Armenia to offer $1,400 one time payment for each newborn

Armenia’s Ministry of Լabor and Social Affairs has suggested making a one-off payment of $1,400 for each child born on or after 1 September 2026. The draft decision was approved by the government in November 2025.

The decision is changing the family support system that was designed to encourage families to have more children and increase low childbirth rates. It replaces the structure based on the order of a child’s birth in the family with a flat payment for every child, while pushing benefit distribution entirely online and cashless. Officials say that the decision to go online is partly meant to stop child benefits from going to citizens who no longer live in Armenia.

Armenian government used to offer payments based on the child’s position within the family, with more money allocated to second and subsequent children

Until the end of August, families will receive payments under current law: $800 for the first and second child born, $ 2,700 for the third and fourth child, and $4,100 for the fifth and subsequent children.

The application to obtain the benefit will be exclusively online, with some exceptions for Armenian citizens who are temporarily abroad.

The move is part of the government’s wider plan to encourage cashless payments. The childbirth benefit, poverty benefit, emergency assistance, the benefit for childcare under two years old, and pensions are all moving to cashless payments too.

Back in 2025, the government also discussed the issue of citizenship and residency separate from the online application rule that already exists. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan criticised cases where people who do not live in Armenia permanently still receive these benefits, calling it ‘illogical’.

‘This cannot continue. If a person isn’t tied to Armenia and the centre of their life isn’t here, why should Armenia pay?’, he said.

The Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, Arsen Torosyan, said that in 2024 alone, 1,450 one-time childbirth benefits were paid for children of Armenian citizens born abroad who had not yet been registered with Armenia’s civil registry. He clarified that these payments cost roughly $1.6 million a year to the budget.

‘Now we are also regulating that issue with the following logic. Within one year after birth, if they come back, register and claim Armenian citizenship, they will receive the money; if they do not, they will not receive it’, explained Torsoyan.

The deadline for applying for the allowance is set on the last day of the month in which the child turns one year old.