Eligibility for the Family Allowance payment

To be eligible for the Family Allowance, all of the following conditions must be met:

• You or your spouse are responsible for the care and education of a child under the age of 18.
• The child lives or lived with you at the time when he or she was temporarily institutionalized by an establishment in the health and social services sector.
• You or your spouse live in Québec (in accordance with the Québec Taxation Act).
• You or your spouse have one of the following statuses:
  • Canadian citizen
  • permanent resident
  • temporary resident who has been living in Canada for at least 18 months
  • protected person.

There is no entitlement to the Family Allowance payment for:

• the child's foster family
• a person who is exonerated from paying tax by Revenue Québec
• a person who is waiting for a protected person status (refugee claimant)
• a child who is married or in a de facto (common law) union and the child's spouse was entitled to a transfer from one spouse to the other.

Who receives the Family Allowance payments

Certain rules are used to determine which spouse will receive the family's Family Allowance payments.

In cases of shared custody, the Taxation Act has provided that Family Allowance payments are made to both parents at the same time and according to the payment frequency (quarterly or monthly) chosen by each parent.

How to receive payments

A streamlined procedure for newborns

When a child is born in Quebec, parents do not have to apply to receive Family Allowance payments. When the birth of a child is declared to the Directeur de l'état civil , that child is automatically signed up.

Other situations

You must file an Application for Family Allowance Payments if :

• you adopt a child 
• you are an immigrant or become a resident of Québec  
• your child arrives in or returns to Québec
• you live in Québec but your child was born outside Québec
• you obtain custody of a child  
• you obtain shared custody of a child  
• you retain custody of a child following a separation and you are not already receiving Family Allowance payments in your name.
• Retraite Québec requires an application to be filed. 

Use My Account to track an application at any time!

My Account lets you track an application and quickly view any changes made in a beneficiary's file.

First Family Allowance payment

We will send the first Family Allowance payment a maximum of 45 days after we receive the declaration of birth from the Directeur de l'état civil.

• We can pay Family Allowance retroactively for a period of 11 months from the date an application is received if all of the eligibility requirements are met.
• To receive Family Allowance, the beneficiary and his or her spouse must file an income tax return, even if they have no income to report.