Application instructions and forms

The daily allowance must be applied for within 3 months of the date from which the daily allowance is to be paid. If your application is about to expire because you are unable to compile the necessary attachments, you can send your application incomplete and complete it later.

Waiting for the statement from the employment authority or waiting for attachments from the employer, are not such a particularly compelling reasons, that the daily allowance could be paid despite the delay in the application.

Claims for benefit are always made retroactively. 

Submit your first application for daily allowance via eService after you have been unemployed for two weeks. 

Exceptions:

• If your unemployment lasts less than two weeks, you can send an application as soon as your unemployment ends.
• If your unemployment lasts less than one month, apply for daily allowance for the whole period in one go. 

Please note that your application cycle for follow-up applications will generally be based on the day of the week on which your first application ends. Work done while you are unemployed can also affect your application cycle. Read more below about how to submit a follow-up application.  

If your unemployment continues, you can apply for a daily allowance 

• in periods of four calendar weeks (Monday to Sunday), or
• monthly (according to the calendar month or, for example, from the 10th of the current month to the 9th of the next month).

If the last day of your first application is a Sunday, your application cycle will normally be four calendar weeks. If you work during your unemployment period, please read the following section.

You can submit a follow-up application in eService at the earliest on the last day of the period for which you are applying.

If you work part-time or on a temporary basis during your unemployment period, apply for a daily allowance so that you align the applications with your pay periods.

• If your wages are paid once or twice a month (e.g. on the 15th and 31st), please send your applications monthly (by calendar month or, for example, from the 10th of the month to the 9th of the following month).
• If your wages are paid at one, two or four-week intervals, please send your applications for periods of four calendar weeks (Monday to Sunday).
   

Read about the impact of work on the amount of unemployment allowance.

Unemployment allowance is not paid for full-time work lasting more than 2 weeks. If you start a full-time job lasting more than 2 weeks, fill in the application only up to the last day of unemployment and attach a copy of the employment contract for the upcoming full-time job to your application. Inform the employment authority of longer periods of employment.

When you work during unemployment or lay-off, please note the following:

• In your application, please indicate all the days you worked. Please also enter the hours worked in the working days. If you work for more than one employer, report the work by employer. Do not round off your working time to the nearest hour or half hour.
• In your application, please indicate any paid days off, such as midweek public holidays and holidays.  For days off, please also indicate the working hours on the basis of which the pay for the day off was paid.
• In your application, please indicate the number of paid sick days. For paid sick days, please also indicate the working hours on the basis of which the sick pay was paid.
• In your application, please also indicate any unpaid days of absence. Leave the working hours column blank.
• For unemployed days, leave the working hours column blank.

We need information on the hours worked, for example to calculate the mandatory waiting period and to check the working time limit for adjusted daily allowance. We also need the information to decide whether you are entitled to a benefit. You are not entitled to daily allowance for a day of unpaid absence taken at your own request.

Please also indicate in your application all pay dates falling within the application period. If a part of the wages for the work done during the application period will be paid later, please also include an estimate of the future date of payment in your application.

Wages affect the daily allowance for the application period during which the wages are paid, regardless of when the work was done. This means you can send in your daily allowance application as soon as the application period ends, and you do not have to wait for the payday for the work you have done.

If you take paid annual leave while working part-time or during a partial lay-off, you must also report the leave period in your application.

Mark the leave on your daily allowance application by selecting the “paid annual leave” option. Indicate the leave days either as Monday to Friday or Monday to Saturday, depending on whether your leave covers five or six days per week.

For each leave day, record the number of working hours according to the working hours for which you are paid during your annual leave. If you are unsure about the working time basis for your holiday pay, indicate the number of hours corresponding to your contracted working hours.
Information on holiday pay is very rarely reported to the income register in the level of detail required by the unemployment fund. Therefore, attach copies of the pay slips that include holiday pay to your application.

If during the application period holiday pay is paid for leave that also continues into the next application period, or for a separate leave period you will take later, record all such leave periods for which payment has been made in the additional information section of your application.

Example 1:
You apply for daily allowance monthly, and on 15 June you are paid holiday pay for the annual leave you take from 26 June to 23 July.

Attach a copy of the pay slip dated 15 June to your June application, mark “paid annual leave” in the calendar section for the period 26–30 June and note in the additional information section that the leave continues until 23 July.

In the July application, mark “paid annual leave” for the period 1–23 July.

Example 2:
You apply for daily allowance monthly, and on 15 June you are paid holiday pay for annual leave taken in two periods: 3–16 July and 7–20 August.

Attach a copy of the pay slip dated 15 June to your June application and note in the additional information section that you will be on leave from 3–16 July and from 7–20 August.

In the July application, mark “paid annual leave” for 3–16 July, and in the August application, mark “paid annual leave” for 7–20 August.

Apply for a daily allowance for the period of TE service as you would if you were unemployed. Complete the application for the same period as usual (in periods of 4 calendar weeks or a month).
For the period of TE service, please indicate the TE service or training on the application, if you are participating in training.

If you work during the service, please indicate in your application the number of days worked, the number of hours worked per working day, and the payday for wages.

Absences during studies
If you are absent from the TE service, always indicate your absence in your application.
No daily allowance is paid for days of absence from services, unless the absence is due to personal illness, illness of a child under 10 years of age (absence of up to four days), a job interview or a comparable reason related to employment. 
The Fund also receives information on days of absence in arrears from the service provider. If the benefit has been paid incorrectly without cause, it will be recovered.
 
Holiday period during studies 
If you participate in labour market training or independent study, the daily allowance is paid also for days of absence from the studies. So individual absences during studies do not have to be reported in your application. On the other hand, on compensation for expenses are paid for holiday periods during studies. Mark the holiday periods in your application as “Holiday (TE services)”.

We process daily allowance applications in the order in which they are received. It is not possible to rush the process. 

We provide information on the current status of processing on the front page of the Fund’s website. In the tracking of application processing, you can see the date of receipt of the oldest application for which processing has not yet started. 

If your application is incomplete or we need more information in order to process your application, we will contact you once the processing of your application has started. We can only complete your application once we have received all the additional information we need. We will only ask for additional information that is necessary to process your application. 

The Fund will contact you primarily by means of a message sent via the electronic service channel (eService). However, remember to check the contact details you have provided to the Fund in eService under My data – Contact data. If your contact details have changed, please save the changes in the service.

Once the Fund has received your application, you can track its progress in eService. For example, if your application’s status is “waiting for a third party”, we are waiting for further information from the employment authority, Kela or the employer directly.