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Attendance allowance for children

Attendance allowance is money that can be granted to an individual who has a child with disability in order to hire personal assistants.

Can my child receive attendance allowance?

Your child can receive attendance allowance if the child

  • is covered by the Act regarding Support and Service for Persons with Certain Functional Impairments (LSS). The child is covered by LSS if they have a significant need for support or service due to a mental impairment, autism or autism-like condition, or other lasting physical or mental disability that is major or causes significant difficulties in daily life.
  • has a disability that causes significant difficulties in their daily life.
  • due to their disability needs assistance more than 20 hours a week to meet basic needs, such as washing themselves, putting on clothes, communicating with others, bringing food to their mouth, or going to the toilet.
  • is insured in Sweden. A child who lives in Sweden is insured here.

If your child needs assistance with basic needs up to 20 hours per week, you can apply for personal assistance through your municipality. The municipality can also grant personal assistance for other personal needs, as well as other support for children with disabilities. It is when the child’s need of assistance to meet basic needs exceeds 20 hours per week that Försäkringskassan can grant attendance allowance.

If Försäkringskassan assesses that your child needs assistance with basic needs more than 20 hours per week, they can also receive attendance allowance for other personal needs.

How much can I receive in attendance allowance?

The allowance is SEK 304,30 per assistance hour. It is possible to apply for higher allowance if you can show that your costs are higher. The maximum compensation is SEK 340,81 per hour.

How do I apply?

If your child needs assistance with basic needs more than 20 hours per week, then you apply through Försäkringskassan. If your child needs assistance with basic needs up to 20 hours per week, you apply for personal assistance through your municipality. Here, we describe how it works to apply to Försäkringskassan.

1. Ask for a doctor's statement

Contact your child’s doctor to get a statement describing their disability and how it affects them.

2. Fill in an application form

Fill in the form Application for attendance allowance.

3062 Application for attendance allowance (91 kB). PDF opens in a new window

If the child has two guardians, both must sign the application.

Since we contact you after receiving your application, it is OK if your application is brief or if something is missing.

3. Send in the form and the medical documentation

Send the form and the medical documentation to Försäkringskassan.

If you applied for personal assistance with your municipality, they will sometimes send in a report to Försäkringskassan. This is then considered your application and you do not have to do anything. Contact your municipality to learn what applies in your situation.

4. The administrator will contact you and schedule a meeting

Your child’s personal administrator will contact you within a week and schedule a personal meeting. At the meeting, we will discuss the child's needs to determine how much assistance they requires. The meeting can either be in your home or at Försäkringskassan's office. The child is more then welcome to participate in the meeting.

5. You receive a decision

You will receive a decision within 5 months of us receiving your application.

 

If your child has already received personal assistance and you incurred a cost for this before you received a decision on attendance allowance, you must report the assistance to Försäkringskassan during the time we are processing your application.

Report the assistance by submitting

  • documents proving that your personal assistants have been hired
  • an agreement between your child and a provider
  • time reports
  • invoices

We must receive the report no later than the 5th of the month after your child began receiving assistance to be able to pay out allowance.

 

6. Choose how your child’s assistance will be arranged

If you have not already done so, choose how the assistance will be arranged. You can purchase personal assistance services from an assistance provider, employ your child’s assistants yourself, or combine these alternatives. You must also decide whether the money should be paid to you or to a provider. Inform us of your choice by completing and sending in the form:

3079 Begäran om betalningsmottagare och anordnare för assistansersättning

 

The provider must be licensed by the National Board of Health and Welfare or the Health and Social Care Inspectorate (IVO). Försäkringskassan cannot recommend any particular provider. The Health and Social Care Inspectorate (IVO) has a register of all licensed assistance providers.

If you choose to receive the allowance and purchase assistance services from a provider, you need to check that the company has a corporate tax certificate. Assistance companies must have a corporate tax certificate. This is not required of cooperative or economic associations, but there is more administrative work involved for the individual receiving assistance if the organisation does not have a corporate tax certificate.

If you choose to be your own provider and hire your assistants, it gives you a large number of options, but also requires a great deal of time for administration work.

 

 

If you have selected an assistance provider, send the agreement between you and the provider to us.

 

 

If you are a parent who employs your child’s assistants yourself, you must report this to the Health and Social Care Inspectorate (IVO) before the assistant begins working, and you must be registered as an employer with the Swedish Tax Agency.

Submit information about the child’s assistants

If you employ your child’s assistants yourself, you must send in information about them before they start working with your child. You must also let us know if anything changes in relation to the assistants. We cannot pay the allowance for assistance provided before we receive the information.

Use the form.

3066 Anmälan från arbetsgivare Uppgifter om personliga assistenter

 

7. Send in the invoice and time report

 

Once a month, you must send in an invoice for attendance allowance.

3057 Räkning assistansersättning (pdf)

3057 Hjälp att fylla i blanketten, på svenska version 15 (pdf)

Försäkringskassan must receive the form no later than the 5th of the second month following the month to which the invoice relates.

 
 

 

8. Disbursement

The allowance can be paid out two ways, either in advance or retrospectively. Retrospective is most common. It is only possible to receive the allowance in advance if you employ all of the child’s assistants.

Retrospective attendance allowance is paid around the 5th or the 20th of each month. The allowance is paid once all of the documents have been received and processed.

Attendance allowance in advance is paid once a month. Around the 20th of each month, you will receive a preliminary disbursement for the number of hours of attendance allowance you are approved for.

Always report changes

Call your personal administrator if the child

  • moves to another residence
  • need more or less assistance
  • receives some other support, e.g. from the municipality, county or school
  • moves to an assisted living facility
  • are being cared for at a hospital
  • need new assistive devices
  • travels abroad and this affects how the child's assistants work.

Some changes may affect your right to attendance allowance. If you received money you were not entitled to, you may be required to pay money back. Report the change to Försäkringskassan as soon as possible, but no later than 14 days after you learned about it.

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Frequently asked questions

LSS is the Swedish abbreviation for the Act regarding Support and Service for Persons with Certain Functional Impairments. The law specifies that people with disabilities must be able to get help to live like everyone else.

We assess your child's need for care and assistance in comparison to a child of the same age without disability.

LSS consists of three categories that describe what individuals are covered by LSS.

  1. People with mental impairments, autism or autism-like conditions.
  2. People with significant and lasting intellectual disabilities after brain damage at an adult age caused by external violence or physical disease.
  3. People with other permanent physical mental disability that is obviously not due to normal ageing, if such disability is major and causes significant difficulties in daily life and the person thereby has a significant need for support and service.

Försäkringskassan investigates the right to attendance allowance, regardless of how extensive the basic assistance needs are.

If the child needs personal assistance more than 20 hours a week for basic assistance needs, then the child is entitled to attendance allowance from Försäkringskassan.

If the child's basic assistance needs are less than 20 hours a week, then the municipality is responsible for deciding on what types of assistance are provided to the child.

Yes. Your child can receive attendance allowance while you are receiving childcare allowance, but not for the same needs.

During the personal meeting, the administrator will ask questions about your child's need for assistance. The questions will be sent to your home in good time before the meeting. Here are some examples of what is discussed:

  • Describe a typical day for your child.
  • Does your child need assistance and support in order to eat or drink? If so, describes what your child needs help with and how much time this takes.
  • Describe your child's disability or illness and how it affects his/her daily life.

The child might find it easier to be at home, where he/she feels more secure. It's good if there is a place for the child to go, for example if he/she does not want to participate in the entire meeting.

It is also good to have the meeting at your home since this gives the administrator the best idea of what type of assistance is needed in the home.

This is possible in certain cases. Before Försäkringskassan investigates the child's need for several assistants simultaneously, we need to learn the results of an investigation regarding housing adaptation and what assistive devices your child has. Call your child's personal administrator to learn more.

You do not need to renew your application. The decision is valid until further notice. Every other year, we conduct a follow-up to see whether your child's need for assistance has changed.

If you are receiving childcare allowance, this could be affected by the attendance allowance. If so, we will review the decision regarding childcare allowance.

The Health and Social Care Inspectorate (IVO) has a register of businesses licensed to provide personal assistance services to children. The register is found on their website:

The Health and Social Care Inspectorate (IVO)

Use the form: 

3079 Registration of which provider of personal assistance the insured has chosen (100 kB).PDF opens in a new window

Yes. A family member can be hired to work as a personal assistant.

Yes. A family member can be hired to work as a personal assistant. There is no upper age limit, provided that the person is capable of performing the work at a high level of quality.

Yes, but you cannot receive attendance allowance for that assistant. Försäkringskassan only pays compensation for personal assistants who are over the age of 18.

If your child needs more assistance for a limited period of time, you can apply to your municipality for additional hours.

If the need is not temporary, you can apply to Försäkringskassan for additional hours. Call your administrator for more information.

Yes, as an exception if there are special circumstances. The childcare provider and school have chief responsibility for satisfying the child's assistance needs while the child is there. Call your child's personal administrator to learn what applies for your child.

The child must then be in contact with Försäkringskassan him/herself and sign his/her documents. If the child is not capable of doing this, you can apply to your municipality to have a custodian appointed.

If you disagree with the decision, you can request that Försäkringskassan re-evaluate the decision. Send a letter to Försäkringskassan within two months of receiving the decision.
Your request for re-evaluation must contain the following information:

  • What decision you would like us to re-evaluate.
  • In what way you think the decision should be changed.
  • Why you want the decision to be changed.
  • The child's name, personal ID number, address and phone number.
  • Your signature.

The decision letter will indicate where to send your request for re-evaluation.

Attendance allowance for children