The women's 800 metre freestyle event at the 2005 Maccabiah Games took place 14 June, at the Wingate Institute. This swimming event used freestyle swimming, which means that the method of the stroke is not regulated (unlike backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly events). Nearly all swimmers use the front crawl or a variant of that stroke. Because an Olympic size swimming pool is 50 metres long, this race consisted of sixteen lengths of the pool.
No heats were held.
The women's 800 metre event was unusual on the 2005 Maccabiah swimming programme in that there was no direct equivalent for men. Instead, the men's longest freestyle event was at 1500 metres and men did not swim an 800-metre freestyle event. For all other swimming events in 2005, the men's and women's programmes were identical.