Partial Decision by the TE Office

Every residence permit application will be processed on a case-by-case basis.

TE Office's partial decision is based on overall assessment, which includes assessing the availability of labour, the terms of the employment relationship and both the employer's and employee's prerequisites. The employee's income through gainful employment must also be secured.

Assessing the availability of labour

The TE Office will assess whether suitable labour is available within a reasonable period of time for the vacancy in question in the local labour market area (EU/EEA area). If appropriate labour is available within a reasonable time period, there is no justification for granting a non-EU citizen a resident permit on the basis of employment.

Terms of employment

The TE Office shall ensure that the terms and conditions of the employment relationship comply with the Finnish labour law.

Finnish labour law and Finnish sectoral collective bargaining agreements are to be applied in the foreign worker's terms of employment. The terms and conditions of a foreign employees employment relationship must correspond to the conditions applied to Finnish employees in the same field in every way, including payment.

The employer's ability to take care of employer obligations

The TE Office assesses whether the employer has fulfilled their employer obligations and has the capacity to fulfil them in the future. The TE Office will check tax and insurance premium information from different official systems.

The TE Office may request additional clarifications from the employer. These can be, for example, a work contract, a commission agreement, or a contract for temporary agency work.

Special qualification and required state of health

The TE Office will confirm that prior to starting work the employee’s state of health meets the requirements of their expected work tasks, if such requirements have been set.

Income requirement

TE Office must be assured that the employee's income in Finland will be secured by income from gainful employment.  In full-time employment, the income requirement is considered to be met when the wage is at least in accordance with the collective agreement applied.

Expedited processing

Applications can only be expedited for well-founded reasons. An expedition request should be made in writing (e-mail or letter). If one application jumps the queue, it delays the processing of other applications and is not fair to other applicants. Therefore, an expedition request rarely speeds up the process. A large number of expedition requests may slow down the processing of applications, as each expedition request will be read and processed.

Applications will not be expedited if the reason for expedition is for example migration, studies, a holiday or a family visit to abroad, expired travel document or a residence permit. Expired passport or a residence permit needs to be renewed well in advance.