Am i entitled to unpaid parental leave after paid parental leave?
- Yes, each parent is entitled to up to 12 additional months of unpaid leave for each birth, to be taken after the ordinary paid parental leave. This unpaid leave must be taken immediately after the paid leave ends.
For example, if you need a few extra months of leave before your child is offered a kindergarten place, or if you want to wait until your child is a little older before returning to work, you are entitled to unpaid leave as long as there is no break between the paid and unpaid parental leave.
You are not automatically entitled to unpaid leave if you have taken partial parental leave, meaning that you have combined part-time work with parental leave. If you have taken partial leave but still need or wish to take unpaid leave – for example because you have not been offered a kindergarten place – you can discuss this with your employer to see whether an agreement can be reached.
If this does not resolve the situation, you may instead be entitled to reduced working hours due to compelling welfare reasons.
Am i entitled to unpaid leave for other reasons, such as education or a long stay abroad?
- You may have a statutory right to unpaid leave for reasons other than parental leave. If you have been part of the workforce for at least three years and have been employed by your current employer for the past two years, you may be entitled to educational leave. A key condition is that the leave must not hinder the employer’s ability to plan operations or manage staffing in a responsible way.
You are also entitled to unpaid leave if you fall into certain specific categories, for example if you:
- Hold a public office
- Are required to perform military service
- Need to care for parents in the final stage of life
An overview of situations that may give you a legal right to unpaid leave can be found in Chapter 12 of the Working Environment Act. If you are covered by a collective agreement at your workplace, this may in some cases give you better rights than those provided by the Working Environment Act alone. It is therefore a good idea to check what your collective agreement says about unpaid leave.
However, taking unpaid leave in order to go on a long trip abroad is not something you have a legal right to. This does not mean that it is impossible – you can still ask your employer whether unpaid leave can be granted by agreement.
Things to consider before taking unpaid leave
Taking unpaid leave will have financial consequences in both the short and long term. The most obvious impact is that you will not receive salary, holiday pay or other benefits from your employer during the period of unpaid leave.
Unpaid leave and pension
It is also common practice that you are temporarily removed from your employer’s pension and insurance schemes while you are on unpaid leave. In this context, it is important to be aware that the National Insurance Scheme provides pension accrual for care work if you have been at home with children under the age of six.
This care accrual corresponds to pension earnings of 4.5 times the National Insurance basic amount (G), which helps offset some of the long-term pension impact for parents who take unpaid leave.
Unpaid leave and illness
Another important consequence of unpaid leave is that you are not entitled to sick pay (salary during illness) or care benefits (pay for sick child days) from your employer during the leave period, or for the first four weeks after you return to work.
Before deciding to take unpaid leave, you should therefore carefully consider the risk of illness occurring during or shortly after the leave period. Being ill for a day or two is one thing, but if you or your child were to be affected by a serious illness, unpaid leave could have significant financial consequences.
In addition, unpaid leave may affect the sickness benefit calculation basis set by NAV, and you may lose access to employer-provided insurance schemes, such as disability insurance, that your employer may have arranged for you.
Unpaid leave also affects your right to use self-certification (calling in sick without a doctor’s certificate). The general rule is that you must have been working for two months before you can use self-certification. For certain types of leave, including unpaid parental leave, you may use self-certification after four weeks back at work.
If you have taken unpaid parental leave, you may be entitled to reduced sickness benefits from NAV if certain conditions are met. You can read more about this in the article:
Am i entitled to sick pay from my employer if i fall ill right after unpaid parental leave?
- The answer is no. In order to be entitled to sick pay from your employer, you must have been back at work for at least four weeks immediately before you are certified as sick.
However, you may be entitled to sickness benefits from the National Insurance Scheme (NAV) at a rate of 65 per cent of the sickness benefit calculation basis from day 15, provided that certain conditions are met.
You can read more about this in the article:
The right to sickness benefits during unpaid parental leave.
Am i entitled to ‘sick child days’ after taking unpaid leave?
- The answer is no. You must have been back at work for at least four weeks in order to be entitled to use sick child days (care days) and to receive pay for these days (care benefits).
If you are not entitled to care benefits from your employer, you may instead be entitled to payments from NAV.
You can find more questions and answers about unpaid leave here and parental leave here.
