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Positive decision

When the Finnish Immigration Service has made a decision on your asylum application, you will be informed about it by the Finnish Immigration Service or the police. The decision will be served to you in your mother tongue or another language that you understand. If necessary, we will use an interpreter or a translator when we serve the decision to you.

Together with the decision, you will receive instructions for clients. The instructions can also be found on the page ‘Positive decision for an asylum seeker’.

If you are an asylum seeker and apply for some other residence permit at the same time, your applications are processed separately at the Finnish Immigration Service. When you receive a decision on one of your applications, the processing of your other application will continue normally at the Finnish Immigration Service.

If we make a positive decision on your application, you will get one of the following:

  • asylum, or refugee status
  • subsidiary protection
  • a residence permit on other grounds

Check the decision to see on what grounds your permit has been granted.  If you have been granted refugee status or subsidiary protection status in Finland, this will be stated in the decision. 

You will receive a separate residence permit card together with the decision. Read more about residence permit cards on the page Residence permit card.

Instructions on family reunification can be found on the page Family reunification.

When can an asylum application be refused?

You will not be granted asylum or subsidiary protection even if you meet the requirements if you have committed, or there are reasonable grounds to suspect that you have committed, any of the following:

  • a war crime or a crime against humanity
  • a serious non-political crime before entering Finland
  • an act which violates the aims and principles of the United Nations

You may also be refused subsidiary protection if there are reasonable grounds to suspect that you have committed an aggravated crime in Finland or before you arrived in Finland.

Watch a video about positive decisions.