Asylum seeker: the temporary extension of the right to work in fields that offer seasonal work ends on 31 October 2020

A legislative amendment which concerned asylum seekers working in fields that offer seasonal work was in force on a temporary basis. Under this temporary amendment, you received a right to work in fields that offer seasonal work at once, without having to wait for three or six months, if you applied for asylum in Finland before 29 June 2020.

For example, the amendment applied to the following fields offering seasonal work:

• Work in agriculture, such as crop production, animal feed production and farm animal care
• Horticultural work on fields and in greenhouses
• Professional fishing and fish farming work
• Food processing that takes place on farms
• Forest planting and sowing, work at forest nurseries, felling, pruning, sawing into logs and measuring of trees and forest haulage.

If you work in a field offering seasonal work and you applied for asylum before 29 June 2020:  

• You can keep working if you presented a valid travel document to the authorities when you applied for asylum and it has been verified as genuine, or you applied for asylum more than six months ago.  
• If you did not present a valid travel document that was verified as genuine to the authorities when you applied for asylum, you have to wait for six months after applying for asylum before you can find paid work. In other words, you can keep working if you applied for asylum more than six months ago. If you applied for asylum less than six months ago, you cannot keep working after 31 October. You can only start working again when your six-month waiting period has ended.
• If your asylum application is rejected, your right to work ends when the decision becomes enforceable and you can be removed from the country according to law.  This means that your right to work no longer continues even if you can receive reception services. 
• After 31 October, you can no longer prove your right to work with a reception centre customer card which has a sticker for seasonal work issued by the Finnish Immigration Service. Your employer is responsible for ensuring that you have a right to work in Finland. You must also tell your employer at once if your right to work ends. 

If you applied for asylum on or after 29 June 2020,

• the temporary legislative amendment did not apply to you.
• you will have a right to work when either three or six months have passed since you applied for asylum. 

For more information

Read more about an asylum seeker’s right to work on our website: migri.fi/asylum-seeker-s-right-to-work.