Bereavement leave

The right to bereavement leave is created when:

The right shall be established on the date of the parent's loss and shall expire 24 months later.

Legal domicile in Iceland

A parent must have legal domicile in Iceland upon the loss of a child, the death of a child or the death of a foster child. A parent must have had legal domicile in Iceland for the last 12 months before that time.

From 2023

The Act on Grief Leave applies to parents who suffer a child loss, or a stillbirth or miscarriage on or after 1 January 2023. Then the Act on Grief Leave first came into force.

Parents

• Parents

• Presiding parties

• Those who have been parents of the child for more than the last 12 months before the loss of the child.

• A step-parent or foster parent who has been registered as cohabiting or married to the child's parent or guardian, or has been with the child in foster care, for more than 12 months before the child's death.

You can send an email to: if you want more information on the right to grief leave.

Paid work

The right to grief leave is created when the parent has:

• worked in Iceland continuously for the last 6 months before the loss of a child

• at least 25 % of the monthly employment rate.

Apart from traditional work, participation in the labour market includes:

25% employment rate

Full-time employment is 172 hours per month, so 43 hours per month would generally be considered to be 25% employment. Full-time employment can however be defined differently in the collective agreement and the definition in the agreement is more taken into account. Parents who are not working or working less than 25% can be entitled to a grief grant.

Own operations

Full-time employment of a parent working in his/her own business is based on the parent having paid monthly local tax and insurance premium on the calculated consideration or salary of a minimum threshold amount of the Directorate of Internal Revenue in the relevant profession or according to the collective agreement.

Other payments

Parents cannot receive the payments of the leave of grief and these payments at the same time:

• Maternity leave payments.

• Unemployment benefits.

• Rehabilitation pension.

• Healthcare allowance from the union's sickness fund.

• Healthcare allowance from the Social Insurance Administration.

• Accident-day allowance from the Social Insurance Administration.

• A parent who receives payments under the Act on Payments to Parents of Chronically ill or severely disabled Children cannot in the same period of time exercise his right to payments during the mourning period.

• Payments for holiday or retirement.

• Payments from other countries for the same child loss, same stillbirth or same miscarriage, for the same period, are deducted from payments in the state of grief.

• A parent who receives compensation from an insurance company that replaces compensation for temporary work loss cannot use his right to payments during the grief leave period.