Care benefit in Norway: up to NOK 7,500 per month per child

You can receive up to NOK 7,500 per month from Norway for a young child. The care benefit, known as kontantstøtte, may also be available if your child lives in Poland. If you want to receive money for previous months, the date on which you submit your application matters.

Kontantstøtte is intended for parents of young children. It can usually be received from the month in which the child turns 13 months old until the month in which they turn 19 months old. This provides a maximum of 7 months of payments. Separate rules apply to adopted children. NAV also checks the parents' insurance coverage, the family's situation, and whether the child has a place at a nursery or kindergarten with public funding.

The full benefit is NOK 7,500 per month. You can receive this amount if you meet the requirements and the child has not been allocated a place at an institution with public funding. If they have such a place for part of the week, the payment may be lower. At 33 hours per week or more, the benefit is not available. It is the number of allocated hours that counts. If the child has a place for the entire week but attends nursery only one day, NAV will still take the full number of allocated hours into account.

You may also be entitled to kontantstøtte in this situation. NAV will check where the parents work, in which country they are insured, and what benefits the family receives. In your application, also state any benefits received in Poland. This includes payments from the “active parents at work” and “active at home” programmes. The Polish and Norwegian authorities will determine which country should pay the benefit and in what amount. Therefore, before counting on the full NOK 7,500, you need to check the situation of the entire family. One parent's employment in Norway alone does not guarantee payment of this amount.

For kontantstøtte, at least 5 years of social insurance coverage are required. Polish citizens can combine relevant insurance periods from Norway, Poland, and other European Economic Area countries. If the child lives with both parents, each of them must meet this requirement. Before submitting your application, also check the insurance history of the other parent.

NAV can pay backdated benefit for no more than 3 months before the month in which the application is submitted. For example, an application submitted in October 2026 may still cover July. If you submit it only in November, the earliest month will be August. Money is payable only for those months in which the family met the requirements. Therefore, if you were entitled to the benefit in July, waiting until November may mean losing the payment for that month. Applications can also be submitted later, but with each subsequent month, the period for which NAV can pay backdated money shifts forward.

Not sure whether your family is entitled to kontantstøtte? Contact us. We will check the insurance requirement, help determine the necessary documents, and prepare the application. We will also help you understand letters received from NAV. Prepare the child's date of birth and information about both parents' employment and insurance, nursery care, and benefits received in Poland. This will make it easier to determine which payments you may apply for. NAV decides whether to grant the benefit and how much it will be. Also check the other child benefits in Norway that MultiNOR can help you with.