Keeping hens · National rules

Can you keep backyard chickens in Palestine?

Registration: conditions apply, for the keepers covered below. The national keeping rules found include a Ministry of Agriculture license to set up a farm or hatchery; whether a few backyard hens count as a farm was not established. What we found on bird flu, welfare and the keeping rule follows, including what we couldn't establish.

Read from 6 official sources36 passages quotedChecked October 30, 2026

At a glance

Registering your flock

Conditions apply

National keeping rule

Rule identified

Bird-flu housing orders

Status needs rechecking

Welfare rules

No rule identified

A sourced reading of national law in Palestine, not legal advice. Local ordinances and zoning, HOA rules, and any local rooster or coop limits aren't covered here yet: check your local code before you get hens.

Keeping your flock

These findings cover the national scope stated below. They do not determine whether chickens are allowed at a particular home. City zoning, property restrictions and other local rules are outside this research.

Registering as a poultry keeper

Conditions apply to this finding

Jurisdiction: Palestine (texts issued by the Palestinian Authority; where they are applied was not established)

Applies to: Any animal owner, defined to include the owner, a claimed owner, an agent or the person in whose possession the animal is (Decision No. 8 of 2010, Art. 1); an animal is defined as any species of the animal kingdom (Art. 1).

Outside this finding's scope

  • Registration is made according to instructions issued under the regulation (Art. 2). The only registration instruction found, the Minister's Instructions No. 2 of 2012 on marketing poultry and its products, requires people raising broiler chickens or turkeys to register their flock with the governorate agriculture and veterinary departments within a week of its arrival at the farm (Art. 13); no instruction covering laying hens or household flocks was found, so how and when such a flock is registered was not established.
  • No flock-size threshold was found in the texts read.
  • The Agriculture Law lets the Minister take measures to register animals in areas he designates (Art. 61); which areas were designated was not established.

What the checked sources say

  • Animal owners must apply to the General Administration of Veterinary Services and Animal Health to register the animals they hold, under instructions issued under the regulation (Decision No. 8 of 2010, Arts 1 and 2).
  • Sheltering, displaying, selling, transporting, slaughtering or trading animals or animal products that have not been registered and numbered or identified under the regulation is prohibited (Art. 5).
  • The General Administration must take measures to identify and register poultry, including breeding flocks and hatcheries (Art. 8).
  • The regulation's fee table lists a registration card for a laying-hen flock (Decision No. 8 of 2010, Art. 23(1)).

Authority: Ministry of Agriculture, General Administration of Veterinary Services and Animal Health

Fee: 50 shekels per registration card for a laying-hen flock, as set in 2010 (Decision No. 8 of 2010, Art. 23(1), fee table item 17); later fee changes were not checked

The official wording

Bird-flu housing orders

Current status needs rechecking

An official current-status link has not been established.

Orders can change between checks. A missed check or an expired order does not establish that no order applies.

Housing-order finding as checked on 2026-11-08

The scope and conditions below are a dated record, not confirmation of today's position.

Not established from the sources checked

Uses housing orders in this scope: Not established from the sources checked.

Jurisdiction: Palestine (texts issued by the Palestinian Authority; where they are applied was not established)

Applies to: Animals, including poultry, under the Minister of Agriculture's disease-control powers (Agriculture Law Art. 66; Decision No. 8 of 2010, Art. 17).

Outside this finding's scope

  • No measure requiring poultry to be housed or kept indoors was found in the texts read.
  • This page does not say whether any bird-flu measure is in force; the Ministry of Agriculture's website was not searched for an official status page.

What the checked sources say

  • The Minister must issue decisions to declare any area infected with disease, take the required measures there and organise isolation and quarantine of sick animals (Agriculture Law Art. 66(5)-(6)).
  • When an epidemic is confirmed, the Minister declares the area an infected zone on the General Administration's recommendation; measures may include veterinary quarantine of the zone and a ban on moving animals and their products in or out without the official vet's permission (Decision No. 8 of 2010, Art. 17).
  • Owners who suspect infectious disease must report it at once to an official or licensed vet and isolate sick or suspect animals (Decision No. 8 of 2010, Art. 14(1)).
Checked
Recheck due

Historical evidence, as checked

These quotations record what was checked on the dates shown. They do not confirm an order's current status.

Small-flock welfare minimums

No rule identified in this research

Jurisdiction: Palestine (texts issued by the Palestinian Authority; where they are applied was not established)

Applies to: Kept poultry

Outside this finding's scope

  • No welfare rule reaching small or household poultry flocks was found in the texts read (the Agriculture Law's animal-wealth part, the Animal Health Control Regulation, the farms regulation and the egg-marketing rule).
  • Criminal-law provisions on animals were not read.
  • The egg-marketing rule's annex sets minimum housing conditions for laying hens only as a condition of the production-method terms on Class A egg packs (TR 30-2011 Art. 13-2 and Annex).

The official wording

National rules on keeping poultry

Rule identified for the scope below

Jurisdiction: Palestine (texts issued by the Palestinian Authority; where they are applied was not established)

Applies to: Anyone setting up, expanding or changing the use of a farm or hatchery (Regulation No. 16 of 2021, Art. 6), and animal owners (registration, Decision No. 8 of 2010, Art. 2).

Outside this finding's scope

  • A farm is defined as pens for raising animals for production and breeding, and a poultry farm as pens for raising poultry for production, designed to approved technical specifications, with a pen area of at least 300 m2 (Regulation No. 16 of 2021, Art. 1); whether a few backyard hens count was not established.
  • Local building and zoning rules were not researched.
  • This is not permission to keep poultry; whether keeping poultry is allowed where you live was not established.

What the checked sources say

  • Setting up, expanding or changing the use of a farm or hatchery needs a Ministry of Agriculture licence (Regulation No. 16 of 2021, Art. 6).
  • Farms and hatcheries may not be set up inside a local authority's structural plan (Art. 8).
  • Animal owners must apply to register the animals they hold under instructions issued under the regulation (Decision No. 8 of 2010, Art. 2); how this applies to a household flock was not established.

The official wording

Selling eggs in Palestine? →License, small-flock line, markets and cartons, on their own page.Selling: License: depends

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Common questions

Do I have to register backyard chickens in Palestine?
Registration: conditions apply. The finding covers: Any animal owner, defined to include the owner, a claimed owner, an agent or the person in whose possession the animal is (Decision No. 8 of 2010, Art. 1); an animal is defined as any species of the animal kingdom (Art. 1). Outside this finding's scope: Registration is made according to instructions issued under the regulation (Art. 2). The only registration instruction found, the Minister's Instructions No. 2 of 2012 on marketing poultry and its products, requires people raising broiler chickens or turkeys to register their flock with the governorate agriculture and veterinary departments within a week of its arrival at the farm (Art. 13); no instruction covering laying hens or household flocks was found, so how and when such a flock is registered was not established. No flock-size threshold was found in the texts read. The Agriculture Law lets the Minister take measures to register animals in areas he designates (Art. 61); which areas were designated was not established. Authority: Ministry of Agriculture, General Administration of Veterinary Services and Animal Health.
Can I keep chickens in my backyard in Palestine?
The national sources we read don't settle it, and we haven't identified who decides. Check your local rules before you get hens.
Do I have to keep my hens indoors for bird flu in Palestine?
Housing orders come and go, so we never show one as current. We haven't confirmed an official current-status page for it.

Allowed where you live? Then keep the records.

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