Germany plans to cut child maintenance advance to age 15, reversing 2017 reform to curb surging costs

The proposed cut

Bundesfamilienministerin Karin Prien (CDU) plans to submit a bill reforming the Maintenance Advance Act, a ministry spokesman confirmed on Sunday in Berlin. The central change: the state advance payment for single parents would in future be granted only for children up to and including their 15th birthday. Currently, single parents are entitled to the payment until their child turns 18. Prien told news agency KNA that spending had quadrupled since the 2017 reform and the advance had become "one of the largest cost factors for municipalities."

The advance maintenance payment has developed into one of the largest cost factors for municipalities.

Cost pressures and the 2017 expansion

The ministry cited budget-saving targets for the federal budget as the driver of the proposal. Before the 2017 reform, the benefit was available only up to a child's 12th birthday and for a maximum of 72 months. Since 1 July 2017, it has been paid until the 18th birthday with no time limit. The cost trajectory is steep: in 2016, spending stood below one billion euros. By 2024, total payments reached 3.2 billion euros, of which less than 600 million euros were recovered from defaulting parents. The federal government covers 40 percent of the cost; the rest falls to the states, which can pass expenditures on to municipalities. Recovery rates remain low, with the state succeeding only in a minority of cases.

Unfulfilled coalition promise and tougher enforcement

Prien said a planned change to the offsetting of child benefit against the advance, which would have halved the offset, is not currently affordable and will not be pursued for now. The measure had been agreed in the coalition agreement between the CDU/CSU and SPD. The ministry said the government's goal remains to support single parents reliably, especially those with younger children where care burdens are highest. At the same time, the ministry wants to improve the recourse against defaulting maintenance payers. Prien proposed that driving licences be withdrawn from defaulters who make false statements or fail to provide information, and called for states and municipalities to bundle recovery of outstanding maintenance payments.

That is a question of justice.

Opposition and advocacy criticism

Green parliamentary group leader Britta Haßelmann sharply criticised the plan in remarks to AFP. She linked it to other recent cuts, including the 25-euro immediate child supplement.

We are constantly confronted with new cuts from the CDU/CSU and SPD: maintenance advance, parental allowance, or the immediate child supplement of 25 euros to support children in poverty. It always hits the same people: single parents, families and children.

She argued that money is available for reduced VAT on hospitality, the mothers' pension or cheaper flight tickets, but not for families. "The CDU/CSU and SPD are setting the wrong priorities and trying to plug their budget holes on the backs of families, single parents and children," Haßelmann said.

Child poverty warning

The German Children's Fund (Deutsches Kinderhilfswerk) also opposed the plan. Spokesman Uwe Kamp said the measure follows the recently implemented cut to the child supplement and warned it would deepen poverty among children and young people.

This follows on from the cut to the child supplement that has just been carried out. Both contribute to further worsening the poverty situation of many children and young people.

Kamp said the daily lives of children living in poverty are already marked by deprivation and often by shame, and that affected children cannot fulfil their potential in any area. He urged the federal, state and local governments to pull together and create additional financial leeway to significantly reduce child poverty and massively strengthen social infrastructure.