Financing, downloads & contact details

Parents can receive an additional child benefit if they earn enough money to provide for themselves, but their income is not or hardly sufficient to be enough for the entire family. On this page, you will find all the necessary information about the “Kinderzuschlag”.

At www.familienkasse.de, the KiZ-Lotse can help you to quickly find out whether or not you are entitled to receive this additional child benefit.

More opportunities to work part-time as well as flexible partnership bonus

Parents can now work up to 32 hours per week part-time while receiving Elterngeld. The partnership bonus can now be received if both parents work 24 - 32 hours per week instead of, as it used to be, 25 - 30 hours per week. It can also be organized in a simpler and more flexible way. Parents used to have to apply for it 4 months in a row; now it is possible to receive it between 2 and 4 months. It is also possible to flexibly end it or prolong it at short notice.

Furthermore, receiving additional income such as short-time allowance or sick pay will, in future, not affect the amount of parental allowance and will thus no longer reduce it.

Parents of babies born prematurely receive additional months of Elterngeld

If a child is born at least six weeks before the due date, parents receive one additional month of basic parental allowance. If a child is born eight weeks before the due date, parents receive two additional months of basic parental allowance, in the case of twelve weeks three months and in the case of 16 weeks four months. The additional months of basic parental allowance can also be transformed into parental allowance plus, thus enabling parents to receive Elterngeld over a longer period of time. 

Simplifying administrative procedures and clarification

In future, it will be possible for parents with a small additional income from being self-employed to have their income taken into account in a more appropriate way for receiving Elterngeld. If their average additional self-employed income does not exceed 35 euros a month, parents can make an application that only their non-self-employed income in the last 12 calendar months before the child is born is taken into consideration when calculating the amount of Elterngeld. Up to now, their income in the calendar year before the child was born was, in general, used for the calculation. 

Adjustments to the income limit

In future, only parents who together earn at the most 300,000 euros a year are to receive Elterngeld. Up to now, the maximum amount for couples was 500,000 euros. For single parents, the income limit will remain at 250,000 euros.

Further details as well as specific examples can be found on the “Familienportal” of the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ).

Here you can have a look at information for international parents.