Until how many years is it possible to extend parental leave - sample documents and rules

Why apply for an extension?

Article 256 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation gives the right to every working woman in Russia to be on maternity leave until the child reaches the age of three years. In addition to the mother, the following have the right to this:

• baby's father;
• grandmother;
• grandfather;
• any other relative or guardian who is actually caring for the child, but only one person.

Parental leave is taken out immediately after the birth of a child or before maternity leave ends. In this case, the employer’s consent is not required; it is enough to just inform him.

However, only the period until the child reaches 1.5 years is paid. Therefore, many mothers are forced to go to work earlier than they would like.

Extension of vacation to 3 years occurs in accordance with Art. 256 Labor Code. If a woman took care leave for up to 1.5 years, and then decided to extend it to 3, it is important to know that there will be no automatic increase in rest time. It is necessary to resolve this issue with the employer by submitting an application (read more about providing parental leave for children up to 1.5 and 3 years here, and from this article you will learn how to apply for maternity leave and what documents are needed).

Before the period of parental leave expires and the child turns 3 years old, the employee can return to work at any time, and, if necessary, continue the rest period again.

Early return to work is also accompanied by writing an application (how to draw up and submit an application to interrupt parental leave for a child under 3 years old). You can’t just leave your vacation before 3 years earlier without registration.

While caring for a child under three years of age, a mother should not worry about losing her permanent job. The employer guarantees her the preservation of her job, position and salary. In addition, periods of child care are included in the general work and continuous length of service, however, the insurance period for calculating a pension is only up to one and a half years (we talked in detail about whether parental leave is included in the work and insurance length of service in this article). article).

Rest after 3 years

The three-year period of child care has ended, can the baby’s mother or another relative extend maternity leave after 3 years, and how can this be done?

Article 256 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, which regulates the procedure for registering child care, does not contain grounds for extending leave after reaching the age of 3 years.

Also, not a single law has been adopted that would allow increasing the duration of care after 3 years, for example, to 4.5.

The question of extension usually arises in connection with the lack of space in kindergarten. Often, by the time the child reaches his third birthday, he has not yet received a place, or he receives it, but only then enters the group in August or September. It is logical that the child’s mother would want to extend her rest time after 3 years until the child leaves for kindergarten.

The law does not take this situation into account and does nothing to help mothers of young children. Therefore, the issue can only be resolved personally with the employer.

What could be the ways to solve this problem, how is it possible to extend care after the child is 3 years old?

The output could be as follows:

1. Article 260 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation obliges the employer to provide women with regular annual leave immediately after the end of the period of care for up to 3 years. In this case, the length of service in a given place does not matter. This opportunity can increase the length of a woman’s rest by almost a month. How to count vacation days after maternity leave?
2. Article 128 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation allows women to ask for leave without pay of any duration, but only with the consent of management. If a woman does not fit into any of the categories from Article 128, for which days at her own expense are required without the consent of the director, then you can use the last line of this article, which talks about the possibility of receiving unpaid leave in accordance with the collective agreement.

That is, it is possible to extend vacation time after the child is 3 years old for the duration of annual leave, as well as days off without pay by agreement with the employer or in accordance with local regulations.

For example, a collective agreement may stipulate that a woman’s leave will be extended after 3 years if there are serious circumstances, which include the lack of a place in kindergarten.

Has the law been adopted before 4.5 years?

Is it possible to extend leave until a child is 4.5 years old for the purpose of caring for him?
There is a misconception that a law has been adopted that allows the extension of vacation time to 4.5 years. There is a law regarding child care and 4.5 years, but its essence is not in the extension, but in the length of the period included in the insurance period for a pension. Read about it here too.

According to Law No. 427-FZ, 4.5 years are included in the length of service for a pension instead of the previously 3 years. This is true for those women who have several children.

If previously, out of the total duration of all care leave, only 3 years could be taken into account in the insurance period, according to this law, adopted in 2013, this period increases to 4.5 years.

Important! Not a single law has been adopted allowing a woman to be on maternity leave for up to 4.5 years.

After the child is 3 years old, you must go to work to do one of the following:

1. Continue working under the conditions that existed before the maternity leave.
2. Take an annual vacation.
3. Arrange for time off at your own expense.

Download samples

Samples for download:

Download an application for extension of maternity leave for up to 3 years - sample.

Download an order to extend child care up to 3 years - sample.

Useful video

To find out whether carer's leave has been extended to 4.5 years, watch the video:

How to extend the vacation period - ways

When deciding to stay with a child under 3 years of age, a woman must contact the human resources department, accounting department, or directly to her boss to arrange an extension of maternity leave. In this case, you must write a statement to inform your superiors about your plans.

As a rule, an accountant, a personnel officer or the employee herself signs an application for acceptance from the director, after which an order is drawn up to extend the period. Then the employee will be familiarized with the order against receipt and will put the appropriate mark on the report card - coolant or digital symbol 15.

To extend the rest period, you need to choose one of the following methods:

1. When maternity leave ends, the woman writes an application for parental leave for up to 1.5 years and for the assignment of benefits. After this period, he writes an application again to extend the period to 3 years.
2. To avoid unnecessary paperwork, you should immediately write an application for a three-year vacation period and the assignment of benefits, then you will not have to come to work for the sake of bureaucratic procedures.

If a woman does not go to work after the child reaches 1.5 years of age and there is no order to extend the leave, she will be marked absenteeism on her report card, which threatens the employee’s dismissal.

How long is maternity leave?

Maternity leave today refers to different periods of a woman’s absence from her workplace. These periods differ in that they are issued at different times and also imply different amounts of benefits.

A woman goes on maternity leave without yet giving birth to a child, but while pregnant at a certain stage (usually at 30 weeks). The usual duration of this period is 140 days (half before and half after childbirth). In difficult cases, another 16 days are added to the existing 140 days, which the mother recovers during the postpartum period. If twins, triplets or more children were born, then the duration of maternity leave is 194 days.

This period ends on the basis of a sick leave certificate, which specifies the duration. After it, a woman, as a rule, takes out the second type of leave - to care for a child up to one and a half years old. Labor and employment leave is paid in the amount of 100% of salary - the average daily earnings for the last 2 years of work. UzR leave is only 40% of this salary.

How to make an application?

There is no unified application form for extending the period of stay with a child until he reaches 3 years of age. It is written in free form, but when compiling it it is necessary to take into account the main points:

1. In the header, indicate the position of the manager and the position of the maternity worker, last name, first name, patronymic to whom and from whom it was given.
2. Formulate what type of leave must be provided to the applicant (leave to care for a child up to 3 years old).
3. It is mandatory to write the child's last name, first name, patronymic and date of birth.
4. Indicate the date on which leave is required (as a rule, care leave is taken from the day following maternity leave).
5. Add a request for a compensation payment from the employer.
6. List the attached documents.
7. Sign and indicate the date of the application.

There is no need to indicate the end date of parental leave in the application; the employer will calculate it independently and tell you the date of return to work based on the child’s birth data.

The following documents must be attached to the application:

• a copy of the child's birth certificate;
• a certificate from the father’s place of work stating that he did not apply for parental leave and is not on it.

Deadlines for payment of benefits for additional days

To pay for 16 days of sick leave issued in connection with pregnancy and childbirth, a certain time frame has been established for crediting the corresponding maternity benefit to the employee’s account.

Financial assistance must be assigned to a woman within 10 days from the date of filing an application to extend vacation time. This rule is regulated by Federal Law No. 255.

It should also be noted that funds must be paid on the established day of salary transfer.

Despite the fact that the topic of payment of benefits is under the control of the state, company leaders often violate the established rules. If violations are detected, working citizens should complain to higher authorities. If it is confirmed that illegal actions have been committed, the company's management may be held accountable.

Submission deadlines

The application must be submitted a few days before the end of the previous vacation, since the extension of the vacation is issued before the end of the previous period. That is, if a woman was on maternity leave for up to 1.5 years and wants to extend it to 3 years, she must come to work and write an application in advance, at least a few days before the child turns 18 months.

If at the time of returning to work the employee has not received an application for an extension, and she is not at work, she may be given absenteeism. This is a reason for dismissal at the initiative of the employer.

Who is entitled to parental leave?

It would seem that the answer to this question is obvious. After giving birth, the young mother goes on vacation. But in life there are different situations. Sometimes a woman just needs to go to work right away. It is also possible that due to health reasons after a difficult birth, she is simply physically unable to care for the baby. At the same time, the young dad has to go on maternity leave.

Of course, in our country it is very rare to meet a man who goes on maternity leave. However, in Western countries this practice is quite common. Often a woman earns much more, which is why the general decision is made that the father will be the one to look after the child. Russian legislation also provides such an opportunity. In addition to parents, grandparents, guardians or adoptive parents can officially receive maternity leave at their jobs. This opportunity is also available to other relatives caring for the baby. Moreover, the law allows one guardian to take part of the leave, and the other to take part. Here everything depends only on the desires and capabilities of the parents themselves or other official guardians.

It doesn't matter whether a person is employed or not. Of course, if he doesn’t have a job, he has nowhere to take a vacation. However, he is entitled to financial assistance. In this case, payments are made by social protection authorities.

Amount of benefit and its payment

An important factor for a woman to be on official maternity leave is the payment of benefits. During the period of caring for a newborn and infant child until he is one and a half years old, the employee is guaranteed a benefit in the amount of 40% of the average monthly earnings calculated for the 2 years preceding the year of maternity leave.

An employee, while caring for a baby, can go to work part-time or work from home. In this case, the payment of benefits remains. But all this applies only to the period before the child reaches 1.5 years.

As for extending the rest period to 3 years, the state can help not with benefits, but with presidential, or “Putin”, payments for the child - from January 1, 2021, they are paid until the child turns 3 years old.

A new law, adopted by the State Duma at the instigation of the Russian President, regulates the procedure for paying monthly state benefits for each child born until he turns 3 years old. Changes were made to Federal Law No. 418-FZ. The payment amount is equal to the subsistence minimum per child in the region.

However, not everything is so simple; there are some conditions for receiving a new child benefit:

• Benefits up to 3 years of age will be paid only for the first and second children. In addition, families in which a child was born no earlier than January 1, 2021 will receive payments.
• The new allowance will be provided to families where one family member accounts for less than two times the subsistence minimum for those of working age.
• Only a woman who has given birth or adopted a child can apply for benefits. In the event of her death or deprivation of parental rights, the father or guardian can apply for payment for up to 3 years.
• Both parent and child must be citizens of the Russian Federation and permanently reside in Russia.
• The benefit will be accrued from January 1, 2021.
• Non-use of maternity capital. It is quite likely that after the birth of the child you invested it in a mortgage. But funds for benefits up to 3 years for a second child are taken from your maternity capital, which means you cannot count on these payments.

New benefit amount

It was mentioned above that the amount of monthly assistance will be equal to the child’s subsistence level in a particular region. From January 1, 2019, it amounts to 10,390 rubles in Russia as a whole, but there are regions and districts where it is significantly higher.

In Moscow, the monthly allowance for children is 14,329 rubles, and in the Moscow region – 12,057.

The leadership is held by regions with difficult climatic conditions. In the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District the cost of living is 18,675 rubles, in the Magadan Region - 19,519, in the Nenets Autonomous District - 21,427, in the Chukotka Autonomous District - 22,472.

How to register

A pregnant woman must contact a medical institution, where she will be issued an appropriate certificate indicating the expected date of birth, on the basis of which, according to labor legislation, she is entitled to leave of seventy days before giving birth, and seventy after.

However, the ideal option was described above. In practice, there are different situations. Sometimes a pregnant woman’s health allows her to work right up to the birth, and she has the right to use the days off given to her to the fullest after giving birth. Sometimes it's the other way around.

If the birth was difficult or there were many children, maternity leave can be extended to one hundred and ninety days.

Application liver

The following are attached to the application:

• copy of personal identification document;
• a copy of the certificate confirming the fact of the child’s birth;
• evidence confirming the grounds for the right to extend leave: complications in the child or mother confirmed by certificates or medical reports; unsatisfactory state of health based on an immunological conclusion.

In some cases, a certificate from a medical advisory commission may be required. The corresponding document is relevant if the employer does not share the mother’s opinion about the need for additional leave. If the employer’s position is this, he will refuse to satisfy the application and require a timely return to work or dismiss him due to failure to appear. In this case, women are forced to defend their interests in court, and the certificate serves as a powerful evidentiary argument.

In accordance with the legislation and law enforcement activities, significant reasons that exclude or complicate the performance of labor duties include:

• the woman’s poor health confirmed by a medical report;
• long rehabilitation period;
• regular exposure of the child to various diseases, chronic diseases;
• weak immunity;
• increased allergic reactions;
• a ban on vaccinations, which excludes visiting a preschool institution.

In these situations, a certificate alone is not enough and often requires obtaining an opinion from the Higher Quality Commission. If it is available, no employer can fire an employee who has taken additional leave.

Drawing up an application

The application for extension of maternity leave does not have a clearly specified and unified form. The general rules of document flow apply to its preparation. Free form to fill out, addressed to the employer’s boss, personal signature of the applicant. The document is sent to the personnel department or accounting department.

An important aspect is the correct and competent explanation of the employee’s request, specifying the period of the new leave. References to legislative acts are welcome, which will confirm the legal position of the applicant. However, if the articles of regulatory legal acts are not specified, this will not be a reason for refusing to satisfy the request.