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Language skills

To obtain Finnish citizenship, you must have at least satisfactory skills in one of the following languages:

  • spoken and written Finnish
  • spoken and written Swedish

If you have a speech disability or a hearing impairment, you are required to have at least satisfactory skills in one of the following languages:

  • Finnish Sign Language
  • Finland-Swedish Sign Language.

Obtain a certificate of your language skills before you apply for citizenship

You must have a certificate of your language skills before you submit a citizenship application. Attach the certificate to your application. In some cases, you can request an exception to the language skills requirement. Read more about exceptions to the language skills requirement.

You may demonstrate your language skills in the following ways:

If you are not able to learn languages,

you can request an exception to the language skills requirement. Read more about the grounds for granting an exception to the language skills requirement.