Allowances when you have children

To apply for allowances and settle taxes, you need a DigiD. DigiD stands for "digital identity". With your DigiD you show who you are when you want to arrange something with a government organisation on the internet. You can apply for a DigiD yourself.

A contact person from

VluchtelingenWerk Nederland (VWN)

Child benefit is a contribution to your child's living costs. If you live in the Netherlands and have one or more children under the age of 18, you may be entitled to child benefit. The amount of child benefit depends on the age of your child and not the amount of your income. One of the conditions is that you have a job. If your job stops, you must also stop your child benefit. If you are fired or your contract is not renewed, you may be able to apply for unemployment benefits. In this case, you do not have to stop the child benefit until your unemployment benefit stops. If you inform the

Sociale Verzekeringsbank (SVB)

If you do not report that you are no longer working or that your unemployment benefit has stopped, you will have to repay the additional money you received later. If you change jobs, you do not have to report this.

The child related budget is a contribution that comes on top of the child benefit. For the child related budget, your and your partner's income must not be too high and you must meet some requirements. If you would like to know if you are entitled to the child budget, check the website of the Dutch tax authorities for the conditions and all relevant information. If you would like to apply for child budget, you can also do so through the website of the Dutch tax authorities.

Childcare allowance is a contribution to the cost of childcare for working or studying parents. You must meet certain conditions to apply for this benefit. You can download the toolkit explaining childcare allowance. This is a tool for parents that provides a step-by-step explanation. The toolkit is available to everyone and is free to download in Dutch, English, Russian and Ukrainian. The Toolkit was conceived and developed by BOinK, the Belangenvereniging van Ouders in de Kinderopvang.

The app is available for free to download in the App Store (Apple) and on Google Play (Android). After downloading, you can choose from Dutch, English, Ukrainian or Russian in the app.

Here you can read in brief whether you qualify for the childcare allowance. You can also check the conditions on the website of the Dutch tax authorities.

• The main condition is that you earn money from work and pay taxes on it. If you do not earn money with the work on which you pay taxes, then this does not count as work. For example: volunteer work or caregiver.

• In addition, your child must attend a registered daycare. The municipality checks whether the care is good and safe. Approved care is registered in the Dutch National Childcare Register (LRK) and has an LRK number. Without this number you cannot apply for childcare allowance.

• You always pay part of the cost of childcare yourself. You can pay one part of the costs with the childcare allowance. The other part you have to pay yourself. That is the compulsory contribution.

• Please note: If you are married and your partner does not live in the Netherlands, you cannot simply apply for this allowance.

If you work and have children, you are entitled to child benefits. Sometimes you are also entitled to allowances. This is an extra amount of money. Single parents in the Netherlands can receive an extra amount in addition to the child benefit. This is called the 'allenstaande ouderkop' (ALO-kop). Not everyone can receive this amount of money.

You are only entitled to this amount if you:

• Work.

• Do not have a partner (abroad).

• Care for and raise a child under the age of 18.

• Do not have an allowance partner.

• Your application for child support has been approved.

The 'alleenstaande ouderkop' single parent cap is part of the child budget. How much money you get depends on your income and the number of children you have. The amount is paid each month. You can use the allowance to pay for clothing, school supplies and activities for your children, for example.

Please note: There is a risk that the system of the Dutch tax authorities will wrongly see you as a single parent, and thus wrongly give you extra single parent allowance. You must then repay all of this money.

You can apply for allowances online from the Dutch tax authorities. In many municipalities, you can get help applying for or stopping allowances. Ask the municipality where you live where you can get help arranging your allowances.