Amount of unemployment insurance benefit and calculation
We calculate the amount of your unemployment insurance benefit based on information from the Tax and Customs Board.
To work out the amount, the average wages for one calendar day are determined. To do this, we take into account the wages paid to you in the nine months prior to your last three months of work on which unemployment insurance contributions were withheld. Months of work are months in which paid wages are subject to unemployment insurance contributions(incl. for working during parental or adoption leave for another employer and for part-time work with the same employer while receiving the parental benefit).
The following are not taken into account when calculating the benefit:
- Wages paid during the last three months
- Remuneration from which unemployment insurance contributions are not withheld (e.g. redundancy pay and business travel allowances)
- Wages for temporary work while previously registered as unemployed
Example Your employment contract was terminated in December. Your average wages for one calendar day are calculated on the basis of the pay you received from January to September. The wages paid between October and December are not taken into account. If you were not paid for all of the months from January to September, then wages paid before January are also taken into account.
We divide the sum of the nine months' wages by 270 (the average number of days in nine months) to determine your average wages for one calendar day. You receive 60% of your average daily wage for the first 100 days, and 40% thereafter (subsection 9 (4) of the Unemployment Insurance Act).
Example Your average wages for one calendar day are 50 euros. If you receive the unemployment insurance benefit from 1 March to 27 August (i.e. 180 calendar days), you receive 30 euros per calendar day from 1 March to 8 June and 20 euros per calendar day from 9 June to 27 August.
Read more about the unemployment benefit period and how to extend it.
Maximum and minimum unemployment insurance benefit
The unemployment insurance benefit has both a maximum and a minimum amount.
The maximum benefit is 60% and 40% respectively of three times the average Estonian wage per one calendar day. In 2024, you can receive up to 88.22 euros per calendar day for the first 100 days (or 2734.82 euros over 31 days), while from the 101st day you can receive up to 58.81 euros per calendar day (or 1823.11 euros over 31 days) (gross). Even if the amount of the benefit per calendar day calculated on the basis of your wages is higher than these amounts, your benefit will not exceed the maximum.
The minimum benefit is 50% of the minimum wage for one calendar day in the previous calendar year and is always guaranteed. For 2023, the Government of the Republic set the minimum monthly wage at 725 euros. To find the minimum wage per calendar day, we divide it by 30. This makes 24.167 euros, of which 50% is 12.08 euros. Even if the amount of the benefit per calendar day calculated on the basis of your wages is less than this, you will still receive a benefit of 12.08 euros per calendar day in 2024.
If the period of payment of the unemployment insurance benefit starts in one calendar year and carries over into the next calendar year, the amount of the benefit is not recalculated when the calendar year changes.
More information