Residence permit application based on family ties when your spouse has a residence permit in Finland
Apply with this application for a residence permit if your spouse has a residence permit in Finland. Your husband or wife, your registered same-sex partner or your cohabiting partner who you have lived with for at least two years in a marriage-like relationship or with whom you have joint custody of a child is considered a spouse.
This is what you should do
Prepare:
Make sure you have all the attachments needed. If necessary, have them translated and legalised. The processing time may be longer if you have not filled in your application sufficiently.
General requirements for entry into Finland
Make sure you meet the general requirements for entry into Finland before you submit an application.
You may be granted a residence permit only if you are able to travel to Finland and stay in the country legally. To do this, you must have a valid passport.
Requirements
Make sure you also meet the following requirements:
- You and your cohabiting partner have lived together for at least two years. Show for example your rental agreement as proof of living together. If you and your partner are permanently living in different countries, living together for example during holiday trips is not considered to be sufficient grounds for granting a residence permit.
- You and your cohabiting partner have a child in your joint custody. In this case, the requirement of living together for at least two years does not apply.
Income requirement
You need to have sufficient financial resources.
- You cannot secure sufficient financial resources with benefits paid by the society.
- You can meet the income requirement with, for instance, the income from employment or the business activities of your sponsor who lives in Finland.
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:
If you apply for a residence permit online in Enter Finland, you need to pay the processing fee
- with a credit card or with Finnish online banking credentials when you submit your application, or
- when you visit a Finnish embassy or consulate abroad to prove your identity.
If you apply for a residence permit with a paper application, you need to pay the processing fee
- when you visit a Finnish embassy or consulate abroad to prove your identity.
Book an appointment to visit a Finnish mission (finlandabroad.fi) to prove your identity.
Applications for a first residence permit can be submitted in Finland only in certain exceptional situations.
For more information, see the page Proving your identity abroad.
Read what happens after you have applied. Check the estimated processing time of your application. In addition, you will usually receive automated messages at the different processing stages of your application.
Residence permit application based on family ties when your spouse has a residence permit in Finland, OLE_PH1
Fill in an electronic applicationRight 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
Among other things, the authorities may ask you for information about whether you have enough money to live in Finland.
If you were not issued a personal identity code together with your residence permit card, you must visit a service location of the Digital and Population Data Services Agency in person.
The Digital and Population Data Services Agency enters your personal details, information about your family relations and your address in the Population Information System. You can also apply for a municipality of residence at the Digital and Population Data Services Agency.
For more information, visit the website of the Digital and Population Data Services Agency (dvv.fi)