Apply for sensory impairment allowance

If you are blind, deaf or deaf-blind, you will receive sensory impairment allowance to compensate for the additional expenses caused by your disability. Your income and assets are not taken into account. You must apply for the sensory impairment allowance.

Since July 1, 2023, the sensory impairment allowance for blind people has been 472 euros per month. For deaf-blind people, this amount will increase by 172 euros. Deaf people receive 172 euros per month.

If you are a blind or deaf person in an inpatient facility, the sensory impairment allowance is reduced to 107.62 euros per month. If you are deaf-blind and live in an inpatient facility, this amount increases to 215.24 euros.

Benefits that you receive as a blind, deaf and deaf-blind person to compensate for the additional expenses caused by blindness, deafness and deaf-blindness under other legislation are offset against the sensory impairment allowance.

If blind or deaf-blind people receive cash, non-cash or combined benefits for home care, the sensory impairment allowance is reduced to 215.23 euros per month for care grade 2 and 150.45 euros per month for care grades 3 to 5. For deaf-blind people, the amounts increase by 172 euros in each case.

Deaf people receive 172 euros regardless of their care level.

You must apply for sensory impairment allowance at your local district office or town.

You are considered blind if you have a complete loss of sight. You are considered equivalent if you have a visual acuity of more than 1/50 in neither eye and not in both eyes, or if you have other visual impairments of such severity that they are equivalent to this impairment of visual acuity.

You are deaf within the meaning of the law as a person with congenital or acquired deafness on both sides or as a person with congenital or acquired hearing loss bordering on deafness on both sides, insofar as you have been awarded the "Gl" mark in accordance with the Severely Disabled Persons Act due to your hearing impairment.

For the purposes of this law, you are deaf-blind if you are recognized as having a degree of disability of at least 70 due to a hearing impairment and a degree of disability of 100 due to a visual impairment.

Blind, deaf or deaf-blind people who

1. have their place of residence or habitual abode in the European Union and are employed or self-employed as cross-border commuters in Thuringia,
2. have their place of residence or habitual abode in Thuringia and are employed or self-employed as cross-border commuters in the European Union. Union or
3. are employed or self-employed in a Member State of the European Union as a posted worker for an employer operating in Thuringia or after self-employment in Thuringia, provided that this does not exceed the expected duration of 24 months.

Assessment notice pursuant to Section 152 (1) of the Ninth Book of the German Social Code (Severely Disabled Persons Act)

Applications for the sensory impairment allowance can be found on the Internet at Thüringer Landesverwaltungsamt and in the Central Thuringian Forms Service.

The text was automatically translated based on the German content.

Thuringian Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs, Health, Women and Family

14.09.2023