The adult in need of care is assigned a carer with the objective to enable the person to manage their daily life in a home environment as well as running errands and dealing with bureaucracy outside of home with assistance for as long as possible, thus preserving and improving their quality of life. A carer is not assigned if the care need can or is being covered by other social and/or educational and/or medical services.

Who can be assigned as a carer?

•         The carer can be a family member or a loved one of the adult in need for care who is assigned upon the decision of the local municipality. The care is established and the carer assigned upon the care recipient’s agreement.
•          The carer must be a person with legal capacity to act and work who is a resident of the City of Tallinn as registered in the population register and is able to care for the care recipient according to their needs.
•         In general, a carer may care for one person in need. They may care for two or more people if the people in need of care are their family members or if the people in need of care live in the same dwelling. 

The carer cannot be:

•       A person with a heavy disability that has been established by the Social Insurance Board.
•       A person who has a duty to perform a conscription service by the Defence Forces Service Act, except if he is the only person who is obliged to care for a person with severe or profound disability who has no other carers who are obliged to care for them. 

Carer benefits

Carer benefits are paid to a person who has been assigned to care for an adult with severe or profound disability who needs physical assistance, guidance and supervision for daily functions in cases where the carer is unable to work due to caring and the care recipient’s needs cannot be met by other measures.

 Carer benefits are not paid to a person who receives child benefits for caring for an under three-year-old child or shared parental allowance or in cases where the care recipient’s needs can be covered by other social and/or educational and/or medical services.

The City of Tallinn pays the social tax for the care benefit recipient if the carer does not work (working means earning income by employment or service contract, contract under the law of obligations or contract under the civil law) and is not a person of limited or no working capacity and is not and has not been a member of a company’s governing body or an owner of a company in the last six months.

The payments of the carer benefits start from the calendar month that follows the calendar month when the decision to grant the benefit was made. The last payment of the carer benefits is made in the calendar month when the decision to grant benefits expires. Carer benefits are assigned to the carer by an administrative act of the district government which is valid until the end of the validity of the care recipient’s disability and/or the expiry of the residence permit of the carer and/or the care recipient, but no longer than for three years.

Carer benefits will be paid as follows:

•      if a person has an established severe disability, then the carer benefits will be €50 per calendar month.
• if a person has an established profound disability, then the carer benefits will be €100 per calendar month