Elterngeld, Maintenance, Pension and Unemployment Insurance

If you have to pay maintenance, your income matters, and Elterngeld can count as income. § 11 BEEG sets the rules:

• •For most maintenance obligations, Elterngeld only counts above 300 € a month (150 € for ElterngeldPlus). With twins, the amounts double, with triplets they triple.
• •These protected amounts do not apply towards your minor children, and towards adult unmarried children under 21 who live in a parent's household and are in general school education (§ 1603 Abs. 2 BGB). For them, your full Elterngeld counts.
• •They also do not apply in some special cases of family law (§ 1361 Abs. 3, § 1579 and § 1611 Abs. 1 BGB).

How much maintenance is due in your case is a question of family law, not of the Elterngeldstelle.

For the first three years of a child's life, the statutory pension insurance credits a child-raising period (Kindererziehungszeit). It begins after the month of birth and ends after 36 calendar months (§ 56 SGB VI). You do not need to take Elternzeit or receive Elterngeld for it.

• •Value: 0.0833 pension points per month, so about one point per year (§ 70 Abs. 2 SGB VI). One point corresponds to a year of average earnings. If you also work, the credit comes on top of your own contributions, up to a ceiling.
• •Who gets it: only one parent, the one who raised the child. If you raise the child together, you can choose by a joint declaration. It works for the future and up to two months back. Without a declaration, it goes to the parent who mainly raised the child, and otherwise to the mother.
• •Where: you must raise the child in Germany, or a stay abroad must be treated as equal, for example with compulsory contributions there.
• •Exceptions: parents with an equivalent pension system, such as civil servants with Beamtenversorgung, are excluded.
• •Second child: if another child is born during the period, the periods are extended by the overlapping months.

The credit is not automatic. Apply to the Deutsche Rentenversicherung to have child-raising periods recorded.

While you raise a child under 3, you remain insured in unemployment insurance if (§ 26 Abs. 2a SGB III):

• •you were compulsorily insured, or received an ongoing benefit such as Arbeitslosengeld, immediately before, and
• •you normally live with the child in Germany (or abroad, if you have a claim to German Kindergeld).

This covers your own child or the child of your spouse or registered partner. If several people raise the child, only the person who gets the pension child-raising period is insured this way. If you are insured anyway, for example through part-time work, this rule is not needed.

Why it matters: to get Arbeitslosengeld later, you need at least 12 months of insurance within the 30 months before unemployment (§§ 142, 143 SGB III). Child-raising before the third birthday helps you reach that.