Payment of maintenance benefits is subject to an income test.
Unemployment benefits are considered as income and fully taken into account in income calculation with respect to maintenance benefits. Therefore, it is almost certain that maintenance benefit will be reduced or even canceled during the period of entitlement to unemployment benefits.
We are aware of the difficulty caused by this situation, and have therefore asked the Treasury to rule on unemployment benefits in order to limit their impact on maintenance benefits during this period.
You can check to what extent your unemployment benefit affects the level of maintenance benefits using the maintenance benefit calculator.
For your information, if your right to maintenance payments from the National Insurance Institute is cancelled as a result of receiving unemployment benefit, your right to maintenance ruled by a judgment will not be affected. You will then be able to contact a branch of the Institute to request that the maintenance debtor be compelled to pay under National Insurance Regulations, and obtain approval for the recovery of the differential by enforcement or directly from the obligated person.
For detailed information about maintenance benefits during the coronavirus, click here.