How are Kela benefits affected by a birth or death in the family?

If you have a child living with you, you cannot get housing allowance for pensioners. After the child is born, you can apply for general housing allowance.

A child increase can in certain situations supplement the national pension. The child increase is paid from the beginning of the month following childbirth. Apply for a child increase on form EV264.

If you receive a study grant along with daily allowance for parents, you will get daily allowance for parents at the minimum rate. Taxable benefits, including daily allowances for parents and child care allowances, count as income when your income is checked for financial aid purposes.

If you are the guardian of a child under 18 years of age, you may receive a provider supplement to your study grant. How many children you have or whom they live with does not affect the provider supplement. It is not possible to apply for the provider supplement. Kela will grant it automatically when the information has been registered in the Population Information System.

You cannot be paid sickness allowance at the same time as daily allowances for parents.

Your conscript’s allowance must be reviewed if a child is born to you. Apply for a review on form SA1.

You cannot get unemployment benefits at the same time as pregnancy allowance, special pregnancy allowance, paternity allowance or parental allowance.

The amount of the general housing allowance is affected by family size. If a child is born in your family, apply for a review of the general housing allowance in the OmaKela e-service or use the AT1e form. Please note that our e-service is only available in Finnish and Swedish.

The amount of social assistance is affected by family size. If you a child is born in your family, apply for a review of social assistance in the OmaKela e-service or use the TO1e form. Please note that our e-service is only available in Finnish and Swedish.

If a child is stillborn or dies at birth or soon thereafter, the birthing parent can get pregnancy allowance and parental allowance for a consecutive period of 105 working days. One prerequisite for entitlement to the benefit is that the pregnancy had lasted at least 154 days (22 weeks of pregnancy).

The entitlement of the child’s other parent to parental allowance can start from the date of death of the child. The other parent can receive parental allowance for a total of 25 days (date of death + 24 working days).

Eligibility for the maternity grant is retained as well.

If a child dies later but under the age of 2, both parents can get parental allowance. You can get parental allowance for 24 working days from the day following the death of the child, if there are a sufficient number of days of parental allowance left.

The parents can take out all 24 parental allowance days at the same time, even if they have already used all the days that they are otherwise allowed to take out at the same time.

The parent must stay off work in order to receive parental allowance.

Special pregnancy allowance can be paid up until the miscarriage if the other eligibility conditions are met.

If a child dies during the paternity allowance period, payment of paternity allowance will continue until the end of the current payment period (for up to 18 working days). This applies when the estimated due date of your baby was before 4 September 2022.

The death of a child may also affect the following benefits: child maintenance allowance, housing allowance for pensioners, child increase to a national pension, child home care or private daycare allowance, conscript's allowance, labour market subsidy/basic unemployment allowance, general housing allowance and social assistance.