Exceptions to the language skills requirement

In some cases, you can request an exception to the language skills requirement. If an exception to the language skills requirement is granted to you, it means that you do not need to submit a certificate of your language skills which otherwise would be required under law. Exceptions to the language skills requirement are made very rarely. The processing fee for your citizenship application will not be refunded even if the decision on your citizenship application is negative. 

Granting an exception to the language skills requirement may be possible for the following reasons:

• you are over 65 years old
• your health prevents you from learning the required language skills 
• when you arrived in Finland, you were an adult and illiterate (unable to read and write)
• you have an otherwise very weighty reason for granting an exception.

When we assess your request for an exception to the language skills requirement, we will take into account all information and all certificates of your language skills that we have received. 
If you request an exception to the language skills requirement, the processing of your citizenship application will take longer than usual. Granting an exception to the language skills requirement means that we need to do research and will likely need to ask you for additional information or documents.