See How Much Kindergeld Is Still Within Reach
Kindergeld is paid backwards for six months and not a day more, so every month you put off the application is money you will never see. Put in the date the entitlement began and this draws the calendar: the months still within reach, the months already gone, what each is worth at the rate that applied then, and the exact date the next month falls out.
Rates from section 66 (1) of the Income Tax Act, 259 euros a month per child since January 2026. The six-month payout limit is section 70 (1). Residence-title readings follow section 62 (2). Read on 23 September 2026. A reading aid, not a decision by the Familienkasse.
Nobody hands you a Kindergeld form when the child arrives, and nothing in the Berlin admin chain reminds you. The Familienkasse simply waits for an application, and section 70 (1) of the Income Tax Act then pays you back exactly six months from the month that application lands. Everything older is gone. At 259 euros a month that is 1,554 euros sitting on the table, and one more month leaves it on the first of every month. This board makes that visible. Give it the month your entitlement began, which is usually the child’s date of birth or the day you started living and working in Germany, whichever came later, and it draws every month since as a calendar square: green where the money is still reachable, yellow on the month that drops out first, grey where it has already gone. It adds the euro total for each group using the rate that actually applied in each month, and names the date the window moves again. The second step reads section 62 (2) against five common residence situations, because the entitlement follows your residence title rather than your passport.
What the calendar shows
One square per month, from the month your entitlement began to this month, laid out in rows by year. Green squares are months the Familienkasse can still pay for. The yellow square is the oldest of them, which is the one that falls out of the window on the first of next month. Grey squares are months that are already out of reach. White squares sit before the entitlement or in the future.
Where the six-month rule comes from
Section 70 (1) of the Income Tax Act says payment of granted Kindergeld is made retroactively only for the last six months before the beginning of the month in which the application arrived. Until the end of 2017 a late claim could reach back four years. The Steuerumgehungsbekämpfungsgesetz of 23 June 2017 cut it to six months for every application filed from 1 January 2018.
How the euro figures are worked out
Each month is valued at the rate in force in that month: 259 euros from January 2026, 255 euros through 2025, 250 euros from 2023, and the older first and second child rates before that. Third and later children were paid more before 2023, so a long look back can understate a large family. The board caps the view at six years.
What the second step reads
Section 62 (2) decides entitlement by residence title. A settlement permit or an EU long-term residence permit qualifies outright, and so does a permit that carries work. Study, training, au pair, voluntary-service and job-seeking permits are named exceptions unless you are actually employed, on Elternzeit or drawing Book III benefits, and the humanitarian permits carry a fifteen-month clock. This is a reading aid, not advice, and the Familienkasse decides.