Sick leave benefit calculator (employer)

Three examples: short, medium and long sick leave

A five-day cold on a gross salary of 1650 €. The average calendar-day pay is 1650 ÷ 30.4375 = 54.21 €. Days 1-3 are unpaid, and the employer pays for days 4 and 5: 2 × 54.21 × 0.7 = 75.89 €. The Health Insurance Fund pays nothing because the illness never reached day 9.

Two weeks of illness on a gross salary of 2200 €. Daily pay is 72.28 €. The employer pays five days: 5 × 72.28 × 0.7 = 252.98 €. The Fund's daily rate is 72.28 × 0.7 = 50.60 €, and days 9-14, six days, bring 303.60 €. The total is 556.58 € gross.

A month of treatment on a gross salary of 6000 €. Daily pay is 197.13 € and 70% of it would be 137.99 €, but the Fund's daily rate is capped at 126.87 €. The employer pays 5 × 197.13 × 0.7 = 689.96 €, the Fund 22 × 126.87 = 2791.14 €. Without the cap the Fund's part would have been 3035.78 €, so in this case the cap costs 244.64 €.

How to read the result rows

The large figure is the employer benefit, because that is the part paid by your employer together with your regular salary. Below it you see the average calendar-day pay that every benefit is based on, and how the days split across the three periods.

The unpaid days row is always 0 to 3. The employer days row is 0 to 5 and only fills up when the sick leave lasts at least eight days. Fund days start adding up from day 9. The Fund benefit is a separate row because it is paid by the Health Insurance Fund, not your employer, and arrives separately.

How much of your pay the benefit really covers

The rate is 70%, but because of the three unpaid days the real share is much lower for short illnesses. The percentages below show how much of the pay for the sick-leave calendar days is covered on a 1650 € or 2200 € salary when the cap does not apply.

• 3 days: 0%, the whole period is unpaid.
• 5 days: 28% (75.89 € out of 271.05 €).
• 14 days: 55% (556.58 € out of 1011.92 €).
• 21 days on a 1650 € salary: 60% (683.09 € out of 1138.41 €).
• The longer the sick leave, the closer the share gets to 70%, but it never goes above it.

What the calculator simplifies

The calculator derives both parts from a single monthly salary. In reality the employer uses pay from the previous six months to find the average, while the Health Insurance Fund uses the previous calendar year's income subject to social tax. If you recently changed jobs or got a raise, the two parts may rest on different daily rates and the Fund benefit may be lower than expected.

The calculator covers ordinary sick leave only. Care leave, maternity leave and other incapacity certificates follow their own rules and are not calculated here. It also ignores any voluntary extra pay from your employer for the first days and does not show a net amount: income tax is withheld from all benefits.

For example, 22% income tax, 122.45 €, is withheld from the 556.58 € benefit for a two-week illness if your basic exemption is already applied to that month's salary. That leaves 434.13 €, which is the figure to plan your budget around.

Practical tips

Enter the number of calendar days from the first to the last day of the certificate, weekends included. Sick leave from a Thursday to the Wednesday of the following week is 7 days, not 5.

If the illness returns, every new certificate starts again from day 1 and the three unpaid days apply again. Two separate four-day certificates on a 2200 € salary give two employer days in total, 101.20 €, while one eight-day certificate gives five employer days, 252.98 €.

Above roughly 5517 € a month the Fund's cap starts to bite. On that kind of income, keep a buffer for longer treatment, because the benefit will fall clearly below 70%.

Check your employment or collective agreement as well: some employers top up the first days, which makes a short illness far less costly.