Paying for property in Palestine: dinar, dollar, shekel, and what the banks ask

Buying here means paying in a currency, and three are in daily use. Which one applies is not a preference — it follows from what you are buying and what the seller is asking. For a buyer abroad the currency question and the banking question are one question, and it is the one most often left until the week it matters.

Palestine has no national currency of its own. Three circulate, and each has settled into a role.

The Jordanian dinar is the currency of property, and of land and sales above all. It is pegged to the US dollar — the Central Bank of Jordan has held the rate at 0.709 dinars to the dollar since 1995 — so its dollar value barely moves, which is much of why people price land in it and store value in it.

The US dollar is used widely, particularly with buyers abroad, and is the practical reference currency for larger transactions.

The Israeli shekel is the currency of daily life and of most rentals. It floats, and because the dinar is pegged to the dollar, a dinar price and a dollar price move together while a shekel price moves against both.

So sales, and land before anything else, are quoted in dinars or dollars, and rentals in shekels. Quoting in one currency and settling in another is ordinary enough, but it is an arrangement, and it belongs in writing rather than in an assumption.

Each property is priced in the currency the seller is actually asking in. We do not convert everything into one currency and present that as the price, because the price is what the seller is asking and a conversion is not that. Where a converted figure appears it is marked indicative: it gives a sense of scale and lets listings be sorted against one another, but it is not a quote and nobody will honour it. What you pay is in the listing's own currency, at the rate your own bank gives you on the day you transfer.

A rate you find online is the mid-market rate — the midpoint between what the market is bidding and what it is asking. No individual is given it. Every bank and exchange office quotes a buy and a sell, and the gap between them is theirs. Half a percent of a 200,000 purchase is 1,000, and once a transfer has passed the sending bank, an intermediary, and the receiving bank, half a percent is optimistic.

Two things make this manageable. The Palestine Monetary Authority publishes indicative buy and sell rates for the dollar, dinar and shekel at the start of each working day, so there is a public reference to hold a quote against. And licensed exchange offices work under instructions the Authority issued in 2024 capping the gap between their buy and sell rates at 200 basis points — two percent — against the international screen rate, and barring any single transaction above the equivalent of twenty thousand dollars. That ceiling sits below most purchases, which is why property money moves by bank transfer rather than across a counter.

So before you commit to a figure, ask your bank what rate it will apply and what the transfer will cost, and ask in a form you can keep. Asked afterwards, the same question only tells you what happened.

A bank receiving a property-sized transfer must establish where the money came from. In Palestine that duty runs from the anti-money-laundering framework the Monetary Authority supervises — Decree-Law No. 20 of 2015 and the instructions under it — and your own bank is under an equivalent duty on the sending side. It is not discretionary and it is not a comment on you.

What satisfies it is documentary and ordinary: identification; evidence of where the funds came from, such as payslips, the sale of another property, company accounts, an inheritance file or a loan agreement; statements showing the money accumulating rather than appearing; and a stated purpose, which for a purchase is the transaction itself.

Transfers can also be slow for structural reasons rather than personal ones. Palestinian banks reach the international payment system through correspondent banks abroad, and shekel clearing runs through arrangements with the Israeli banking system rather than direct access to it. Each is an extra hop, and each hop is somewhere a payment can be held for a question. A clean dollar transfer generally arrives within a few working days; one stopped for review can take a fortnight or more, and small things stop them — a name spelled differently from the passport, a missing purpose of payment, a first transfer of unusual size.

Not necessarily. Funds can be sent to your lawyer's account and paid out on completion, which is how many buyers outside the country do it. An account of your own buys control over when the conversion happens, and somewhere for the money to sit while the file is finished.

Whether you can open one without travelling depends on the bank. Some Palestinian banks now open accounts remotely; some will open a Palestine account through a branch elsewhere in the region; some products are limited to holders of a Palestinian or Jerusalem identity document. The requirements are similar everywhere — passport, proof of address abroad, tax identification where you live, source-of-funds evidence — and the appetite is not. Ask more than one.

State currency and amount together and unambiguously: not "200,000" but "200,000 US dollars". Where a conversion is contemplated, name the rate, the source and the date. "The Palestine Monetary Authority's published rate on the date of payment" is a complete term; "at the exchange rate on the day" is an argument waiting to happen.

And do not plan on a rate holding. Between agreeing a price and completing, the shekel moves, and if the price is in shekels while your money is in dollars, that movement is yours in both directions. If it troubles you, convert when you agree the price rather than when you complete.

• Registration. The Land Registration Department's fee is one percent of the value it assesses — half a percent between relatives to the second degree — and is customarily the buyer's. It is calculated on that assessment, not on what you paid.
• Clearances. The file needs a certified deed free of encumbrances, and clearances from the property tax office and the municipality, each party obtaining its own. These are the slow documents.
• Lawyers. Each side instructs and pays for its own, on a basis agreed before instructing.
• Commission. Two percent from the buyer and two percent from the seller. The buyer's share is already inside the displayed price and nothing is added afterwards.
• Moving the money. The sending bank's charge, any intermediary's, the receiving bank's, and the exchange spread — together, not small.
• Signing from abroad. A power of attorney means a consular fee, certified translation and authentication, plus the time it takes.

The most common avoidable delay is not the transfer. It is discovering a documentation requirement in the week the money was due to arrive. Start the banking conversation when you start looking: ask your bank what it needs to send a property payment, and the receiving side what it needs to release one, before a date depends on either answer.

This article is general information and is not legal, tax, or financial advice. Bank requirements and transaction costs turn on your own circumstances and on the institutions involved. Speak to a qualified lawyer about your own situation.