Parents can receive various financial benefits. It is important for the financial stability of your family to know these and to be able to access them.

There are numerous financial supports for families with children. Take advantage of these opportunities to ease your financial burden. Financial support from your employer is usually voluntary. You are legally entitled to state and country support. Both are united by the fact that you must actively take care of receiving the financial support yourself.

Employers can provide voluntary financial support for their employees. Financial stability helps the employee to concentrate on work without worrying about the family at the same time. Some ways of getting financial support from the employer are:

• Pro-rata payment of childcare costs for children who are not of school age
• Payment of recovery aid
• Subsidy for travel costs between home and place of work

There are several possibilities of financial support from the state. These are linked to certain conditions. Depending on your life situation, there are various state benefits, e.g:

• Child benefit / child allowance
• Basic Parental Benefit / Parental Benefit Plus
• Child supplement
• State education allowance
• Maternity allowance
• Alimony advance
• Care allowance
• Tax consideration of childcare costs
• Tax consideration of the relief amount for single parents

Child benefit is available for every child up to the age of 18 and under legally defined circumstances up to the age of 25 or, in the case of certain disabilities that occur before the age of 25, beyond the age of 25. Applications can be submitted via the relevant family funds or, for civil servants and employees in the public sector, via the employer's salary office or via special state family funds. The amount depends on the number of eligible children. Under certain circumstances, it is possible to receive an additional child allowance of up to € 170 for each child to be taken into account.

Parental allowance is intended to enable the parents to devote themselves fully to the child for a period of time. In principle, it can be paid for up to twelve months (freely divisible among the partners) and under certain conditions can be extended by two so-called partner months (under certain circumstances 4 further partner months with Parental AllowancePlus). It currently comprises 67% of your previous net salary per month - at least 300 euros (150 euros for ElterngeldPlus), but up to a maximum of 1,800 euros.

In cases where the income from gainful employment before birth was higher than 1,200 euros, the percentage drops from 67 percent by 0.1 percentage points for every 2 euros by which this income exceeds the amount of 1,200 euros to up to 65 percent.

In cases where the income from gainful employment before birth was less than 1 000 euro, the percentage increases from 67 per cent by 0.1 percentage points for every 2 euro by which this income is less than 1 000 euro to up to 100 per cent.

Parents who wish to share gainful employment and family work as partners receive support through the Parental AllowancePlus. This strengthens the compatibility of work and family life. The Parental AllowancePlus is aimed in particular at parents who wish to work part-time while receiving parental allowance. They receive twice as long parental allowance (up to a maximum of half the amount). Even if you don't have to, it is still an advantage in terms of good cooperation if you plan parental leave together with your employer.

Parents who have opted for longer childcare and do not claim a subsidised place in a day-care centre or state-subsidised childcare can also receive state child-raising benefit as support. The state child-raising allowance for the first child is 150 euros, for the second child 200 euros and from the third child 300 euros per month. The payments are reduced if the statutory income limits of the previous income are exceeded. These must be applied for at your responsible administrative district or city.

Mothers or fathers who care for the child alone may be entitled to maintenance payments. You can obtain free advice on how to claim your right to maintenance, if necessary with the help of the Youth Welfare Office. The prerequisite for this is that paternity is established and recognised. If you do not receive maintenance payments, you can apply for a maintenance advance. The advance on maintenance payments is then paid by the Youth Welfare Office. By a legislative reform to 01.07.2017 the requirement eligibility for maintenance advance was extended up to the completion of the 18th year of life of the entitled child, if the child does not receive achievements after the SGB II or the assistance need in the sense of the SGB II by the maintenance achievement can be avoided or the parent with whom the child lives, at least over an income at a value of 600 ? has.

Most state applications can be found on the websites of the competent authorities. But here you will also find many direct links to important forms and documents.