Image: Social ABCChild Benefits

Even though child benefits are not usually paid directly to the students but to their parents instead, it is useful to know about them.

Child benefits provided by parents in addition to BAföG or other services are available to children living and studying away from home. Parents obtain them themselves through their employer (public service) or child benefit fund of the responsible employment office.

Basically, a right to child benefit is enjoyed from the birth until the age of 18. Naturally, it can also be gained – by the end of the 25th year – if the child

  • studies at school or undergoes vocational training
  • is in transition between education and training periods (maximum four months)
  • cannot begin or continue vocational training because of scarce training places or
  • spends a year doing voluntary social work or a year as an ecological volunteer.

If students get their own child benefits because they have one child or more, this does not exclude the possibility that the parents of such students can also receive child benefits. As regards the entitlement of parents of students, only the three conditions that apply to families with children of full age should be met.

The training status expires only in case of a regular academic leave of absence. Moreover, the maternal protection period or periods of disease are also harmless in case of an academic leave, provided that the quick continuation of training is foreseeable (e.g. only one semester is required for the birth of a child).
Child benefits of students with children for recipients of unemployment benefit II and social security benefit will be treated as income, for some other services they will remain outside the frame: e.g. Housing benefit, BAföG.

Family Benefits Department has collected a wide range of information on this matter in the following fact sheet:

  Merkblatt Kindergeld (1.1 MiB)
Überblick über die gesetzlichen Regelungen zum Kindergeld, Stand: 25. October 2019

[siteabc seite=”774″]