Parents of a newborn should no longer have to work through forms to receive child benefit. On 9 July the Bundestag passed a law that lets the payment start automatically after a birth – without the initial application to the family benefits office (Familienkasse) of the Federal Employment Agency that has been required until now. The governing coalition of the Union and the SPD is thereby implementing a recommendation of the social-state commission. The Bundesrat still has to give its approval.
The heart of the reform is a digital exchange of data. When a registry office reports a birth, the Federal Central Tax Office assigns the child a tax identification number and forwards the necessary information to the family benefits office. The finance ministry calls this the „once-only principle“: citizens should provide data only once, and the administration passes it securely among its agencies. „The state uses the data it already has,“ explained Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil. Around 300,000 initial applications a year could thus be eliminated.
For the payment to start automatically, several conditions must be met: at least one parent must live with the child in Germany and work domestically, and the state must have a bank account (IBAN) on record. Where data is missing or eligibility is in doubt, the family benefits office continues its previous review – the automatic payment replaces the application, not the check.
A switch in two stages
The change will come step by step. First – according to the finance ministry, probably from spring 2027 – families who already receive child benefit for older siblings will benefit, because their data is already on file. In a second stage, probably from November 2027, the first child is also to be paid without an application. The law itself is due to take effect in early January 2027.
The scale is considerable: in 2025 around 55 billion euros flowed for roughly 17.6 million children. Since January 2026, child benefit has amounted to 259 euros per month per child and goes to the person who cares for the child – in three of four cases to the mother. According to the finance committee, the annual time citizens spend on this will fall by around 205,000 hours.
Associations welcome the reduction in bureaucracy but call for improvements. The German Children's Fund criticises that non-employed parents are initially left out and must still file an application – even though they in particular would benefit from the relief. It also says a clear date for the second stage is missing.