Residence permit application based on family ties when your spouse has a residence permit in Finland

Cohabiting partner in Finland as a refugee

This is what you should do

Prepare:

General requirements for entry into Finland

Make sure you meet the general requirements for entry into Finland before you submit an application.

Requirements

Make sure you also meet the following requirements:

Income requirement

Please notice that you need to have secure means of support if you do not meet either of the following two conditions:

• Your spouse has been granted refugee status before 1 July 2016 and your family has been started before he/she came to Finland.
• Your spouse has been granted refugee status on 1 July 2016 or after this date, your family has been started before he/she came to Finland and you are applying for a residence permit within three months after the Finnish Immigration Service made a decision on your spouse’s application. The three months are counted from the date your spouse was informed of the decision.

General attachments

• Valid passport accepted by Finland (um.fi). Present your passport when you submit your residence permit application
• A passport photo complying with the photo guidelines issued by the police (poliisi.fi), or a photograph retrieval code you received from a photo shop
  • The passport photo must be no more than 6 months old.
• Colour copy of the passport page containing your personal data and copies of all passport pages with notes
• Colour copy of your spouse’s passport page containing personal data and copies of all passport pages with notes
• Form for clarification of family ties PK1_plus (to be filled in and signed by your spouse living in Finland)
• Document showing that you are legally staying in the country where you submit the application
• Form MP_1 (if you already are in Finland and apply for your first residence permit)

Application-specific attachments

• Document showing that you have lived together for at least two years (e.g. tenancy agreement, extract from a register of occupants or similar reliable document); or
• Birth certificate with information on the child's parents (must be legalised if not issued in the Nordic countries or in an EU Member State) and a certificate of joint custody of the child (must be legalised if not issued in the Nordic countries); or
• Grounds for referring to other weighty reasons
• Statement on income in Finland:
  • Your spouse’s bank statements from the past six months, for all Finnish bank accounts the spouse can use
  • Copy of your spouse’s latest tax card, tax decision and tax return
  • Copy of your spouse’s employment contract
  • Documents concerning your/your spouse’s business
    • income statement, balance sheet, audit report, number of employees and salaries paid to them, private withdrawals and deposits, bank statements, contact information of the accountant, trade register extract, bill of sale, tenancy agreement for the premises
  • Copy of your employment contract (if you work in Finland)
  • Documents concerning your/your spouse’s pension
  • Documents concerning other income or assets that you can transfer to Finland (for example, pensions, dividends, rents)
• Divorce certificate (if you or your spouse has previously been married and have divorced) (must be legalised if not issued in the Nordic countries or in an EU Member State)
• Certificate of dissolution of registered partnership (if you or your spouse has previously been in a registered partnership that has been dissolved) (must be legalised if not issued in the Nordic countries or in an EU Member State)
• Death certificate (if you or your spouse has previously been married/in a registered partnership and the former spouse has died) (must be legalised if not issued in the Nordic countries or in an EU Member State)

Fill in the application:

Right to work

You have an unrestricted right to work. You cannot start working before you get a residence permit.

Prepare for your life in Finland