Temporary protection to continue until 2025

The European Union activated the temporary protection mechanism when Russia attacked Ukraine on 24 February 2022. On 28 September 2023, the Council of the European Union decided to extend the temporary protection until 4 March 2025.

Extension of temporary protection applies to you in certain situations

According to the decision of the Council of the European Union, the extension of temporary protection applies to you if 

• you are a Ukrainian citizen or a family member of a Ukrainian citizen and resided in Ukraine on 24 February 2022
• you were granted international protection in Ukraine before 24 February 2022 or you are a family member of a person who was granted international protection in Ukraine
• you resided in Ukraine with a permanent residence permit on 24 February 2022 and you cannot return to your home country or region of origin in safe and durable conditions.

Finnish Government will decide in the next few weeks whether to continue granting temporary protection to other groups 

By the government decision of March 2022, Finland extended temporary protection to 

• Ukrainian citizens who had left Ukraine before the start of the war and
• third-country nationals who were residing in Ukraine with a non-permanent residence permit. The decision concerning these third-country nationals was repealed by decision of the Government on 7 September 2023. Third-country nationals are citizens of countries that have not joined the European Union or the Schengen Agreement. 

In the next few weeks, the Government will decide whether to continue granting temporary protection to these persons as well. We will publish more information on our website as soon as we have more details. Please follow the information published on the pages Customer bulletins and Temporary protection.

You will receive a letter from the Finnish Immigration Service when your residence permit has been extended

We will extend your residence permit until 4 March 2025 if the extension of temporary protection applies to you. We will publish more information on our website as soon as possible. Please follow the information published on the pages Customer bulletins and Temporary protection.

Once we have extended the residence permit you have been granted on the basis of temporary protection, we will send you a letter containing information about the extension. Please make sure that your reception centre has your current address, telephone number and email address. If you are not registered as client of a reception centre, please make sure that the Finnish Immigration Service has your contact details.

If we have your phone number, we will also send you a text message stating that your permit has been extended. The message will be in Finnish and English. It will contain a link to our website: migri.fi/uk/timcasovij-zahist. The sender of the message is ‘Migri’. You cannot reply to the message.

You will receive a letter even if we do not extend your permit 

If we do not extend your permit that was granted on the basis of temporary protection, we will send you a letter telling you what to do. Please make sure that your reception centre has your current address, telephone number and email address. If you are not registered as client of a reception centre, please make sure that the Finnish Immigration Service has your contact details.

Instructions on residence permit cards will be published on our website as soon as possible: follow our website for more information

We will publish instructions on residence permit cards on our website as soon as possible. 

• Please note that you currently cannot apply for a new card that is valid until 4 March 2025.
• Follow the information published on the pages Customer bulletins and Residence permit card on the basis of temporary protection.

Modified on 29 September 2023:

• The date until which temporary protection is extended has been added.
• A translation to Ukrainian added to the language versions.