The Social Fund's draft budget for the next year provides RUB 25.9 billion in payments for extra days off for parents of disabled children. The current rules allow for up to four such paid days off per month. Both parents can take them, distributing the days between them as they see fit, provided that they both work. Each parent is also entitled to accumulate 24 additional days off.
"The financing for the next year is twice that of the current one. We see that the benefit is highly popular: the number of employers applying for the cost refund over the 9 months of the current year rose by 30% compared to the same period of the prior year. Concurrently, the number of parents using this opportunity increased by 27%, while the number of child care days paid by the Fund rose by 59%," said Sergey Chirkov, Chairman of the Social Fund of Russia.
You can apply for extra days off with your employer. The application has to have a statement from the other parents workplace, certifying if they have already been provided with extra days off and how many. If mom or dad changed jobs in the current year, they will also have to provide a statement on extra days off from their former workplace.
Legal guardians or custodians of a disabled child are also entitled to extra days off. The employer pays for each extra day off in the amount of the employee's average daily wage, and the Social Fund reimburses the employer for these expenses.
Please remember that all extra days off shall be used in the year they were provided. You cannot carry them to the next year or replace with a monetary compensation.