Granting and disbursement of unemployment benefit

Sickness benefit may be granted to an employee or a self-employed person who, due to incapacity for work, loses income from employment or economic activity and has been issued a B-type certificate of incapacity for work by a medical practitioner:

• due to loss of working capacity caused by illness or injury;
• due to the need to receive medical or preventive treatment;
• in cases requiring isolation due to quarantine;
• during the recovery period after illness or injury requiring inpatient treatment;
• if prosthetics or orthotics are required in an inpatient setting.

Please note:

If sickness benefit has been granted, it may only be received during a period in which the person does not earn income, including royalties.

The only exception applies to self-employed persons who:

• have registered their economic activity with the State Revenue Service,
• do not earn income reaching the minimum wage in a given month, and
• make social insurance contributions themselves under the general procedure.

The right to receive sickness benefit arises for persons for whom mandatory contributions for sickness insurance have been made or had to be made:

• for not less than three months within the last six-month period prior to the month in which the insured event (first day of incapacity for work) occurred, or
• for not less than six months within the last twenty-four months.

Sickness benefit may be granted to an employee who, due to incapacity for work, loses income from employment and has been issued a B-type certificate of incapacity for work by a medical practitioner:

• due to an occupational accident (confirmed by an official report registered by the State Labour Inspectorate),
• due to an occupational disease (confirmed by a decision of the Occupational and Radiation Medicine Centre of the Pauls Stradiņš Clinical University Hospital).

When sickness benefit is granted with the cause of temporary incapacity classified as “occupational accident” or “occupational disease”, no qualification period is required.

Translation prepared with a machine translation tool

When determining the amount of unemployment benefit, the applicant's calculated average insurance contribution wage and total insurance record are taken into account.

The average daily insurance contribution wage is calculated for a 12-month period, which ends two months before the month in which the unemployed status is acquired.

The average daily insurance contribution wage is calculated using the following formula:

Vd = (A₁ + A₂ + ... + A₁₀) / X¹*X²)/Dd

Where:

• Vd – average daily insurance contribution wage;
• A1, A2 … A10 – sum of insurance contribution wages for the included months;
• X1 – number of months included in the calculation, excluding the two months with the highest and lowest insurance contribution wages;
• X2 – number of months during which the person was actually insured against unemployment;
• Dd – number of calendar days.

Note:
 

The two months with the lowest and highest insurance contribution wages are excluded from the calculation.

If, during the 12-month period for which the average insurance contribution wage must be calculated, the person was:

• on childcare leave,
• on unpaid leave granted due to the need to care for a child (applies to adoptive parents, guardians, foster parents, or other persons actually caring for and raising the child), or
• on maternity leave,

and mandatory contributions were not required to be made by the employer during this period, then the average insurance contribution wage is calculated based on employment income received before these leave periods.

This means the average insurance contribution wage is calculated for a 12-calendar-month period by "rolling back" to the last registered contribution wage declared by the employer before the leave period began.

In such cases, the average insurance contribution wage is calculated even if the person has been unemployed throughout the 12-month period but continued receiving maternity or parental benefits after the termination of employment.

If, during part of the 12-month period used for calculating the average insurance contribution wage, the person was:

• on childcare leave,
• on unpaid leave granted due to the need to care for a child,
• on maternity leave, or
• received any of the following benefits:
  • downtime allowance,
  • downtime support benefit,
  • downtime assistance benefit,
  • sickness assistance benefit, or
  • continued parental benefit,

then these days are excluded from the total number of calendar days used in the average wage calculation.

The amount of the unemployment benefit is determined based on the total length of insurance contributions (insurance record or tenure).

If, prior to acquiring the status of unemployed person, the individual:

• cared for a child under the age of one and a half and received the childcare benefit;
• regained capacity for work after a period of disability;
• cared for a child with a disability up to the age of 18,

then the granted unemployment benefit shall be determined as 60% of the double amount of the state social security benefit.

If the benefit is granted:

• from 01.01.2024 to 31.12.2024 — 60% of € 274;
• from 01.01.2025 — 60% of € 332.

The amount of the state social security benefit is reviewed annually.

Translation prepared with a machine translation tool

The unemployment benefit is paid for no longer than 8 months, with the amount gradually reduced over time:

• Months 1–2 – 100% of the granted benefit amount
• Months 3–4 – 75%
• Months 5–6 – 50%
• Months 7–8 – 45%

If the employment relationship was terminated at the employer’s initiative or by mutual agreement, the unemployment benefit is granted from the day the State Social Insurance Agency receives the application for the benefit. The payment of the unemployment benefit begins in the following month.

If the employment relationship was terminated at the employee’s own initiative or due to a violation, the unemployment benefit is granted from the date the application is submitted, but not earlier than two months after acquiring the status of an unemployed person. This means the benefit will be granted with a two-month delay, and the first payment will be made only in the third month.

The unemployment benefit is paid for the previous month’s period of unemployment.

The amount of the benefit to be paid depends on the number of days in the month for which the benefit is calculated.

The benefit is transferred to the recipient’s account in a credit institution or postal settlement system (PSS) in the Republic of Latvia.

If the benefit is granted in accordance with an international agreement concluded by Latvia in the field of social security or under the provisions of an EU Regulation, and the recipient resides in an EU/EEA Member State or a contracting state, the benefit may be transferred to a credit institution account in the respective foreign country.

The payment of the unemployment benefit is suspended during the period when the recipient is receiving:

• Sickness benefit or maternity benefit;
• Parental benefit – the payment of parental benefit is suspended while the unemployment benefit is being received;
• Compensation for loss of capacity for work or compensation for the loss of a provider – the compensation is suspended while the unemployment benefit is being received;
• Service pension – its payment is suspended while the service pension recipient receives unemployment benefit.

Translation prepared with a machine translation tool