Apply for the maintenance advance

€227 for children aged 0 to 5, €299 for those aged 6 to 11 and €394 for those aged 12 to 17. The calculation is easy to check: § 1 MinUhV sets the minimum maintenance, since 1 January 2026, at €486, €558 and €653, from which the full Kindergeld of €259 is deducted. Compared with 2025, the amounts are unchanged, because the minimum maintenance and the Kindergeld both rose by exactly four euros.

Because the full Kindergeld is deducted. § 2 UhVorschG provides that the maintenance benefit is reduced “by the Kindergeld payable for a first child” – in other words by €259. For ordinary cash maintenance, by contrast, only half of the Kindergeld is taken into account. Anyone who reads the maintenance table and sees this half-deduction therefore expects more than the maintenance advance actually provides. It is not a calculation error, but a deliberately different rule.

At the Jugendamt of your local authority, more precisely at the Unterhaltsvorschusskasse based there. Not at the Familienkasse – it pays Kindergeld and Kinderzuschlag and cannot decide anything about the maintenance advance. This wrong turn is particularly costly, because retroactive payment is generally made for only one month: every week spent at the wrong body is lost immediately.

Generally for only one month before the month in which the application is submitted, and even that only under certain conditions. This is considerably shorter than for Kindergeld, with its six months – and because both concern children, the deadline is regularly confused. Practical conclusion: apply first and clarify the details afterwards. An incomplete application can be completed later; a lost month cannot.

If they pay the full minimum maintenance, the advance ceases. If they pay less, the advance is reduced accordingly, but does not cease – the state tops it up to the minimum maintenance less the Kindergeld. Important: report incoming payments without delay. Unreported payments lead to recovery of overpayments for the entire period, and these then come as a single lump sum.

Yes, and this is a requirement for entitlement, not a request. The Jugendamt advances the payment and recovers the money from the person liable for maintenance; for this it needs the name, address, employer and anything else you know. Anyone who refuses to cooperate risks refusal of the application or a later recovery of overpayments. If you are concerned about contact – for example after experiences of violence – raise this explicitly with the Jugendamt; there are approaches for such cases that take your safety into account.

This depends on how care is actually divided. The maintenance advance requires the child to live with a single parent. Under a genuine Wechselmodell with approximately equal care by both parents, the entitlement can lapse. Because the distinction is difficult in the individual case and a later recovery of overpayments is unpleasant, you should describe the situation to the Jugendamt before submitting the application and obtain its assessment.

Yes. For the Kinderzuschlag, the maintenance advance counts as the child’s income and reduces the benefit – it must be declared there, and concealing it leads to a recovery of overpayments by the Familienkasse. It is also taken into account for Grundsicherungsgeld (basic income support benefit for jobseekers, formerly Bürgergeld). This is not a reason not to apply for it: the advance is, as a rule, higher than the reduction it triggers elsewhere. It is only a reason to declare it correctly everywhere.