Entrepreneur's sickness allowance

If you fall ill and cannot conduct your business, go to the doctor and ask for a medical certificate of your incapacity. On the basis of the certificate, you can obtain sickness allowance for the weekdays during which you have an incapacity to work. The allowance will be paid for days following the waiting period. Please note that also Saturday counts as a weekday.

Apply for the actual sickness allowance and daily allowance for the waiting period from Kela electronically within two months of the date when your incapacity for work started. Attach a medical certificate and other possible documents about your incapacity for work.

Please note that if you receive sickness allowance, you will not be allowed to work. You are also not allowed to work during the waiting period.

If you have a long-term illness, but you are able to work part-time, ask your doctor about a possibility to work part time and receive partial sickness allowance.

You are entitled to sickness allowance for the same illness for up to 300 weekdays over a period of two years, and partial sickness allowance for up to 120 weekdays. If the maximum days for receiving sickness allowance is exceeded, you may be entitled to a disability pension.

You can get sickness allowance only after the waiting period. However, you may be entitled to YEL or Mela daily allowance for the waiting period, if you have YEL or MYEL insurance.

If you have a YEL insurance, the waiting period is the date of your illness. In other words, you will receive YEL daily allowance the day after you have fallen ill.

If you have a MYEL insurance, the waiting period is the date of your illness and the following three days. In other words, you will receive MYEL daily allowance after you have been sick for four days.

If you do not have an entrepreneur's pension insurance, the waiting time is the date when you fall ill and the following nine weekdays, including Saturdays. You will therefore receive sickness allowance after you have been ill for ten working days.

Kela will pay for the sickness allowance afterwards. You will receive the first payment six business days after Kela’s decision and the next payment after 25 days.

As an entrepreneur, the amount of your sickness allowance depends on your income from work or business activities. The income for the 12 calendar months before the month preceding the start of the entitlement to the daily allowance is reviewed. In other words, there will be 1 month between the period reviewed and the start date of the daily allowance. 

If you have a YEL or MYEL insurance, your sickness allowance is based on your income from work under the YEL or MYEL scheme. Your daily allowance will be higher if you have paid higher YEL or MYEL contributions. If your income from work under the YEL or MYEL scheme has changed during the period reviewed, your average income will be taken into account when calculating the amount of sickness allowance. 

If you are not required to take out YEL or MYEL insurance, the amount of sickness allowance is based on your business income. The more income you have had, the larger the daily allowance will be.

You can count your sickness allowance with Kela’s calculator (in Finnish).