Parental leave

Udbetaling Danmark pays out the benefits, when you are on maternity/paternity leave. If you have any questions about maternity/paternity leave, which are not answered here, you can find information on the website Life in Denmark. There you can also read about benefits in connection with adoption and if your child is born prematurely.

Go to Life in Denmark

You can go on pregnancy leave with maternity benefits 4 weeks before your due date. The due date counts towards the four weeks. You do not use your 104 weeks of unemployment benefits while you are on pregnancy, maternity/paternity and parental leave.

Unemployed and going on parental leave

6 weeks before you go on maternity leave - or 10 weeks before your due date - you can be exempted from:

• participating in meetings with us or the job centre
• job search

If you have been unemployed for 3 months and your job search process has been transferred to the job centre, you must contact your job centre instead.

Until you go on maternity/paternity leave, you are required to take on possible relevant jobs that the job centre or we consider you able to carry out.

The exemption from looking for a job and attending meetings only applies when we/the job centre have been notified that there are 6 weeks until you go on maternity/paternity leave.

Let us know that there are 6 weeks until you go on parental leave

Going on pregnancy leave

You must notify us of your pregnancy 5 weeks before your due date. You can either send a message on Mit AKA or call us. We will then inform Udbetaling Danmark about your pregnancy and the date you go on pregnancy leave.

If you are employed before going on maternity/paternity leave

If you are employed in the period leading up to your maternity/paternity leave, your employer is the one who must notify Udbetaling Danmark about your parental leave.

You will then receive a letter from Udbetaling Danmark taht you must reply to. 

Self-employed and going on maternity/paternity leave

As self-employed you can apply for maternity/paternity benefits and compensation at Udbetaling Danmark on Business in Denmark.

Go to business in Denmark

Illness benefits and pregnancy

If you fall ill in connection with your pregnancy, you must call us. It is not possible to report illness due to pregnancy on jobnet.dk. When you have spoken to us, we will pass the message on to Udbetaling Danmark. They will then send you a letter, and when they receive your reply, they will assess if you are eligible for illness benefits.

Leave for fathers and co-mothers

If you are unemployed and become a father/co-mother, you can take leave with maternity/paternity benefits for the first 14 days after the birth of the child. We notify Udbetaling Danmark of the date on which you go on leave.

If you have full-time work, different rules apply to taking paternity/maternity leave 

See Life in Denmark for more guidance

Notify us about shared parental leave

You can share maternity/paternity benefits. If one of you is unemployed and you want to share the parental leave, you must notify us about the first and last day of the parental leave for the one of you who is unemployed and wants to go on leave.

If you have had a child as a student

If you had a child shortly before you completed your education, you are entitled to maternity/paternity benefits from the day you received you last grade. You do not need to register as unemployed at jobnet.dk in order to receive maternity/paternity benefits. Call us, if you would like to know more about maternity/paternity benefits as a recent graduate.