As We Tried to Return to Normal: Bank Account Management Costs Soar to ~1,000 Shekels per Family

The Bank of Israel published its annual report on bank fees, revealing that the average cost of managing a current account and holding a credit card in 2025 amounted to 379 shekels per account. With an average of 2.6 accounts per household, the cost per family reaches approximately 1,000 shekels. The surge is due to the cancellation of the wartime relief framework, and banks raked in 5.7 billion shekels in fees.

The Bank of Israel today published its annual report on bank fees, according to which the average cost of managing a current account and holding a credit card in 2025 amounted to 379 shekels per account. Since each household has an average of 2.6 accounts, the cost per family totals about 1,000 shekels. This figure reflects a jump back to the peak of 382 shekels per account in 2023. The decline recorded in 2024 was due to the relief framework following the 'Swords of Iron' war, which included fee exemptions for groups such as reservists and bereaved families. Now, with the end of the framework, fees have returned to their previous level. The highest cost in a current account is the credit card fee – 150 shekels per year, and the number of cards per account rose to 1.9. Additionally, households paid about 140 shekels per year for current account transactions. Banks enjoyed income of 5.7 billion shekels from fees in 2025, compared to 5.4 billion in 2024. About a third of fees come from securities trading, a particularly profitable area for banks. A reform is expected to take effect in October 2026, which will reduce the debit card fee to 7 shekels and cap the cost of 100 current account transactions at 10 shekels. However, only 15% of customers have joined the discounted fee tracks.