Child benefit and child allowance ► all information from the lawyer ◄

Child benefit and child allowance are paid by the state to provide financial relief to parents. In order to receive child benefit, a corresponding written application must be submitted to the family fund; for civil servants, the application must be sent to the salary office.

Who can get child benefit??

Germans residing or habitually residing in Germany;
Germans who live abroad but are subject to unlimited income tax in Germany;
Foreigners with a settlement or residence permit;
Undisputedly recognized refugees and asylum seekers

For which children is child benefit paid??

biological and adopted children
stepchildren and grandchildren taken in at home
foster children

with residence or habitual residence in Germany or an EU country or in the EU economic area.

How long is child benefit paid??

generally up to the age of 18 for all children

up to the age of 21 for unemployed children

up to the age of 25 for children who are still in school or vocational training. The child benefit payment ends even before school or vocational training is completed.

beyond the age of 25 without age restrictions

for children who cannot meet their own living needs due to a physical, mental or mental disability, provided the disability occurred before the age of 25.

Child benefit from July 2019:

for the first and second child	=	€ 204 per month
for the third child	=	€ 210 per month
from the fourth child	=	monthly 235, – € / child

Child’s own income

Regulation from 01/01/2012: The limit of € 8,004 for the income and earnings of the adult child does not apply. If the child has a higher income than € 8,004, the child benefit entitlement expires and the child must pay back any money already received once the income limit is exceeded. For children who are completing their first degree or training, there is no examination of their income level. With a second education, child benefit is only paid if the child fewer works 20 hours a week.

Child benefit offset against maintenance

Whoever calculates child maintenance should not make mistakes. How to correctly calculate your net income and how the child benefit is offset against the maintenance claims is regulated differently for a minor child than for an adult child:

Child benefit for the minor child

Each parent is entitled to half of the child benefit for the minor child (5 years). If the caring parent receives the child benefit, the parent who is obliged to pay maintenance can deduct half of the child benefit from maintenance:

E.g.: K lives with the F, who receives the child benefit of € 204. According to the Düsseldorf table, M has to pay child support of € 372 based on his income. From this, however, he can deduct € 102 (= half child benefit). M therefore has to pay (€ 372 -102 =) € 270 for K maintenance.

Child benefit for the privileged adult and the adult

In the case of an adult, the child benefit is to be regarded as a separate income. Own income reduces the maintenance requirement of the adult child. The full child benefit is therefore deducted from the child support to be paid:

E.g.: The adult K studies and lives in his own apartment. He has a maintenance requirement according to the Düsseldorf table of € 735. The child benefit of € 204, which is transferred to the child either directly from the family fund or from the parent concerned, is to be deducted in full from the maintenance of € 735. The parents therefore owe K a monthly maintenance of (735 – 204 =) 531 €.

Details are given in the thematic blocks Privileged Adult and Adult.

Child tax credit

The child allowance (or child allowance for several children) is granted from the month in which the child was born. It ends at the latest at 25 years if it is still in vocational training or is studying.

He is entitled to half of the parents (0.5 for a child). As agreed, the full allowance can be transferred to one of the parents.

As an alternative to child benefit, the child allowance (€ 7,428) can be used to relieve parents in the form of tax savings. A tax relief that you look at through the Hoping to register this allowance, however, will not apply in most cases if child benefit is paid. The state only grants tax relief, either by paying child benefit or by taking the child allowance into account. With taxable income of around € 48,000 or more, it may be cheaper for the better earning to claim the child allowance instead of the child benefit. The tax office ex officio carries out an annual favorable assessment as part of the income tax return as to whether the variant of the child allowance brings greater tax savings or the child benefit already paid. If the tax burden, taking into account the child allowance, is lower, the child benefit paid is offset against the tax, which means that the child benefit is actually repaid.