation and a temporary halt to the issuance of new permits at the beginning of 2025. In addition, in 2021-2022, clerks in the Licensing Division used manual authorizations and fraudulently issued hundreds of permanent permits without a doctor’s review. The case was forwarded to the prosecutor’s office for review this past April.

Israel also stands out negatively in international comparison. Among 15 developed countries examined, including the United States, Britain, France, and Germany, Israel is the only country that allows two vehicles to be linked to the same parking permit, instead of attaching the permit personally to the disabled individual. That loophole makes it possible for two cars to park at the same time in two different disabled parking spaces, without the disabled person being in either one. Between 2022 and 2024, Transportation Ministry working teams recommended limiting the benefit to just one vehicle per permit, but those recommendations have not yet been implemented.

The benefits attached to the permit create a significant financial incentive to apply for one: free parking in blue-and-white spaces, the ability to park on sidewalks, and a dramatic discount on the vehicle registration fee — just 30 shekels compared with about 1,500 shekels for a regular car. According to the comptroller, those benefits cause the state to lose about 405 million shekels a year in revenue, in addition to unmeasured lost revenue for local authorities.

Enforcement on the ground is almost entirely absent. The law allows for a fine of up to 14,400 shekels for improper use of a permit, such as when the disabled person is not in the vehicle, but in recent years not a single citation has been issued for this offense. Police and local authorities have struggled to build a sufficient evidentiary basis, and municipal inspectors lack appropriate investigative powers.

Yuval Wagner, chairman of Access Israel, said that "available disabled parking spaces are critical for people with disabilities. There is an unreasonable and clearly improper situation of an overabundance of disabled parking permits — the criteria are too lenient, too few disabled parking spaces are marked, there is a problem of issuing duplicate parking permits, and there is an enforcement problem. The Transportation Ministry must address these failures together and immediately, in order to provide a response and a solution to this important issue."

The comptroller recommends canceling the option of linking two vehicles to a single permit, setting clear and binding medical criteria, and increasing enforcement. Despite a government decision from December 2025 to formulate a stricter issuance procedure within 90 days, the staff work has still not been completed. The comptroller emphasized that given the fact that 63% of the permits were issued permanently, no real change will take place without a renewed review of all existing permits.