Maintenance Advance

Your child, whom you are raising alone, is entitled to a maintenance advance if they

• Are not yet 18 years old,
• Live with you in Germany, and
• Receive no or insufficient support from the other parent.

After your child’s 12th birthday, your child is only entitled to a maintenance advance if one of the following conditions is met:

• You or your child do not receive any unemployment benefit II
• With the maintenance advance, your child’s need for assistance can be avoided
• You have a gross monthly income of at least 600 euros and receive supplementary unemployment benefit II

Please refer to the information sheets for details on the entitlement to a maintenance advance.

The amount of the maintenance advance is based on the statutory minimum maintenance. The child benefit paid from public funds is deducted from this. The minimum maintenance was increased on 1 January 2021.

The monthly maintenance advance amounts to as of 1 January 2020 and 1 January 2021:

Maintenance payments from the other parent or other income from the child (e.g. half-orphan’s pension) are credited against these amounts.

If you and your child receive unemployment benefit II from the JobCenter and your child has reached the age of 12, you are only entitled to a maintenance advance under certain conditions. Please find out more about this with the help of the information sheet in the application for a maintenance advance as of 1 July 2017. It is possible that your need to secure your subsistence will only continue to be covered by the JobCenter.

However, if the JobCenter anticipates that you are entitled to an overriding maintenance advance, you will be asked to submit an application.

In any case, you will receive your benefits for securing your subsistence from the JobCenter for a transitional period (until the maintenance advance is actually paid) without the previous amount being credited against maintenance advance benefits.

Please use the following form to submit your application for a maintenance advance to the youth welfare office in your residential district. This form also lists the documents that you have to submit. Please submit your application in good time because a maintenance advance is only paid retrospectively for one month under certain conditions.

The youth welfare offices are as well prepared as possible for the statutory extension of the entitlement to a maintenance advance. However, due to the large number of new applications received so far, processing times may be longer. We ask for your understanding.

• Information sheet – Information on the Advance Maintenance Act in German (Januar 2021)

• Unterhaltsvorschuss
• Youth Administration