To be eligible for unemployment benefit, you need to meet the basic conditions of entitlement.
Moreover, the ground of your termination of employment has an influence on the day you may start to receive unemployment benefits.
Dismissals
If your employer dismissed you and you reported as jobseeker to Employment Service, you will be entitled to unemployment benefits from the first day of your reporting.
Your employment contract expired
If your employment agreement with the employer expired, and you have reported to Employment Service as a job seeker, you may be entitled to unemployment benefits since the first days of reporting.
Voluntary resignation
If you have willingly stopped working, you may start to receive unemployment benefits only after 90 days have elapsed since the day of work stoppage.
Please note that if you stopped working willingly for justified reasons, you will be able to receive unemployment benefits from the first day of your reporting to Employment Service.
Instances of resignation for justified reasons:
- Significant worsening of employment conditions, or creation of circumstances on the workplace preventing you from continuing to work.
- You resigned because of your medical condition or that of a family member (son or daughter, parent, child, grandchild, siblings).
- Change in place of residence or place of work, when the distance between workplace and the new place of residence is above 60 km, or 40 km for the mother of a child under 7 years old.
- Resignation due to sexual harassment in the workplace.
- If you have a professional diploma and worked in a job unsuited to your profession, your resignation motivated by your wish to start working in a new job suited to your profession will be deemed justified resignation.
- Resignation from a new job - if you stopped working without exercising your entitled to unemployment benefits, because you started working in a new job for a period of up to 6 months, your resignation from this new job will be deemed justified.
- Resignation from a second job - if you worked in 2 jobs of similar working time, then resigned for justified reasons from one job and continued working in the second job for a period of up to 3 months - your resignation from the second job will be deemed justified resignation.
If you have resigned for justified reasons, you have to attach to the claim all documents related to the ground of resignation.
Unpaid leave
- If you went on unpaid leave on your own initiative (even for justified reasons) - you will not be eligible for unemployment benefits.
- If your employer put you on unpaid leave - you can be entitled to unemployment benefit from the first day of in-person reporting.
- The period of unpaid leave qualifying to unemployment benefit - at least 30 days.
- Deduction of vacation days - if you have vacation days left due by your employer, you will only receive unemployment benefit after exhausting these vacation days.
Please note, the balance of vacation days does not adversely affect the period of unpaid leave you were given.
For instance: if you were put on a 50-day unpaid leave and have 20 vacations days left, you will be entitled to unemployment benefit from the 21st day of unpaid leave (after offsetting the vacation days).
Due to the war relaxations were granted to those send on unpaid leave by their employer for the period between 7.10.23 and 31.12.23:
- The period of unpaid leave qualifying to unemployment benefit has been shortened to 14 days at least (instead of 30 days so far).
- Those put on unpaid leave are not required to use their remaining paid vacation leave due by their employer, in order to start receiving unemployment benefits.
During the unpaid leave, the employer is not allowed to call your to perform any work whatsoever, even for few days only. Whether you returned to work, even for a few days, unemployment benefits will not be paid to you for that month.
Woman after childbirth
She may be entitled to unemployment benefit after childbirth according to the conditions of entitlement to unemployment benefit.
To learn more, click here.
Persons discharged from military service and national/civil service
A discharged soldier needs to meet the conditions of entitlement to unemployment benefit like all unemployed people.
All the conditions of eligibility for unemployment benefit applying to soldiers discharged from regular service, also apply to persons discharged from national or civil service who meet one of the two conditions below:
- A service of 24 months in national or civil service
- A woman who performed national or civil service for at least 6 months, and got married within 30 days since the day she effectively left the service.
Those who served in national or civil service for a shorter period of time, needs to meet the conditions of entitlement to unemployment benefit as all unemployed people.
To learn more, click here.
Teacher on sabbatical leave (year of study)
A teacher spending a sabbatical year will not be entitled to unemployment benefit, since he is forbidden to work part time for more than third of regular weekly hours, thereby is unavailable to any job that may be proposed to him by the Employment Service.
Retirement
If you have retired from work before retirement age, at your employer's initiative or in the context of early pension incentives, you will be entitled to unemployment benefits from the first day of your reporting to Employment Service.
If you retired on your own free will, you will be regarded as a person willingly resigning from work and you will not be paid unemployment benefits in the first 90 days since the date of retirement, unless your retirement is based on a justified reason.
Please note that a woman who retires from work willingly after the age of 62, will not be paid unemployment benefits in the first 90 days since the date of retirement. However, if retirement is based on justified reasons, she will be entitled to unemployment benefits since the first day of her reporting to Employment Service.