Israel

Machine-readable reference data for Israeli business expense classification codes, plus documentation of the two separate deduction rule sets that apply to them — one for income tax, one for VAT.

Built so that AI agents and accounting integrations can look these up from a structured source instead of guessing.

⚠️ This is not official information and it is not tax advice. Read DISCLAIMER.md before using anything here.

The codes

Israeli businesses classify income and expenses using the code list defined by the Israel Tax Authority for Form 6111 (טופס 6111 — the uniform financial-statement report filed alongside the annual return). Israeli accounting software maps its own expense categories onto these codes; in the Green Invoice / Morning API, for example, the field is literally called irsCode.

363 codes, tax year 2023:

Table	Codes	Range	File
Profit & loss	155	1000–6666	data/6111-profit-and-loss.json
Balance sheet	166	7100–9790	data/6111-balance-sheet.json
Tax adjustment	42	100–600	data/6111-tax-adjustment.json

Expense codes live mainly in the P&L table:

Range	Contents
1000–1090	Revenue
1300–1450	Cost of sales / services / works
2000–2500	Manufacturing costs, R&D
3000–3190	Selling expenses
3500–3690	General & administrative expenses
5000–5810	Financing, other income/expense, equity
6666	Profit/loss before tax

Record shape

{
  "code": 3650,
  "name_he": "הוצאות דואר ותקשורת",
  "section": "1.8",
  "is_summary": false,
  "allows_negative": false
}

• section — the Form 6111 section the code belongs to
• is_summary — the code is a subtotal/total line, not a detail line
• allows_negative — the specification permits a negative amount for this code

Each file carries a _source block recording provenance, retrieval date, and verification status.

English glosses

The 6111 code names are published by the ITA in Hebrew only. For orientation, data/code-names-en.json carries an unofficial English gloss for all 363 codes, joined on code:

{
  "code": 3650,
  "statement": "profit-and-loss",
  "name_he": "הוצאות דואר ותקשורת",
  "name_en": "Post and communications"
}

These are working translations, not the ITA's own English — the ITA does not publish an English code list. Where a gloss and the Hebrew diverge, the Hebrew governs. Do not key integrations on these strings; key them on code.

The file is generated by tools/make_code_names_en.py, which refuses to write output unless it holds exactly one gloss per canonical code — so the glosses cannot silently drift out of alignment with the tables.

The two rule sets

The most common and most expensive mistake in Israeli expense handling is assuming one answer. An expense has two independent treatments:

	Income tax	VAT
Question	How much of the cost reduces taxable income?	How much of the VAT charged is recoverable as input tax?
Governed by	פקודת מס הכנסה + regulations	חוק מס ערך מוסף + תקנות מע"מ
Docs	docs/income-tax-deductions.md	docs/vat-input-tax.md

They routinely diverge. Business travel by taxi is a normal deductible expense for income tax while carrying no recoverable input VAT. A mixed business/private telephone line is fully deductible for income tax while input VAT is restricted to a fraction. Any system that models "deductible: true/false" as a single boolean is modelling Israeli tax incorrectly.

See also docs/form-6111-overview.md for what Form 6111 is and how the codes are used in practice.

Scope and honesty about limits

What this repository gives you with confidence: the code list — code numbers, canonical Hebrew names, section structure, and summary/detail flags. These were extracted mechanically (not hand-typed) and cross-checked against irsCode values returned by a live Israeli accounting system: 11 of 11 matched.

What it deliberately does not give you: a lookup table of "code → deductible %". That table is not a stable published artefact. Deductibility depends on the taxpayer's circumstances (apportionment between business and private use is taxpayer-specific), and several statutory rates change annually. The docs/ pages therefore explain mechanisms and cite the governing provisions rather than asserting percentages that would silently go stale and be wrong.

If you need a number, follow the citation to the primary source or ask your accountant. That is the honest answer, and a wrong number here would be worse than no number.

Contributing

Corrections are very welcome, especially from Israeli accounting professionals. Please cite a primary source (statute section, regulation number, or an ITA publication) in any pull request that changes substantive content.

Useful additions: corrections to the unofficial English glosses (edit the GLOSS table in tools/make_code_names_en.py, not the generated JSON), mappings from other Israeli accounting platforms onto irsCode, and updates for newer tax years.

Sources

Documented in docs/sources.md.

Licence

MIT. The code tables derive from the MIT-licensed Urigo/accounter-fullstack project — see NOTICE.