Today, on Tuesday, March 17, the government will adopt another initiative to help the Danish business community in connection with the outbreak of coronavirus. This time it applies to the opportunity for self-employed persons to receive sickness benefits.
Normally, a self-employed period applies to self-employed persons in the event of illness, which means that self-employed persons are entitled to sickness benefits after two weeks’ illness.
The government is now changing these rules so that you as a self-employed person will be entitled to sickness benefit from the municipality from the first day of sickness, if you are unable to work due to coronavirus.
In addition, self-employed people will also be entitled to sickness benefits for periods when they are unable to perform their work due to a recommendation from the health authorities for certain groups about home stay due to specific circumstances related to Covid-19.
This can be, for example, if you have traveled in certain areas where the authorities recommend a stay or if you have stayed in a certain place at a certain time.
In this situation, you will be able to receive sickness benefit, even if you do not meet the general requirements of the sickness benefit law on inability to work due to your own illness.
What do I do practically?
The absence must be reported by filling in a form and sending it to the municipality no later than 3 weeks after the first day of absence. You receive the form by calling or emailing your municipality – you cannot use the regular reporting system via Nemrefusion on Virk.
When do these rules come into force?
The amendment to the sickness benefit law is retroactive and applies from 27 February. This means that as a self-employed person, you can seek reimbursement from the first day of sickness if you have been ill from February 27 and if the disease is due to coronavirus or quarantined. You must therefore, by faith and by law, declare that there is a realistic suspicion that you have/had a coronavirus.