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Identification

When you use the Enter Finland service to apply for a residence permit or citizenship, you need to verify your identity at a service point of the Finnish Immigration Service, or if you are applying for a residence permit abroad, at a Finnish mission (embassy or consulate).

During the same visit, you will show the official the original versions of the attachments to your application, and your fingerprints may be taken for a residence permit card.

Permit extension without identification

If you are applying for an extended permit, you do not necessarily need to visit a service point. It is not even possible in all cases. 

The Enter Finland online service will tell you if you need to go and identify yourself or not.

If you do not want to go and identify yourself, follow these steps:

  1. Use strong identification, meaning that you need to log into the online service by using Finnish online banking credentials, a citizen certificate, or a mobile certificate.
  2. Visit a photo shop to have your passport photo taken and attach the electronic passport photo retrieval code to your application. Fill in the passport photo retrieval code on the first page of the application in the section ‘passport photo’.  
  3. Fill in all online application sections.
  4. Pay the application fee in the online service. The application fee is paid on the fifth page of the application. You can use the most common payment cards or the online services of Finnish banks to pay for the application.
  5. Apply for a permit before your previous permit expires.

Changing weak identification into strong identification

When you use an email address and a password to log into the Enter Finland online service, it is called weak identification. 

Strong electronic identification means that you verify your identity in the Enter Finland service by using Finnish online banking credentials, a citizen certificate, or a mobile certificate.

If you already have an Enter Finland account and you have used your email address to log in, you do not need to create a new account. You can update your account so that it uses strong identification. 

  1. In the menu, select “My Account”: 
  2. The “Change now” button takes you to the Suomi.fi login page, where you can use strong identification to log in. There you can use Finnish online banking credentials to log in, for instance. 

When you have used strong identification to log into the service, your account will be updated into a strong identification account. In the future, you must use strong identification to log into the account.