Illness and the impact of sick leave

If your sick leave lasts under 10 days, you can receive unemployment allowance for the entire duration of your illness. Nevertheless, report your sick days in your allowance application.

If you have visited a doctor and you have a medical certificate for a sick leave that lasts more than 10 days, you should apply for sickness allowance from Kela. If you work part-time and are entitled to paid sick leave, your employer can apply for the sickness allowance.

The sickness allowance is paid after a waiting period, that lasts the day you became ill and the next 9 weekdays.  Kela counts also Saturdays as weekdays, but not public holidays. If you have been receiving unemployment allowance when you became ill, the fund will pay you unemployment allowance for the waiting period of the sickness allowance.

You can’t claim sickness allowance and unemployment allowance for the same time and sickness allowance always takes precedence over unemployment allowance. This means that if sickness allowance is paid for a period for which you have already received unemployment allowance, your unemployment allowance will have to be paid back.

If you have been on sick leave for over 300 days and your right to sickness allowance from Kela has ended, you should apply for a disability pension.

If a decision on your pension application is delayed, you can register with the TE Office as an unemployed jobseeker and apply for unemployment allowance even if your employment contract is still valid. 

To receive unemployment allowance, the following conditions must be met:

you must be registered as a jobseeker in the employment authority’s service. Please note that it is

• not possible to register retroactively.
• your pension application is pending
• you have a valid medical certificate of incapacity for work
• your employer can not offer you a job that is suitable for your current ability to work
• the normal conditions for claiming allowance are met 

Your pension application is considered pending until the decision of the pension company becomes final (i.e. when the appeal period ends). If you appeal the pension decision within the specified time, the application remains pending until the decision of the appeals body becomes final.

If your employment relationship is still in effect, you must find out from your employer whether you could continue working in the organization despite your disability, for example, in a lighter role. As an attachment to your unemployment benefits application, you must provide a certificate from your employer stating whether they can offer you work that is suitable for your ability to work. You may be eligible for unemployment benefits only if such work cannot be arranged.

Read more about the conditions for claiming allowance

If the pension is granted retrospectively, the pension institution pays the pension to the fund for the period for which unemployment allowance has already been paid. If the pension is smaller than your unemployment allowance, you don’t have to paid the difference back to the fund.

A new right to sickness allowance after one year

If you have been a jobseeker in the employment authority’s service for a year after the maximum payment period of sickness allowance (300 days) ran out, you may get a new right to sickness allowance.

If you are still ill, after being a jobseeker for a year, you must contact Kela yourself to see if you get a new right to sickness allowance. Kela cannot know which of those who have received unemployment allowance are still ill.