Dwelling and Building Register- Identification of rented apartments Nofar Ben-Haim, Central Bureau of Statistics Abstract In recent years, real estate has been a central issue in Israel. Shortage of housing and as a result, the high prices of housing for purchase or rent, made it essential to provide the policy makers with updated and relevant statistics and data. The Dwelling and Building Register (DBR) has been built in order to provide buildings and dwellings statistics as well as creating the infrastructure for future register- based censuses. The Israeli DBR is based on Municipal taxation lists, that were found to be the most reliable and near- complete data source. We collect data from 202 urban municipalities and 55 Regional Councils. Each municipality organizes the tax list according to its needs, the variables are defined differently and therefore, standardization and harmonization are needed for comparability purposes. Each record in the register carries information about the payer, the holder and the owner of the dwelling unit, and provides the opportunity to link the register data to other databases and registers via geography and population. Geo-coding the dwelling unit to the building level and to its aggregates serves for small area statistics, and hence, for effective decision making. Personal Identification Number (PIN) generated in the Central Population Register (CPR) serve for anchoring the population to the same units, and therefore we can estimate the household size and the relations between the owner and the holder of the dwelling unit. Due to the heterogeneity and under coverage of the ownership variable in the municipalities files, the ICBS calculates the ownership variable, based on calculated family relations between the registered owners of the dwelling and the registered holder of the dwelling, as found in the Central Population Register (spouses, siblings, et cetera). In comparison with the Labor Force Survey (LFS) this calculation found to be relatively reliable. However, the under-coverage of the DBR is high, 32.3%, and its over-coverage is of 9.9%. Model-based imputation is engaged in order to increase the coverage of the ownership variable, based on additional information provided by the municipalities and from the LFS. Developing the imputation model will involve testing the statistical correlation between the reported status in a specific municipality and the reported status in the LFS, as a well as a regression tree based on the LFS, mainly for municipalities that the current available information will not be suitable to be used in statistical correlations mechanism. The paper will discuss the decisions which lead to the new imputed ownership status, to the subsequent improved quality of the DBR, and to its possible uses for addressing the challenges that the current housing situation in Israel is presenting.