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.

For entrepreneurs, the amount of sickness allowance is determined on the basis of income as stated in taxation or according to recent income from work.

If you have a YEL or MYEL insurance, your sickness allowance is usually based on your income from work for the last confirmed tax year, that is, for your YEL or MYEL income adjusted by a wage coefficient.. You may receive sickness allowance on the basis of your YEL or MYEL income of the last six months, if your annual income from work is calculated to be 20% higher than your income according to taxation. Your daily allowance will be higher if you have paid higher YEL or MYEL contributions.

If you do not have a YEL or MYEL insurance, the amount of sickness allowance is usually based on the income from your business for the last confirmed tax year, that is, the year preceding your illness. Your sickness allowance may also be based on your annual income or your income for the financial year preceding your illness, provided that it is at least 20% higher than your taxed income. The more income you have had, the larger the daily allowance will be.

Partial sickness allowance is half of the normal sickness allowance.

If you also earn wages, your daily allowance will be affected by both the amount of wages and your entrepreneurial income.

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