Benefits for a family after a child is born

This page provides information about family leave benefits under the new law. If you have been granted benefits under the old law, you can find out more about them on Kela’s website.

You can apply for daily allowances for parents if you are covered by Finnish social security and you have been covered by health insurance in Finland for the period for which you wish to receive parental allowance.

You can apply for daily allowances for parents via the Kela website. Log in using your bank identifiers or a mobile certificate. The service provides advice on how to fill in the application form. At the same address, you can also see how the processing of your application is proceeding. After your application has been processed, you can see at the same address the amount of benefit you will be paid and the payment date. The service is available in Finnish and Swedish.

Alternatively, you can apply for daily allowances for parents by filling in a paper form and posting it along with its appendices to any Kela office. You can get help in filling in the application at a maternity clinic.

The amount of daily allowances for parents depends on the applicant’s income. Daily allowances for parents are always less than wages, usually approximately 70% of the income. If you do not have any income, you will receive the minimum amount of daily allowance for parents. Unemployed parents and non-working parents are also entitled to daily allowances for parents.

If your employer pays you salary during your daily allowances period, Kela will pay the daily allowances to your employer. Notify your employer about your parental leave two months before it begins. If you take no more than 12 working days of leave, notify your employer one month beforehand at the latest. Read more on the InfoFinland page Holidays and leaves.

Daily allowances for parents are taxable benefits for which you need to acquire a tax card. Read more on the InfoFinland page Taxation.

The pregnancy allowance period lasts for a total of 40 working days. After the child is born, you will receive pregnancy allowance (maternity allowance under the old law) for as many days as are left of the 40 working days to be paid to you. If the child is born before you have started your pregnancy leave, the payment of pregnancy allowance will begin on the first working day following the birth. Further information is available on the InfoFinland page Support during pregnancy.

The birthing parent can get parental allowance (vanhempainraha) as soon as the pregnancy allowance period has ended, even if the child has not yet been born. The other parent can start the parental allowance period when the child is born. Either guardian can get parental allowance. They can also get the allowance in turns.

Parental allowance can be received for 320 working days, i.e. approximately 14 months. Both parents are entitled to half of the days, or 160 days, of the parental allowance period. If the child has only one guardian, they can use all the 320 working days and get parental allowance for a longer period.

If a family has twins, the parental allowance period will be 84 weekdays longer.

You can receive parental allowance flexibly when you want until your child turns two. If you have a job, agree with your employer on parental leave.

Apply for a parental allowance at least two months before you begin your leave. Also find out in good time whether or not your employer pays salary during parental leave. You need the information for the parental allowance application. If you are paid salary during your parental leave, Kela will pay the parental allowance to your employer.

According to the new law, Kela will no longer need a check-up certificate to be attached to the application.

You can give up and turn over a maximum of 63 working days of your quota of 160 parental allowance days to the child's other parent who is caring for the child, your partner or the partner of the child’s other parent.

The birthing parent can turn over parental allowance days with an application filed before or after the birth of the child. The other parent cannot give up parental allowance days until after the child is born. A parent must first give up a certain amount of parental allowance days before another person can claim them.

If you take care of a child part of the day and work part-time at the same time, you can apply for partial parental allowance. Your daily working time must be no more than 5 hours per day. If you are employed, you must have concluded an agreement on part-time work with your employer.

The parents can also work part time and look after the child in turns or at the same time. For this period, Kela pays partial parental allowance to both parents.

If one of the parents wants to stay at home to take care of the child after the parental leave, they may receive child home care allowance. Read more on the InfoFinland page Benefits for looking after a child at home.(Link leads to external service)