Almost everyone deals with the birth of their own child at least once in their life, along with the challenges and joys that come with it. One of the most pressing, and perhaps most important, questions is how maternity benefit is calculated. This article can help you find your way through it.
Maternity leave vs. parental leave
What is actually the difference between maternity leave and parental leave? These terms are often confused, but from a legal point of view, each of them means something different.
Under the Labour Code (zákoník práce), maternity leave is treated as an important personal obstacle to work on the employee’s side. It allows the mother to take care of her newborn child. It lasts 28 weeks, up to 37 weeks for multiple births, and the woman usually starts it 6 to 8 weeks before the expected date of birth. At the same time, it cannot be shorter than 14 weeks, and it can never end before 6 weeks have passed since the birth.
Parental leave, on the other hand, serves to deepen the care for the child. It is also assessed under the Labour Code as an important personal obstacle on the employee’s side. Parental leave starts after maternity leave ends and can last until the child is 3 years old. It arises on the basis of a written request from the employee to the employer.
Maternity leave is primarily intended for mothers, while parental leave is intended for both parents (although only one of them can take it at a time).
Parents who have adopted a child or taken it into their care are also entitled to maternity and parental leave.
Maternity benefit (peněžitá pomoc v mateřství)
During maternity leave, a woman receives maternity benefit (peněžitá pomoc v mateřství), commonly called “mateřská”. This maternity benefit is one of six benefits of the Czech sickness insurance system.
Entitlement to its payment arises when two conditions are met. The first is that the applicant for this benefit must be covered by sickness insurance at the time they start receiving the benefit, for at least 270 days in the last two years before starting to receive it. So a woman applying for the benefit must have been covered by sickness insurance (employed, or paying sickness insurance as a self-employed person, OSVČ) for at least 9 months in the last two years. This period does not have to be continuous and can be with several employers.
The law also recognises a protective period, which applies if a woman loses her job before starting maternity leave. For women who were pregnant when their employment ended, this protective period is 180 days from the day the insurance ends. If the insurance lasted for a shorter time, this protective period will only be as many calendar days as the insurance lasted (if the woman was employed for 30 days, the protective period will also be 30 days). In other cases, the protective period is 7 calendar days.
However, if a woman does not meet the conditions for the proper payment of maternity benefit, and the protective period does not apply to her either, maternity benefit will not be paid to her, and instead she will start receiving the parental allowance (rodičovský příspěvek) directly.
The child’s father / the mother’s husband
For the first 6 weeks after the birth, maternity benefit belongs only to the child’s mother. After this period, however, the child’s father, or the husband of the woman who gave birth, is also entitled to receive this benefit. They must, however, meet the same conditions as the woman who gave birth, and must also conclude a written agreement with the child’s mother that they will take care of the child. They must also submit the application form, which can be found here.
All other relevant information on the conditions for obtaining maternity benefit, and on further support, can be found directly on the website of the Czech Social Security Administration (Česká správa sociálního zabezpečení, ČSSZ).
How Do You Apply for the Benefit?
The application for maternity benefit is issued by a gynaecologist. The woman then brings this application to her employer when she notifies them that she is starting maternity leave. The employer sends it to the district social security administration (okresní správa sociálního zabezpečení, OSSZ), which must decide within one month whether, and in what amount, the woman is entitled to the benefit. The OSSZ sends the woman written confirmation of receiving maternity benefit along with the payment of the benefit. If the woman does not meet the conditions for maternity benefit to be granted, she will be sent a decision rejecting the benefit, against which she can appeal.
How Is Maternity Benefit Calculated?
Maternity benefit is calculated in 4 steps:
- First, you need to determine the so-called daily assessment base (denní vyměřovací základ, DVZ). This is found by dividing the assessment base for the relevant period (usually the preceding 12 months) by the number of calendar days falling within that period. In simplified terms, this can be expressed as monthly salary x 12 months / 365 days.
- The DVZ is then reduced in the following way:
- 100% of the part of the DVZ up to 1,345 CZK (about 62 USD) is counted
- 60% of the part of the DVZ above 1,345 CZK (about 62 USD) up to 2,017 CZK (about 93 USD) is counted
- 30% of the part of the DVZ from 2,017 CZK (about 93 USD) to 4,033 CZK (about 190 USD) is counted
- the part of the DVZ above 4,033 CZK (about 190 USD) is not taken into account
- we add up all 4 calculated levels, and from the resulting amount we calculate 70%, which is the amount of maternity benefit per calendar day set by law
- we multiply this amount by the number of days of maternity leave (that is, 196 for one child and 259 for more children), and this gives us the final amount of maternity benefit.
The maximum amount of maternity benefit for 2023 is 49,440 CZK (about 2,300 USD) a month.
If you want to reach this amount of benefit, take a look at this article, which reveals the 10 best-rated jobs.
If this way of calculating it does not make sense to you, you can use a calculator, which you can find, for example, on this page, which will definitely make the calculation easier.
Maternity benefit is therefore paid for the duration of maternity leave. In any case, these two terms are not completely interchangeable, even though both are commonly called “mateřská”. Unlike the parental allowance, maternity benefit is based on your current salary (or rather, on the daily assessment base). It is therefore financially more favourable for new mothers than the parental allowance, which is the same for everyone.
USD amounts are approximate, converted at the Czech National Bank rate of 21.80 CZK per USD on 2 October 2026.