Families with children under 1.5 years old are entitled to a monthly benefit from the Social Fund of Russia. We tell you the details.
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All parents can receive child care benefits, regardless of whether they work or not. Only the conditions and procedure for assigning support measures differ. Foreigners, refugees and stateless persons can also apply for benefits, provided they have a residence permit in Russia and permanent residence in the country.
Who gets paid, how and how much — we tell you in our material.< /p>
One of the parents, another relative or guardian can receive child care benefits. The main condition for workers is a parental leave issued upon application. It is important that even if several adults are caring for a child, only one is entitled to benefits. The payment cannot be transferred to another family member.
In this regard, from January 1, 2024, child care benefits for children under 1.5 years of age continue to be paid even if the parent returns to work early. The payment is also provided when working part-time, at home or remotely.
The main thing is that the child is no older than 1.5 years — from this age the accrual of benefits stops.
If the lump sum benefit for the birth of a child is the same for all parents, the monthly amount depends on different conditions. Its size can vary by up to six times. The minimum amount is 9.22 thousand rubles, and the maximum is 49.1 thousand rubles.
Child care benefits for children up to 1.5 years old are paid to workers in the amount of 40% of average earnings for the 2 calendar years preceding parental leave. If during this period the woman (mother) was on maternity leave or any family member was on leave to care for another child, then in order to increase the amount of the benefit, the years of the calculation period can be replaced by earlier ones. An application for changing years is submitted to the employer.
The minimum benefit amount is calculated based on the minimum wage, so it cannot be lower than 9,227 rubles. When paying, regional and “northern” coefficients, if any, are taken into account.
Arranging for child care benefits for children up to 1.5 years old will not take much time.
Working parents or other family members contact their employer to apply for child care benefits for children up to 1.5 years old. This happens upon application simultaneously with the registration of the corresponding leave.
The employer reports this to the Social Fund of Russia, and it, in turn, requests from other departments the information necessary to assign the payment, which is not at its disposal. Everything happens through an electronic document management system, and the assignment of benefits takes no more than 10 working days. You can apply for benefits no later than 6 months from the date of birth of the child.
For unemployed parents, there is a different procedure for applying for benefits and there are mandatory conditions. This is an average per capita income that does not exceed the subsistence level in the region of residence, the composition of the family’s property that meets the requirements, and the availability of income among able-bodied adults or objective reasons for its absence. But there is an exception: for families in which a child was born (adopted) before 01/01/2023, the benefit is assigned without taking into account income. The payment is also provided without taking into account income to unemployed full-time students.
Child care benefits are assigned if the caregiver does not receive unemployment benefits.
Unemployed parents and full-time students can choose to receive a monthly child care allowance or a single allowance for children under 17 years of age.
The amount of the care allowance is fixed: 9.22 thousand rubles. But for those who were fired due to the liquidation of the organization or stopped individual activities during pregnancy, maternity leave or parental leave, the amount of the benefit is determined based on the amount of salary they received when they worked.
The benefit will not be assigned to those whose children are fully supported by the state, who are deprived or limited in parental rights, or who have gone abroad for permanent residence.
< p>You can submit an application online on the government services portal, as well as in person at the client service of the Social Fund of Russia at your place of residence or at the MFC. When submitting an application in person, you must immediately provide a package of documents. If the application is sent to the Social Fund by mail, then notarized copies of documents will be required.
To apply for benefits, you must provide a passport, certificate of marriage (or divorce), and birth of a child. In some cases, other documents may be required. You can find out about this on the official website of the SFR.
The Social Fund makes a decision on the assignment of benefits within 10 working days from the moment all data is received by the department. Deadlines may increase if the necessary information from other organizations or the applicant’s missing documents are not received within the allotted time.