Are you planning to travel outside Finland?
We get a lot of questions about travelling abroad at this time of year.
You can leave Finland at any time, but if you want to return and continue your stay in Finland, please note these guidelines for travelling in different situations:
You have a valid residence permit in Finland
You may travel outside Finland if your current residence permit is valid until you return to Finland.
- You can travel within the Schengen area without a visa for up to 90 days in any 180-day period with a residence permit issued by Finland. The 90-day limit applies to a cumulative stay in the whole Schengen area, not just in one country.
- You must have your passport and residence permit card with you when you travel.
You have a residence permit issued on the basis of temporary protection
If you are a reception centre client, notify your reception centre of your travel plans. Tell the reception centre when and for how long you are leaving and, if you know, when you will return to Finland.
Travelling may have an impact on your reception services. Read more about how a trip abroad affects reception services:
- Travelling abroad and reception services during your trip (pdf)
- In Ukrainian: Поїздки за кордон та послуги центру прийому біженців під час поїздки (pdf)
You have a residence permit issued on the basis of international protection
Travelling to your country of origin (country of nationality) may lead to the termination or withdrawal of your refugee status or subsidiary protection status.
You have submitted a residence permit application in Finland
- You may travel outside Finland if your current residence permit is valid until you return to Finland.
- We do not recommend that you travel outside Finland if your residence permit has already expired or will expire during your trip. It may be difficult for you to return to Finland if your residence permit has expired.
- If you have submitted a residence permit application on paper and we need more information from you to process your application, we will send you a letter to your home address. You must respond to the request for additional information by the specified deadline.
- If you receive a positive decision, we will send your residence permit card to a collection point in Finland. The residence permit card must be collected from the collection point within 2 weeks.
You have applied for Finnish citizenship
You may travel outside Finland while your application for Finnish citizenship is being processed. However, please consider how absences will affect your required period of residence in Finland.
- To be eligible for Finnish citizenship, you must live in Finland and have lived in Finland for a sufficient period of time. Read more on the page Period of residence.
- Notify the Finnish Immigration Service in advance of any trips abroad lasting more than 2 weeks via the Enter Finland online service or by sending encrypted email to migri@migri.fi. This will also allow us to take your trip into account if we need more information about your application by a certain date.
- To send us encrypted email, use the Finnish Immigration Service’s securemail.migri.fi service. For instructions on how to use the Securemail service, see the page Contact information.
- We cannot make a citizenship decision for you if you are residing abroad.
You have applied for asylum in Finland
Stay in Finland during the processing of your application. Your application will expire, meaning that it will no longer be processed, if:
- the authorities find out that you have left Finland, or
- you cannot be contacted for at least 2 months.
You have a Finnish alien’s passport or refugee travel document
Check with the authorities in the destination country whether you can travel there with a Finnish alien's passport or refugee travel document and whether you need a visa. For more information about alien’s passports and refugee travel documents, see the page Travel documents.
Requests to speed up an application due to a holiday trip are not accepted
Unfortunately, we cannot speed up the processing of your application because you are on holiday. We can speed up the processing for very serious reasons only. For more information, see the page Request to expedite application.
The Finnish Border Guard decides whether a foreign citizen may cross the border into Finland
See the Finnish Border Guard’s website: Guidelines for travellers (raja.fi).
