How Should You Split Your Elterngeld Months?
Hand the months to each parent, convert any of them into ElterngeldPlus, add the Partnerschaftsbonus, and the board lays the plan out over your child’s Lebensmonate, totals what it pays and flags the rules you have walked into.
Built on the Bundeselterngeld- und Elternzeitgesetz and the Berlin service portal, read on 20 September 2026. A couple shares 14 months of Basiselterngeld, one parent alone gets 12, and one Basis month converts into two ElterngeldPlus months that can run to the 32nd Lebensmonat. Basiselterngeld stops after the 14th month, and after that a single Lebensmonat in which neither parent draws ElterngeldPlus ends the entitlement.
The federal calculator tells you what one month is worth. It does not tell you whether your arrangement is legal. This board takes the months you plan to claim, lays them across the first 32 Lebensmonate, adds up what the household receives and names every rule the plan breaks.
Two months for the second parent, or the household loses two
A couple has 14 months of Basiselterngeld, but only 12 if one parent takes everything. The 13th and 14th exist solely because the second parent claims at least two, and nobody else can use them.
ElterngeldPlus is not simply half
With no income after the birth, a Plus month pays half a Basis month and lasts twice as long, so the total is identical. With part-time income the Plus ceiling is often not reached, and the same monthly amount arrives for twice as many months.
The month you are not allowed to leave empty
After the 14th Lebensmonat the run may not be interrupted. One month in which neither parent draws ElterngeldPlus ends the entitlement for good, even with months still on paper.
What this tool leaves out
It assumes nobody earns during the months they draw, which is the only case where a Plus month is exactly half a Basis month. It does not calculate your Elterngeld-Netto: take that figure from the federal Elterngeldrechner and bring it back here.