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Giving up parental allowance days for the benefit of someone else

You can give up and turn over a maximum of 63 working days of your quota of 160 parental allowance days to another person who is caring for the child. You can give up and turn over days to

  • the child's other parent
  • your partner who is not the child’s parent
  • the partner of the child's other parent
  • another person who is the child's legal guardian.

A partner here refers to a person married to, cohabiting with or living in a registered partnership with the child’s parent.

You do not have to turn over all of the days to the same person. However, you can only turn over a total maximum of 63 working days of your parental allowance days to someone else, even if you turn them over to more than one person. You can only turn over full parental allowance days to someone else.

A parent must first give up a certain amount of parental allowance days before another person can claim them. All parental allowance days are claimed in the same way. This means that you can claim parental allowance days that were turned over to you in the same way as you would days that are part of your own quota.

A person to whom parental allowance days have been turned over, can use the days provided that he or she stays home from work to take care of the child. When a person takes out parental leave, he or she has to be insured under the Finnish Health Insurance Act.

Example

Linda and Paavo have just had a baby. After her pregnancy leave, Linda stays home on parental leave to take care of the baby. She returns to work after spending 110 working days, or about 4.5 months, on parental leave. She gives up and turns over her remaining 50 days of parental allowance to Paavo.

Paavo thus has a total of 210 working days of parental allowance to take out.

In the following situations, you can give up and turn over more parental allowance days:

  • more children than one are born or adopted at the same time
  • the baby is born prematurely
  • the baby has only got one parent.

More than one person who looks after the same child can get parental allowance at the same time

If the parents of a child are not married or cohabiting and one parent has given up his or her parental allowance days for the benefit of his or her partner, three or four persons can get parental allowance for the same period depending on the family’s situation.

One person can get parental allowance for a maximum of 18 working days at the same time as another person who is also caring for the child.

Example of a situation where several persons get parental allowance at the same time

Eevi and Iiro have recently had a baby together. Eevi and Iiro do not live together and they are not married. Iiro has a new partner Maija, to whom Iiro has turned over some of his parental allowance days. Eevi, Iiro and Maija take care of the baby at the same time for a period of three weeks in connection with the birth of the baby. All three of them can get parental allowance for the same period of time for a maximum of 18 working days.

If Iiro were to be on parental leave in connection with the birth of the baby at the same time as Eevi, he would not be able to later take out parental leave at the same time as Maija, having already taken the maximum number of days of parental leave that can be taken at the same time as someone else.

When and how can you turn over parental allowance days?

You can turn over parental allowance days to another person

  • by indicating your choice in the OmaKela e-service when claiming parental allowance or in a separate message that you send in OmaKela. Please note that our e-service is only available in Finnish and Swedish.
  • by completing a notification titled Vanhempainpäivärahat SV 17 (pdf) (notification will be published later)
  • by calling Kela.

The birthing parent can turn over parental allowance days in the application she files before or after the birth of her child. The other parent cannot give up parental allowance days until after the child is born.

Withdrawing a decision to turn over parental allowance days

You can withdraw a decision to turn over parental allowance days either entirely or in part. If the person who received the days you turned over has already used some of the days, you will only get back as many days as remain unused.

If parental allowance days were turned over to you, you cannot return them yourself; instead, the person who turned them over to you must withdraw them. Also, days that were turned over to you cannot be passed on to a third person.

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Last modified 4/3/2024