Pension insurance

If you take care of your child and are therefore temporarily unable to work or can only work to a limited extent, you will receive a credit: The child-rearing periods will be credited to your pension. This ensures that you receive appropriate compensation in the pension insurance and are not worse off as a result of caring for your child.

If you interrupt your professional activity completely or partially in order to care for your child after the birth, you will pay fewer contributions into your pension insurance. This results in a lower pension entitlement later on. Crediting the child-rearing period towards the pension payment compensates for this gap. This means that for the time you spend bringing up children, you will be in roughly the same position as if you had paid your own contributions throughout. The pension contributions are paid by the federal government.

The German pension insurance will credit you with up to three years per child as compulsory contribution periods. If another baby arrives during the child-rearing period, the child-rearing period is extended by the period during which several children are cared for at the same time. For example, if you have cared for and raised four children, you can be credited with a total of up to twelve years of child-raising time.

Only one parent can benefit from child-rearing time at a time.

The child-raising time is allocated to the parent who mainly looks after the child. If both parents educate their child together to same portions, first the nut/mother receives the child educating time credited. If the father is to receive the child-raising time, you must submit a joint, concurring declaration.

The corresponding form "Declaration on the allocation of child-rearing work" can be downloaded from the website of the German Pension Insurance.

In addition to the natural parents, under certain conditions, other persons can also receive the child-rearing time:

• Adoptive, step or foster parents,
• grandparents or relatives, if the child lives there permanently in domestic community as a foster child. A custodial and educational relationship between the natural parents and the child may no longer exist in this case.

Whoever can provide evidence of child-raising periods should also have the opportunity to draw a pension later. However, this requires at least 60 months of contributions. Those who do not reach the minimum insurance period can pay voluntary contributions into the pension insurance for the missing months. The monthly contributions can be freely chosen between the minimum contribution (currently 83.70 euros) and the maximum contribution (currently 1,320.60 euros).

The natural parent receives priority credit for the parental leave. If neither of the two is the natural parent, the children are assigned to the parent who first attained parental status. In the case of successive adoption, for example, this is the person who first adopted the child. This also applies in the case of foster parents. If, in the case of a same-sex couple, there is neither a natural parent nor a parent who first attained parental status, the child-rearing periods are assigned in equal parts on a monthly basis.

• The first three years of the child's life are considered child-raising periods. During this time, the federal government takes over the payment of pension contributions.
• Kinderberücksichtigungszeiten last from birth until the end of the 10th year of life of the child. During this time, the federal government does not pay pension contributions, but the Kinderberücksichtigungszeiten are counted towards the waiting period for the old-age pension. Thus, the child allowance period ensures that parents who do not pursue employment subject to insurance for several years after the birth of the child, still have the chance to retire early.