Applying for Elterngeld online: the route via mein-elterngeldantrag.de

You need a BundID account (the federal citizen account). For the online application, signing in with a username and password is enough; for that you only need an email address.

After you send it off, the application arrives in your BundID inbox. You print it, both sign it, and post it to your Elterngeldstelle (the parental allowance office). Depending on the state and the office, you can also upload documents or apply fully electronically.

The application only counts once it has arrived, signed, at the office. That matters for the deadline: Elterngeld is paid retroactively only for the last three months of the child's life before the month of life in which the application arrives (§ 7(1) sentence 2 BEEG). Months of life count from the birthday, not by the calendar: if the application arrives by the end of the fourth month of life, nothing is lost.

Via mein-elterngeldantrag.de: Berlin, Brandenburg, Bremen, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saxony-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein and Thuringia.

With their own online system: Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saarland and Saxony.

You can still apply on paper in every state.

Since 15 August 2026 the shared online service “ElterngeldDigital” has been replaced step by step by mein-elterngeldantrag.de. ElterngeldDigital no longer accepts new applications, and applications started there cannot be transferred. If you started one there, you start again at mein-elterngeldantrag.de.

The application asks which of you takes which months of the child's life, and in which form: Basiselterngeld, ElterngeldPlus or the Partnerschaftsbonus. You decide that beforehand. Our calculator shows you, for free, what each split pays month by month.

If you want your plan in writing, it is available as a plan dossier for €14.90. Its transfer sheet lists what to enter from your plan in the online application.