Applying for parental allowance: Everything you need to know about it!
You should apply for parental allowance early after the birth of your baby, but with all the other formalities it can be easy to lose track. Here you can find out where you have to submit your application, which deadlines you should observe and how long you can apply for parental allowance.
Where can you apply for parental allowance?
If you and your partner would like to claim parental allowance, you must each submit a written application to the local parental allowance office. You can find a precise list of addresses on the website of the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth . You can also get the applications themselves from the relevant parental allowance office, but many health insurance companies and maternity wards now also have the necessary forms ready.
In addition to the actual application, there are a number of receipts and documents that you must submit:
- Birth certificate or birth certificate of the child
- Proof of income for the last 12 months
- Certificate from the health insurance company that you are receiving maternity benefit after the birth
- Certificate of employer contribution to maternity benefit
- Confirmation of working hours from the employer for part-time work or declaration of working hours if you are self-employed
When can you apply for parental allowance?
If you want to apply for parental allowance, you should consider that the parental allowance is not paid according to calendar months, but according to the child’s life months. So if your baby was born on August 15th, the period up to September 14th is the first month in which you can draw parental allowance. Since parental allowance is only paid retrospectively for three months of life, it is important that you make sure that the application with all the documents reaches the parental allowance office early on after the birth.
Parental allowance and parental leave do not necessarily have to be applied for at the same time. For most parents, however, there is no other way, because the basic requirement for entitlement to parental allowance is reduced working hours of a maximum of 30 hours per week. Since you have to register your parental leave with your employer seven weeks in advance, it takes a bit of planning and luck to optimally coordinate parental allowance and parental leave.
How long can you apply for parental allowance?
In principle, you can only apply for parental allowance for the first 12 months of your baby’s life. If your partner also applies for parental allowance for at least two months, you can extend the reference period to 14 months. The so-called “partner months” are often also referred to as “father months”, since fathers still only use the minimum period, if at all.
The prerequisite for the partner months is that the partner’s earned income is actually reduced by looking after the child. If your partner has not worked before, he cannot apply for partner months. Incidentally, partner months must not only be communicated to the parental allowance office, but also to the employer seven weeks in advance.
The legislature provides an exception for single parents who can receive the full 14 months of life independently of their partner. All you have to do is prove that you have sole custody and that the child mainly lives in your household. If your partner is unable to care for the child alone, for example because of illness , you are also entitled to parental allowance for 14 months. A doctor’s certificate or similar is important as proof.
Another special case is a premature birth: If your baby is born at least six weeks prematurely, you are entitled to an additional month of parental allowance. With eight weeks, you will receive two additional months of parental allowance, with twelve weeks three months and with 16 weeks four months.
Maternity benefits include the maternity allowance from the statutory health insurance companies, the employer’s contribution to the maternity allowance and salaries for civil servants during the maternity leave period.
Months in which you claim maternity benefits are offset against the parental allowance. The reason for this is that maternity benefits serve a similar purpose to parental allowance. With two months of maternity leave, you can claim a maximum of 10 real parental allowance months, and 12 as a single parent.
For more information on how receiving other benefits affects parental allowance, see our article Parental Allowance and Unemployment Benefit? “.
What is the best way to distribute parental allowance months?
Together with your partner, think about the period for which you want to apply for parental allowance:
Flexible allocation: You do not have to claim parental allowance payments in one go. It is also possible, for example, for you to take on the first to third and seventh to fourteenth month while your partner stays at home during the breaks in between.
Simultaneous receipt: If you receive parental allowance at the same time, the period of receipt will of course be shortened accordingly. Suppose both parents want to claim parental allowance at the same time for the entire period. Then they will receive twice the salary every month, but only for seven instead of fourteen months of life.
Extended payment period: If you wish, you can only have half the amount paid out each month. This doubles the reference period for parental allowance from 12 to 24 months or, with partner months, from 14 to 28 months. Conditions such as reduced working hours then only apply to the first 14 months of your baby’s life. After that, you can go back to work as normal and, in addition to your salary, you will be paid half a rate of parental allowance every month.
If you have specific questions, the local authorities can certainly help you. You can also find a lot more information about parental allowance and parental leave from us, for example how to calculate the amount of parental allowance in advance.