How does an illness affect Kela benefits?
If you fall ill, you can get various benefits from Kela. An illness can also affect the benefits you are already getting from Kela. For more information, see the Sickness and incapacity section.
You cannot get sickness allowance while performing conscript service.
You can be granted sickness allowance if you are under 68 years of age and you work alongside the pension or the payment of your disability pension has been suspended. Apply for sickness allowance in the OmaKela e-service or on the SV8e form (PDF). Please note that our e-service is only available in Finnish and Swedish.
If you receive housing allowance for pensioners and you go into continuous long-term care in a public institution, Kela will suspend the payment of the housing allowance starting from the beginning of the tenth month after you were taken into care. Payment of the housing allowance will be stopped sooner if you no longer have housing costs.
More information is available under If your child becomes ill. Read more about rehabilitation for children and young people.
If you know that you will be ill for a maximum of two months you can still receive student financial aid in the normal manner. If you do not know for how long you will be ill, or if you know that you will be ill for more than two months, you can receive sickness allowance and general housing allowance for the period of illness. You cannot get financial aid for the same period of time.
More information is available under Sickness allowance for students. Apply for sickness allowance and general housing allowance in the OmaKela e-service or on the SV8e and AT1e forms respectively .
More information is available under Sickness allowance for employees. Read more about rehabilitation.
If you are an unemployed job-seeker and fall ill, you can receive sickness allowance. Unemployed persons should apply for a sick leave, because you can lose your unemployment benefit for a specified period of time or for an unspecified time, if you as an unemployed jobseeker do not accept job offers that you may receive.
If the mother gets ill during the period of pregnancy allowance so that she cannot look after the child, the other parent can stay at home to look after the child in the form of parental allowance. The mother may be entitled to sickness allowance from Kela.
If you receive sickness allowance, you cannot receive pregnancy, paternity or parental allowance, or partial parental allowance, for the same period of time.
The sickness allowance counts as income and affects the child home care and private day care allowances. Sickness allowance may reduce the amount of the income-tested care supplement.
The duration of the incapacity and the payment of sickness allowance may affect the entitlement to child care allowances. Sickness may also affect your entitlement to partial care allowance. If you receive child care allowances along with sickness allowance, call Kela. Kela will check whether the illness affects the allowances you receive.
Apply for sickness allowance in the OmaKela e-service or on the SV8e form (PDF). Please note that our e-service is only available in Finnish and Swedish.
More information is available under Sickness allowance for self-employed persons. Read more about rehabilitation.