Hungary - Sickness cash benefits

Insured persons caring for a sick child and therefore unable to work may be entitled to absence fee or sickness benefit as defined by law.

In what situation can I claim?

When an insured person becomes sick and unable to work, he/she is eligible for sickness cash benefits, like the absence fee and statutory sickness benefit, prescribed by a medical doctor. The absence fee is paid by the employer, while the statutory sickness benefit is paid by the Healthcare Provider. Note that the absence fee is not a social security (health insurance) benefit.

The parent is entitled to sickness benefit for a child under the age 12 when the child is in hospital and the parent is there with him/her or when the child is cared for at home.

What conditions do I need to meet?

Incapacity for work must be certified by a doctor. There is no formal time-limit for it, with a maximum back-dating time of 5 days (in exceptional circumstances, maximum 6 months – certified by a medical expert body), and the benefit will not be paid for longer than a 1-year period. The person has to be re-examined regularly (depending on the doctor's decision).

To be entitled to statutory sickness benefit the sick person has to be insured, the sickness has to be verified by a medical doctor, and the sick person has to pay the healthcare supplement.

What am I entitled to and how can I claim?

An absence fee (Távolléti díj) of an amount of 70% of the daily gross earnings is granted by the employer for up to 15 working days annually and can be used only in the same calendar year. It cannot be transferred. In the case of endangered pregnancy the employee is entitled not to the 15 days absence fee but to the sickness benefit.

A sickness benefit (Táppénz) can be granted for a maximum of 1 year while the person is validly insured. The amount of this benefit is 60% (or 50% when the time of being insured is shorter than 730 days or the person entitled is staying in hospital) of the gross daily pay for the period defined by law, but the daily allowance is maximum 1/30 of the double of the gross minimum wage (HUF 15,566 per day in 2023). The sickness benefit will be paid for every calendar day spent on benefits starting after the last day of the 15-day absence period.

The sickness benefit has to be claimed through the employer using the medical doctor's proof. A self-employed person has to claim electronically for the sickness benefit at the district offices of the county.

The sickness benefit claim is assessed by the health insurance service of the county district offices or by the corporate social insurance payment service with an 8-day (max 60-day) deadline (an employer with a payroll of more than 100 persons is required to create an in-house social insurance payment service).

Forms you may need to fill in

The sickness benefit has to be claimed through the employer using the medical doctor's proof. The employer draws up an “Employment Certificate” which, together with the certificates submitted by the insured person, is forwarded to the district office of the county within 5 days electronically. If the employer has a social security payment office, the employer sends the application to the payment office, not the district office. This process is applied to the sickness benefit, sickness benefit while caring a child, infant care allowance, child care fee, and accident sickness benefit claim forms as well.