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’.

These links will take you directly to the different sections of the page:

Notification of the decision
When can the Finnish Immigration Service refuse asylum or subsidiary protection?
Non-refoulement
Asylum
Subsidiary protection
Residence permit on other grounds
Moving to a municipality

Notification of the decision

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 the Finnish Immigration Service refuse asylum or subsidiary protection?

The Finnish Immigration Service will not grant you asylum if exclusion must be applied to you. Exclusion means that:

the Finnish Immigration Service has reasonable grounds to suspect that you have committed one of the acts listed below, or
you have induced or otherwise participated in one of the following acts:
- a crime against peace, war crime or crime against humanity
- a serious non-political crime before entering Finland
- an act contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Further, the Finnish Immigration Service will not grant you asylum if:

there are reasonable grounds to believe that you pose a threat to national security, or
you are a danger to the community because you have been convicted by a final judgment of a particularly serious crime.

The Finnish Immigration Service will not grant you subsidiary protection if exclusion must be applied to you. Exclusion means that:

the Finnish Immigration Service has reasonable grounds to suspect that you have committed one of the acts listed below, or
you have induced or otherwise participated in one of the following acts:
- a crime against peace, war crime or crime against humanity
- an act contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations
- a serious crime, either in Finland or before entering Finland.

Further, the Finnish Immigration Service will not grant you subsidiary protection if exclusion must be applied to you for the following reasons:

before coming to Finland, you have committed one or more crimes other than the ones listed above, your crimes would be punishable by imprisonment under the Criminal Code of Finland, and you have left your country of origin solely to avoid sanctions resulting from those crimes, or
you are a danger to the community or to national security.

Non-refoulement

If you cannot be returned to your home country because of the principle of non-refoulement, you may be granted a temporary residence permit for up to one year at a time. The principle of non-refoulement means that it is not legal to remove a person from the country when he or she could be subject to the death penalty, torture, persecution or other treatment violating human dignity. If you have been granted a temporary residence permit based on the principle of non-refoulement, you do not have the right to work.

Watch a video about positive decisions (youtube.com).

Asylum

When you have been granted asylum in Finland, the Finnish Immigration Service has investigated your asylum application and has confirmed in the decision that you have a well-founded fear of being persecuted in your home country or country of permanent residence for reasons of:

ethnic origin
religion
nationality
membership in a particular social group or
political opinion.

If you have been granted asylum, the Finnish Immigration Service has considered you to be unwilling to avail yourself of the protection of your home country or country of permanent residence. The agency has also assessed that an internal protection alternative in your home country or country of permanent residence is not available to you.

When you are granted asylum, you have refugee status.

Asylum is granted for three years. After three years, you must apply for an extended permit. Remember to apply for an extended permit before your previous residence permit expires.

More information on your family member’s possibility to apply for a residence permit in Finland:

Subsidiary protection

The Finnish Immigration Service may grant you a residence permit on the basis of subsidiary protection if you have applied for asylum but the requirements for granting you asylum are not met. If we grant you subsidiary protection, you will have subsidiary protection status.

A residence permit on the basis of subsidiary protection may be granted for the following reasons:

You are under the threat of death penalty, execution, torture or other inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in your home country or country of permanent residence.
You cannot return to your home country or country of permanent residence without facing serious personal danger because of an armed conflict that causes indiscriminate violence in that country.

Subsidiary protection is granted for one year. After one year, you must apply for an extended permit. Remember to apply for an extended permit before your current residence permit expires.

Residence permit on other grounds

When the Finnish Immigration Service processes your asylum application, we will first examine whether there are grounds for granting you asylum or subsidiary protection. After this, we will investigate whether you could receive a residence permit on some other grounds.

Residence permit because you cannot be removed from the country

We may grant you a temporary residence permit for the following reasons:

It is impossible for you to return to your home country or country of permanent residence because of temporary medical reasons.
It is impossible for you to return to your home country or country of permanent residence for practical reasons. However, we will not grant you a residence permit in a situation where you do not return to your home country only because you refuse to return or make it difficult for us to arrange your return.

A temporary residence permit is granted for a maximum of one year.

Residence permit on compassionate grounds

We will grant you a residence permit on compassionate grounds if it would be manifestly unreasonable to make a negative decision on your application because of your medical condition, ties to Finland, or other individual, compassionate grounds.

In this case, particular attention will be paid to the conditions you would face in your home country, or your vulnerable position.

A residence permit on compassionate grounds is granted for a year.

Residence permit applications subject to a fee

You can also apply for a residence permit subject to a fee, for example, a residence permit on the basis of family ties. If you apply for asylum and a residence permit on the basis of family ties 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 at the Finnish Immigration Service normally. For more information, see the page Moving to Finland to be with a family member.

You cannot get a residence permit on the basis of studies or work if you have applied for asylum

You cannot get a residence permit in Finland on the basis of studies, work or pursuing a trade if you are staying in Finland and

you have applied for asylum and have not received a decision on your application yet or
you have received a negative decision on your asylum application.

This applies to all asylum seekers staying in Finland regardless of when they have submitted their asylum application or received a negative decision on their application.

If you apply for a residence permit for studies or work while staying in Finland, the Finnish Immigration Service will consider your application inadmissible. This applies to all applications that have not been decided by the Finnish Immigration Service by 31 August 2024 at the latest.

If you want to apply for a residence permit in Finland on the basis of studies or work, you need to leave Finland and visit a Finnish mission (embassy or consulate) in your home country or country of permanent residence to apply for the permit.

Extended permit

If you have received a residence permit in Finland on the basis of your asylum application or on some other grounds, you can apply for an extended permit on the basis of studies, work or pursuing a trade, if you wish. The fact that you have applied for asylum in Finland before has no effect in that case.

For more information about applying for a residence permit for work or studies, see the pages Studying in Finland and Coming to Finland for work.

Moving to a municipality

If you receive a positive decision on your asylum application, you get to move to your own apartment. After an apartment has been found for you and you have moved out of the reception centre, you will no longer be a client of the Finnish Immigration Service. From that day on, you will be a resident of a municipality. Your home municipality will organise basic services for you, such as health care, and a school place for your children.

After you receive a positive decision, you may do any of the following:

You may apply for a municipal place near your reception centre. A ‘municipal place’ means that you get an apartment in a municipality, you immediately become a resident of that municipality, and you receive integration services that the municipality organises for immigrants. A municipal place is the preferred way of moving to a municipality because it ensures that the immigrant receives the services he or she needs. Your reception centre will help you find a municipal place.
You may ask your reception centre to help you find an apartment.
You may find an apartment independently. In this case, you must ensure that the rent is affordable, so that you will be able to pay it.

When you get a residence permit, you should immediately contact the employees of your reception centre. They will give you more detailed instructions on how to find an apartment and other practical matters that you need to take care of.

If you have lived in private accommodation, your reception centre will unfortunately not be able to help you find an apartment. After your reception services have ended, you may contact the municipality and ask for help for finding an apartment.

Quota refugees’ placement in municipalities

A quota refugee is a person whose resettlement has been proposed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and to whom Finland has granted refugee status. If you are a quota refugee, we will first find you a home municipality and an apartment. Then you can move to Finland. In other words, you will not live at a reception centre in Finland. Instead, you will move to an apartment of your own.

Remember to apply for an extended permit in good time before your first residence permit expires. Read more about applying for an extended permit.