Steps for the residence permit application for an employed person

Find out what the employee, employer, TE office and Migri do in the different stages of the process.

Steps for the residence permit application for an employed person

  • The employer plays an important role when an employee is applying for a residence permit. When you, as an employer, use the Enter Finland service online, it speeds up the processing of the residence permit application.

    Enter Finland (enterfinland.fi)

    Online, you can join the employee's residence permit application and electronically submit the terms of employment form, as well as other mandatory attachments to the application. As an employer, you can also track the progress of your employee's application directly via the Enter Finland service, and you do not need to call the phone service.

    It is a good idea to create an employer's Enter Finland account before your employee submits an application.  Ensure that all the application attachments you submit are filled in as accurately as possible so that the application can be processed as quickly as possible. Requests for further information will extend the processing time of the application.

    Read more about Enter Finland for Employers service on the Finnish Immigration Service’s website and watch the instruction video.

  • The employer must always fill in the terms of employment on their employee's residence permit application. See the instructions for filling in the terms of employment on the Finnish Immigration Service’s website.

    Instructions on filling in the terms of employment (migri.fi)

    Fill in the terms of employment online in the Enter Finland service. If you are hiring more than one employee, you can fill in the terms of employment for everyone working under the same terms at the one time in the section ‘Submit terms of employment for several employees at a time’.

    If you cannot use the Enter Finland for Employers service, you can fill out the Terms of Employment form in paper. Your employee can add the form you have filled out as an attachment to their application in the Enter Finland service.

    Terms of Employment (migri.fi, pdf)

    The TE Office makes sure that the terms of employment are in accordance with Finnish labour law. Finnish labour law and the Finnish industry-specific collective agreements must be applied to the employment relationship of a foreign employee.

  • The TE Office assesses whether suitable labour is available for the job in question within a reasonable timeframe from inside Finland and the EU/EEA.

    • Check if the vocational field for which you are hiring an employee is exempted in the regional policy of the ELY Centre of the region where the future workplace is located. You can find the regional policies on the ELY Centre's website: Work permit policy (ely-keskus.fi)
    • If the vocational field is not mentioned in the policy, find out whether it is possible to find a suitable employee for the job from the labour market in Finland and the EU/EEA.
    • Announce the job vacancy on Job Market Finland for two weeks before initiating the application for a residence permit for an employed person. The job must be announced under the same terms that will be applied in practice for the job.  Log in to Job Market Finland as an employer: Employers and entrepreneurs (tyomarkkinatori.fi)
    • If a suitable employee cannot be found in Finland or the EU/EEA, and the employee is applying for a residence permit for an employed person, use the Enter Finland for Employers service to report, as an attachment to the application, how many applicants there were for the job vacancy and whether one of the applicants was selected for the position. If no suitable employee was found, please indicate why no applicants were selected for the position.
    • Please also submit the employee's diplomas, certificates of employment or other certificates as an attachment to the application if the job posting sets competence and professional skills requirements for the employee to be hired. Certificates must be in Finnish, Swedish or English. If the attachments are in a different language, they must be officially translated.

    Indicating the occupation in an employee's residence permit

    The residence permit for an employed person is issued on an occupational basis. The occupation is determined in accordance with the ISCO code of Statistics Finland's Classification of Occupations. In order to correctly determine the right to work, it is important to indicate all the occupations in which the employee will work in the 'Terms of employment' form. Multiple occupations can be indicated in the sections 'Occupation' and 'Main duties'.

    International Standard Classification of Occupations (stat.fi)

  • The employee's financial resources in Finland must be secured by income from gainful employment. The employee's salary must be at least in accordance with the collective agreement applicable to the work. If there is no collective agreement or the employee works part-time, the salary in 2024 must be at least EUR 1,399 per month.

    When an employee applies for an extended permit, the TE Office checks whether the employee has received enough pay over the duration of the previous residence permit. Read more on the website of the Finnish Immigration Service:​​​​​​

    Income requirement (migri.fi)

  • The TE Office assesses whether the employer has taken care of and will be capable of taking care of its obligations as an employer in the future. The TE Office checks the company's tax and insurance payment information from various official systems. The TE Office may request additional information from the employer, such as a contract or commission agreement or a contract for temporary agency work.

  • Residence permit applications for employed persons are processed no later than two months after the authority has received a properly completed application with the necessary attachments. The TE Office first makes a partial decision, after which the Finnish Immigration Service makes a decision on the application.

    Processing times (migri.fi)

  • The processing of applications can be expedited only for justified reasons, and the request for expedition can be made by e-mail or letter.

    The processing of applications will not be expedited if the reasons for it are, for example, moving, studying or going abroad for a holiday or a visit to relatives, or the expiry of a travel document or a residence permit.

te-updated 13.03.2024