ATTENTION – THIS IS AN AUTOMATIC TRANSLATION from Polish
Pursuant to Article 5, Section 2a of the Act of February 11, 2016, on State Aid in Raising Children (consolidated text: Journal of Laws of 2024, item 1576, as amended), if a child, pursuant to a court ruling, is under the alternating care of both divorced parents, and this care is provided in comparable and repeated periods, each parent is entitled to a childcare benefit in the amount of half of the amount due for a given month.
The concept of alternating care refers to care provided pursuant to a court ruling, which is provided by both parents alternately, for subsequent, comparable periods.
Standardly, alternating care involves the child periodically living with each parent. However, the Provincial Administrative Court in Poznań, in its judgment of August 21, 2025 (ref. IV SA/Po 478/25), indicated that there is also a special variant of alternating care, known as „nest” care, which is characterized by the child not changing their place of residence, but rather the parents alternately providing care in the same place.
Therefore, since the family court’s judgment required the parents to share half of the costs of maintaining and raising children, the institution specified in Article 5, paragraph 2a of the Child Welfare Act appears to fully achieve this goal by awarding half of the benefit to each parent.
As follows, in the case of nest care, the childcare benefit is awarded to the parent (or legal or actual guardian) who actually currently cares for the child. However, if care is provided alternately by both parents, even in a nest care arrangement, the childcare benefit is awarded to each of them half of the amount due for a given month.