• 27/01/2023
• By wizewebsite
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The paternal holiday is extended.New calculator and overview<

In addition to cash assistance in maternity and parental allowance, a benefit for paternal post-natal care - paternity for short - is also paid. From 2022, it can be used for a maximum of two weeks, i.e. 14 days of care (previously it was half).

The benefit replaces the loss of income for new fathers who want to stay at home and take part in care immediately after the birth of a child. They will be eligible for paternity leave if they meet the conditions prescribed by law.

Participation in health insurance is a basic condition for tapping paternity. This is part of social insurance, which is paid by the employer for each employee in a classic employment relationship.

Be careful if you work under a work activity agreement (DPČ) or a work performance agreement (DPP) – the employer only pays for your health insurance on DPČ and DPP if the monthly earnings exceed a certain threshold. For DPP, the monthly earnings limit is 10,000 crowns, for DPČ it is 3,500 crowns per month. For those who earn above these limits, the employer pays social – and thus also sickness – insurance.

Paternity leave will then be granted by the social security administration to those who participate in the health insurance on the day they start paternity leave. In other words: he is employed on the day of paternity leave, or he is paying for voluntary health insurance as an entrepreneur (we will write about paternity leave for the self-employed below). On the other hand, students or job applicants registered with the employment office must do without the benefit.

In addition to participation in health insurance, officials are interested in whether a man who is registered as the child's father applies for paternity leave. Even the husband of a new mother will not receive the benefit if the office does not have him registered as a father.

In addition, the social worker grants paternity leave to anyone who takes care of a child under the age of seven. Taking over care replacing parental care always needs to be proven with an appropriate certificate.

Paternity leave

Employees are legally entitled to time off when a child is born.

An employee who takes his wife or girlfriend to give birth can claim paid time off.

The employer must subsequently release him for the period of childbirth, but he does not have to pay compensation.

In more detail:

When to draw and how to apply

The support period – i.e. the period during which the paternity care benefit can be drawn – is a maximum of 14 consecutive calendar days from 2022. The paternity extension was finally approved by the legislators in August 2021. The district social security administration will tap it on the day of the child's birth at the earliest. That is, during the time when the child is with the mother in the maternity hospital. At the latest, paternity leave can be taken six weeks after the birth of the child.

The second innovation from 2022 is that the period for taking paternity leave will be extended by a corresponding number of days if the child is hospitalized during the first six weeks. A typical situation is the placement of a baby in an incubator or other medical complications. According to the new rules, the father can decide for himself whether to use up paternity leave during hospitalization, or whether to wait until the child is home. She will no longer be entitled to a benefit six weeks after giving birth, regardless of such a limitation.

You need to apply to the social worker for the payment of the benefit, using the form Application for the benefit of paternal postpartum care. It is up to the fathers to fill in the front of the form, after which they must submit the application to the employer. At the end of the drawing, he fills out the second page and sends the form to the Czech Social Security Administration. The following month, the social worker will pay the benefit to a bank account or by money order.

At work, fathers must also apply for parental leave, to which they are legally entitled.

Entrepreneurs and other entrepreneurs submit an application directly to the branch of the Czech Social Security Administration with which they are registered.

Calculation of paternity 2022

How much paternity benefit will be depends on your gross earnings for the last year. From these, officials calculate the so-called daily assessment base (gross monthly income is multiplied by 12 months and then divided by 365 days). Subsequently, the daily assessment base is further reduced through reduction limits. For 2022:

The paternity benefit then makes up seventy percent of the reduced daily assessment base. For example, for dads with a gross monthly income of 30,000 crowns, this means paternity pay of 9,674 crowns for 14 calendar days.

But it will be easier to leave the calculation to our calculator. Just enter your average monthly gross salary.

Paternity care

Other calculators

Paternity for the self-employed

The rules described above apply only to employees. If an entrepreneur wants to receive paternity leave, he must voluntarily pay for health insurance at least three months before starting paternity leave. At the same time, the self-employed must not engage in gainful activity while receiving paternity leave.

The minimum advance payment for health insurance in 2022 is 147 crowns (it was the same last year), the premium is limited to social insurance payments above. The upper limit specifically corresponds to the assessment base for social insurance budgeted for months, to which the self-employed were added in last year's overview for the administration of social security. A maximum of 2.1 percent of this assessment base can be sent monthly to health insurance.

An entrepreneur who pays the prescribed minimum for social insurance (for this year 2,841 crowns) can send a maximum of 205 crowns per month for health insurance. For three sick pay payments in the amount of 205 crowns, if he signs up for sickness insurance only for three months before paternity leave, he will receive 14 daily paternity benefits in the amount of 224 crowns. In other words: for 615 crowns (3 times the insurance premium of 205 crowns), the social security administration will pay out 3136 crowns (14 times the daily paternity benefit of 224 crowns).

Our maternity allowance calculator for the self-employed will help you with other calculations - daily allowances for maternity and paternity are calculated the same way.

Calculation of maternity allowance for the self-employed 2022

Other calculators

Dads for maternity and parental benefits

In addition to paternity benefits, fathers can also obtain cash assistance during maternity leave. Namely: receiving her instead of the child's mother.

The decisive factor is whether they meet the condition of sufficiently long participation in health insurance. The authorities will recognize her, even if it is not the biological father, but only the mother's husband.

The man can then take 22 weeks of maternity leave (31 weeks for the birth of twins and multiples).

Parental allowance follows on from cash assistance in maternity. The father of the child can also draw this and at the same time apply for parental leave. The employer must comply and provide parental leave, up to a maximum of three years of age of the child.

Know what you're getting into!

Jiří Hovorka

He has been writing about personal finances since 2009. He started in Měšec, then devoted himself to the same topics in Aktuálně.cz, after the merger with the publishing house Economia, his texts also appeared in Hospodářské noviny. He has been working on pensions for a long time,... More articles by the author.