Kinderkrankengeld in Munich: Getting Paid When Your Child Is Sick

The Official Rule

If your child gets sick and someone has to stay home to look after them, Germany’s statutory health insurance system (GKV) pays Kinderkrankengeld to cover the lost income, on top of whatever your employer might already owe you separately. For 2026, each parent can claim up to 15 working days of Kinderkrankengeld per child, or 30 days if you’re a single parent. With more than one child, the total caps at 35 working days per parent across all of them (70 for single parents).

That 15-day number is worth pausing on, because it isn’t a fixed, permanent right. The actual underlying entitlement written into law is 10 working days per parent per child (20 for single parents, capped at 25 total per parent with multiple kids, 50 for single parents). What’s currently in effect is a temporary extension: first introduced in 2024, then extended again by a federal cabinet decision on 6 August 2025 to keep running through the end of 2026. The reasoning published alongside that extension doesn’t promise the higher number becomes permanent. It points instead to a government-appointed Finanzkommission Gesundheit reviewing the entire range of statutory health insurance benefits for cost-effectiveness, and a return to the standard 10-day entitlement starting in 2027 is a real possibility, not a hypothetical one. Treat 15 days as this year’s number, not a fixture, and check your Krankenkasse’s current page before you plan too far ahead around it.

The bigger trap for foreign families is who actually qualifies. Kinderkrankengeld exists entirely inside the statutory insurance system. Both you, the parent claiming it, and your child need to be covered by GKV, either with your own policy or through Familienversicherung. If either of you is privately insured (PKV), there’s no claim at all, no partial version, no exception based on how the other family member is covered. Expat guides covering this topic consistently flag it as the detail families miss most, especially ones who assumed any health coverage would qualify.

Payment itself runs at 90 percent of your lost net pay, and can reach 100 percent if you received one-off payments like a holiday or year-end bonus in the 12 months before claiming. There’s a ceiling regardless: AOK, one of the largest statutory insurers, puts the 2026 daily cap at 135.63 euros, so even a high earner’s Kinderkrankengeld tops out there per day, not at 90 percent of an unlimited salary. To qualify at all, your child needs to be under 12 (no age limit applies if the child has a disability requiring ongoing care), a doctor needs to certify that the child is sick and needs supervision, and no other adult in your household needs to be available to provide that care instead.

The certificate itself is called a Kinderkrankenschein, and your pediatrician issues it. Since 18 December 2023, for absences of up to five days, some practices can confirm this over the phone rather than requiring an in-person visit, worth asking about directly if getting a sick child to a waiting room feels like the wrong move. Beyond five days, or if the practice wants to examine the child, an actual appointment is needed. Once you have it, the completed application (Formular 21) goes to your Krankenkasse, usually submittable online, and a medical certificate needs to reach your employer on the very first day you’re absent.

One detail people don’t expect: German case law generally obligates employers to keep paying your normal salary for the first five working days you’re out caring for a sick child, separate from Kinderkrankengeld entirely. Once that runs out, or if your employment contract specifically excludes this obligation, the statutory Kinderkrankengeld payment from your Krankenkasse takes over. And if your child ends up hospitalized and you’re admitted alongside them (stationäre Mitaufnahme), your Kinderkrankengeld entitlement continues for as long as that joint stay lasts, not capped by the usual daily count in the same way.

What Real People Say

This section draws on established English-language expat guides covering the same Kinderkrankengeld process.

The PKV/GKV eligibility line comes up as the single most repeated warning across these guides, more than any procedural detail. More than one guide frames it almost as a gotcha: families who assumed “we have health insurance” translates directly into Kinderkrankengeld coverage, only to find out that a privately insured parent or child removes the claim entirely, with no partial workaround. The consistent advice is to check this specifically rather than assume it, ideally before you actually need the benefit rather than while you’re already dealing with a sick child.

On the rejection side, legal guides covering Widerspruch procedures describe a fairly mechanical pattern: most denials trace back to paperwork timing rather than a genuine ineligibility. Missing the one-month objection window after a rejection, submitting the Kinderkrankenschein late or incomplete, or failing to document that no one else in the household could provide care are the three reasons that come up again and again. None of them are framed as hard walls. All three are described as fixable if caught early enough.

Step by Step

1. Confirm both you and your child are in the statutory system (GKV or Familienversicherung). If either of you is privately insured, stop here, this benefit doesn’t apply, and it’s worth checking whether your PKV plan has its own separate sickness allowance instead.
2. Take your sick child to the pediatrician, or ask whether a phone confirmation is possible for a short absence of five days or less. Either way, you need the Kinderkrankenschein.
3. Get the certificate to your employer on the first day you’re absent. This is a hard deadline, not a formality you can catch up on later in the week.
4. Submit the same certificate, or a copy, to your Krankenkasse, usually through their online portal, using the Kinderkrankengeld application (Formular 21).
5. Track your remaining days per child, per year, especially if you have more than one child or are splitting care with a partner. The caps apply per parent, not automatically per family.
6. If your application is rejected, don’t let the one-month Widerspruch window pass. Most rejections trace back to paperwork gaps that are fixable if you catch them in time.
7. Don’t assume next year’s number matches this year’s. The current 15-day figure runs through the end of 2026 as a temporary extension. Check your Krankenkasse’s current page before planning too far around it.