Withdrawal of residence permits
You must meet the requirements for your permit during your entire stay in Finland. Your permit may be withdrawn if you do not meet the permit requirements. . If your residence permit is withdrawn, it expires once the Finnish Immigration Service has made a decision on the withdrawal. The withdrawal of your permit means that your right of residence in Finland based on the withdrawn permit has ended. If you do not have the right to reside in the country on other grounds, you will be issued a deportation decision and you must leave Finland.
However, if you have right of residence in Finland on some other grounds, you may continue your stay in Finland. This may be the case, for example, if you have a valid residence permit on some other grounds.
If your residence permit is withdrawn, your right to work based on the residence permit will also end when the Finnish Immigration Service issues the decision on the withdrawal of your residence permit. If you have a valid residence permit on some other grounds, your right to work based on that permit is still valid.
If you reside in Finland and you receive a deportation decision in connection with the withdrawal of your residence permit, your right to work does not end immediately when the decision on permit withdrawal is made. Your right to work is valid until the deportation decision is enforceable. Read more about how deportation affects your right to work.
When can a residence permit be withdrawn?
The Finnish Immigration Service may withdraw your residence permit in the following cases:
We may cancel your residence permit if:
- you have knowingly given false information about your identity or about other matters relevant to the decision when you applied for a residence permit; or
- you have concealed information that might have prevented the issue of the residence permit.
We may withdraw your fixed-term residence permit if the grounds on which the permit was issued have not existed or no longer exist. Your residence permit may be withdrawn, for example, in the following cases:
- You hold a residence permit on the basis of family ties but your family ties have broken.
- You hold a residence permit that requires sufficient financial resources but you no longer meet the income requirement. Read more about the income requirement.
- You have committed a crime in Finland.
In general, we do not withdraw residence permits that will expire in less than 6 months.
Read more about applying for a residence permit on new grounds.
Your employer must submit an announcement about end of employment if your employment relationship ends before your residence permit granted on the basis of work expires. Read more about the employer’s role and obligations.
The Finnish Immigration Service may start to consider the withdrawal of your residence permit if your employer submits an announcement about end of employment. If your residence permit has been issued on the basis of work and you become unemployed, you must find a new job within 3 or 6 months, depending on the grounds for your permit and how long you have lived in Finland. Therefore, we will not begin to consider withdrawing your permit before the three-month or six-month protection period has ended. Read more about the end of employment and the protection period.
We will not withdraw your permit if you have been laid off temporarily for a short time and the end date of your lay-off is known.
Unemployment will only affect fixed-term permits that have been granted on the basis of employment. If you have a permanent residence permit, for example, the end of your employment will not affect your permit. Read more about residence permit types.
If it is brought to our attention that obtaining a residence permit may have involved a serious abuse of rights, the withdrawal process may be initiated without delay.
We may withdraw your residence permit if another Schengen country requests Finland to do so. This may happen if you have been prohibited from entering the Schengen area and ordered to be removed from it because of crime or because your conduct endangers safety.
Your fixed-term or permanent residence permit will be withdrawn if you move out of the country permanently or if you have continuously resided outside Finland for over 2 years for permanent purposes.
If you hold a long-term resident’s EU residence permit (P-EU), it will be withdrawn if you have resided outside the territory of the European Union for 2 consecutive years or outside Finland for 6 consecutive years.
We will withdraw your fixed-term or permanent residence permit, even if you live outside Finland, in the following cases:
- You are found guilty of an offence carrying a maximum sentence of imprisonment for a year or more.
- You are found guilty of repeated offences.
- You have, through your behaviour, shown that you present a danger to other people’s safety.
- You have been engaged in, or there are reasonable grounds to suspect that you may engage in activities that endanger Finland’s national security.
Your long-term resident’s EU residence permit (P-EU permit) will be withdrawn if you pose an immediate threat to public order or security in Finland, even if you live outside Finland.
We will withdraw your fixed-term or permanent residence permit or your long-term resident’s EU residence permit (P-EU permit) if your refugee status has ended because you have committed or there are reasonable grounds to suspect that you have committed:
- a crime against peace, a war crime or a crime against humanity
- an act which violates the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
We will withdraw your residence permit also if your refugee status has ended because you have induced or otherwise participated in one of the acts mentioned above.
We will ask for your opinion before we withdraw your permit
Before a decision to withdraw your permit can be issued, we will ask you and the family member who lives in Finland to give your opinions on the possible withdrawal. You and your family member will be given an opportunity to submit a written statement on your opinions on the possible withdrawal.
However, we may decide not to ask for your opinion if the following applies:
- Your consecutive residence period outside Finland clearly exceeds 2 years.
- We do not know where you live and you have not given us your current contact details.
- The information we have suggests that your ties to Finland seem to have broken or your ties to Finland are weak. The data available in, for instance, the Finnish Population Information System, Incomes Register, and the registers of the Social Insurance Institution of Finland (Kela) and of the Border Guard will be checked.
If we are considering the withdrawal of your permit, we will make an individual assessment of your situation. We might not necessarily need to cancel your permit.
If we decide to withdraw your residence permit and you are residing in Finland while the decision is made, you may be deported from Finland. If you are deported, an entry ban may be imposed on you. The entry ban may prohibit entry into Finland, EU Member States or the Schengen area.
You have always the right to appeal against a decision issued by the Finnish Immigration Service to an administrative court. Read more about appealing a decision.
If you wish to prevent the withdrawal of your residence permit on the basis of living outside Finland temporarily
If you want to prevent the withdrawal of your permit when you are temporarily living outside Finland:
- Fill in the application OLE_PER (pdf) in Finnish, Swedish or English. Submit the application within a maximum of 2 years of moving outside Finland.
- Have the required attachments translated by an official, authorised translator into Finnish, Swedish or English if necessary. See the page Interpretation, translation and legalisation for more information about having your documents translated.
- Pay the processing fee in advance and send your application to the Finnish Immigration Service. For contact details, see the page Contact information.
Your family member must submit a separate application and pay a processing fee for it.
An application to prevent the withdrawal of your residence permit may be granted only if you have been residing outside Finland temporarily and for special or exceptional reasons.
Submitting an application for preventing the withdrawal of your residence permit is not always possible
Asking us to prevent the withdrawal of your residence permit due to residence outside Finland is not possible if you hold one of the following permits:
- residence permit for studies or residence permit for a researcher;
- residence permit for internship or residence permit for voluntary work;
- residence permit to look for work or to start a business;
- residence permit for seasonal work;
- residence permit for intra-corporate transferees (‘ICT permit’);
- right of residence under the withdrawal agreement conducted between the European Union and the United Kingdom (‘Brexit permit’).
- EU Blue Card.
Assessment of your application
As an example, below is a list of situations in which an application to prevent the withdrawal of a permit might be granted and not granted:
Your application to prevent the withdrawal of a permit may be granted in, for example, the following cases:
- You have a fixed-term employment contract outside Finland. You have filed the application for less than 2 years after your residence outside Finland began. Your application states the date when you will return to Finland.
- You have returned to your home country to finish your unfinished studies. Your employment relationship in Finland is valid until further notice. You have stated in your application the exact date when you will return to Finland. In addition, your Finnish employer has confirmed that you will return to work for them as soon as you are back in Finland.
If your application is granted, we will state a date by which you must return to Finland. If you do not return to Finland by the appointed day, we may initiate the process for considering the withdrawal of your permit.
Your application to prevent the withdrawal of a permit might not be granted in, for example, the following cases:
- You have been working in a country other than Finland for almost 2 years and have estimated in your application that you will be staying outside Finland for a year or 2, after which you will return to Finland to work for the employer with whom you have an employment contract.
- Your stay outside Finland is exceptionally long and your application does not state an exact date for your return to Finland. In such a case, the decision on your application is likely to be negative.
- You are working outside Finland because you did not find work in Finland. You have a permanent address outside Finland and your employment contract is valid until further notice. You have stated in your application that you will return to Finland in 2–3 years.
- You have not stated an exact return date in your application and your residence outside Finland is permanent. In that case, the decision on your application is likely to be negative.
Furthermore, an application to prevent the withdrawal of a permit cannot be granted if the application has been submitted too late, that is, over 2 years after your residence outside Finland has begun.