Nearly all foreign students received a residence permit before their studies began

Students have become the second largest group of people applying for Finnish residence permits, after family members. By the end of October this year, 4,674 applications for student residence permits were submitted by citizens of countries outside the EU and EEA, accounting for 26 per cent of all residence permit applicants.

In the same period, the Finnish Immigration Service made a decision on 4,693 student residence permit applications. A positive decision was issued to 4,409 individuals, 94 per cent of the applicants. The most common reason for a negative decision was a lack of means of support.

Almost all students who received a positive decision were issued their residence permit before their studies began. In previous years, a far higher percentage of residence permit recipients had to postpone the beginning of their studies because of not getting a decision on their residence permit application in time.

The traditional busy times for student residence permit applications is in early and middle summer, when educational institutions announce the names of the students accepted for study programmes beginning in the autumn.

Online applications would ensure that everyone is served in time

Many student residence permit applicants use the Finnish Immigration Service’s online application service, but almost half of them still submit their applications in the traditional way, on paper.

The Finnish Immigration Service intends to encourage an increasing percentage of applicants to apply online, because the online application service is the only way that absolutely every applicant accepted as a student at a Finnish institution can be guaranteed a decision on their residence permit application before their studies begin.

Almost all student residence permit applicants reside abroad, and the online application service thus significantly speeds up the decision-making process. Applications and attachments on paper are delivered to the Finnish Immigration Service by courier, which may take anything up to several weeks.

The average processing time for a student residence permit application in the period from January to September this year was 20 days.

Student residence permit applications are always treated as urgent by the Finnish Immigration Service, because there is generally only 2–3 months between an educational institution announcing the names of accepted new students and the beginning of studies.

Further information for the media

Pentti Sorsa, team leader of the student team, Immigration Unit,
tel.: +358 71 873 0431, e-mail firstname.lastname@migri.fi