Entrepreneur’s parental benefits
Entrepreneurs may apply for the same parental benefits as wage earners from Kela.Opens in a new window. You are also entitled to receive child care allowances, namely child home care allowance or private day care allowance as well as flexible or partial care allowance. However, you cannot engage in business while receiving certain benefits.
As an entrepreneur, you may apply for the same daily parental allowances from Kela as wage earners. You are eligible for the allowances for your biological child and your adopted child. After the periods of allowances for parents, it is possible to get childcare allowances.
As an entrepreneur you are not entitled to apply for compensations to annual leave costs or for family leave costs.
Read more about the parental allowances granted by Kela.Opens in a new window.
If you have a YEL or MYEL insurance, your parental allowance is based on your income from work under the YEL or MYEL scheme. Entrepreneurs who do little work in their business and who are not obliged to take out YEL and MYEL insurance can also receive the parental allowance.
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 allowance. Wages that your company pays to you or your earned income from business activities will not be included in the annual income.
If your YEL or MYEL income has changed during the period considered, the average earned income will be taken into account.
The parental allowance is typically around 70 per cent of your income. Partial parental allowance is half of the amount of the normal parental allowance.
Please note that the wages or dividends you pay for yourself from your company have no effect on the amount of your daily allowance. If you have been in paid employment outside your company during the period under review in addition to your own business, the amount of the daily allowance will also be affected by your earned income.
As an entrepreneur, you may apply for the same child care allowances from Kela as wage earners.
You can get child home care allowance, if your child under 3 years of age is looked after at home instead of municipal day care. The caregiver can be the child's parent, grandparent or a hired nanny.
You can get private day care allowance if your child is looked after by a paid caregiver or a private day care provider. Note that the child must be under school age. You cannot get this allowance if your child is in municipal day care. Kela pays the private day care allowance directly to the hired nanny or private day care provider.
You can get flexible care allowance for a child under 3 years if you work for 30 hours per week or less and are insured under YEL or MYEL. You can get the flexible care allowance even if your child is attending day care, for instance.
You can get partial care allowance for a child in the first or second year of school if you work for 30 hours per week or less and are insured under YEL or MYEL.
The flexible and partial care allowance can be paid to both the child’s mother and father if they take care of the child at different times. You can get the care allowance even if you live in a different household than your child.
Read more about childcare allowance options on Kela’s website.Opens in a new window.
You can work while receiving some type of parental allowance.