Vilnius offers no baby starter kit or extra birth payment

Vilnius does not provide families with a baby starter kit or an additional municipal birth payment, while several other Lithuanian municipalities offer one or both, LRT reported.

Baby starter kits provided by some municipalities include clothing, hygiene products, nappies, toys and items for mothers. Other municipalities give families a one-time payment in addition to state benefits.

Kaunas, Kaunas District, Vilnius District and Šiauliai are among the municipalities that provide starter kits, according to Viktorija, a Vilnius resident who contacted LRT. She has lived in the capital for seven years, has her residence registered there and owns a home with her husband. The couple is expecting a child.

“I was very surprised to learn that Vilnius, the country’s capital, does not provide a newborn starter kit,” Viktorija said.

She said the kits offered by some municipalities can contain many items needed for a baby. Although a starter kit might seem like a small benefit, she said every form of assistance was welcome when preparing for a child, as a pram, cot, clothing and hygiene products can be expensive.

Viktorija also questioned why Vilnius provides a 1,000-euro incentive payment to people who newly declare their residence in the city, while offering no additional support to long-term residents who have bought homes, work and pay taxes there.

LRT asked the Vilnius City Municipality why it did not provide a starter kit, whether such a measure had been considered and why it did not offer an additional one-time payment to all children, as many other municipalities do. The municipality did not directly answer those questions.

In its response, the municipality highlighted Vilnius Clinical Hospital, the only city-owned institution in the capital providing these services. Childbirth services are also available at Santaros Clinics and Vilnius Maternity Hospital, which are subordinate to the Ministry of Health.

The municipality said Vilnius was the only Baltic capital to have consistently maintained a stable population growth trend. Based on official statistics, it also became the largest Baltic city in summer 2025. A total of 4,578 babies were born in Vilnius in 2025, while 2,653 were born during the first seven months of this year.