Family reunification

Family members of a person who is residing lawfully in Finland can apply for a residence permit on the basis of family ties. This process is called family reunification.

The person who lives in Finland is called a sponsor, and the sponsor's family members apply for residence permits. The sponsor does not have to move to Finland before the family members: the whole family can apply for their residence permits at the same time.

The sponsor may have moved to Finland for work or studies, for example, or may have been granted asylum in Finland. The sponsor may also be a Finnish citizen.

For more information, see the page Moving to Finland to be with a family member.

Citizens of any country except for the EU countries can apply for a residence permit on the basis of family ties. EU citizens can apply for EU registration to register their right of residence in Finland.

Applications for a residence permit on the basis of family ties can be submitted by:

family members of a Finnish citizen
family members of a foreign national who lives in Finland and holds a residence permit in Finland
family members of a person who has been granted international protection.

Under the Aliens Act, residence permits may usually be issued on the basis of family ties only to family members who belong to the nuclear family of the person living in Finland (the sponsor). They include the sponsor’s:

spouse
partner in a registered partnership
cohabiting partner (under certain conditions)
dependent children under 18 years of age
parents or guardians if the sponsor who lives in Finland is a child under 18 years of age.

Other persons outside the nuclear family may be granted a residence permit on the basis of family ties in certain specific circumstances laid down in law, but only if the sponsor is a Finnish citizen or has been granted international protection.

Granting a residence permit on the basis of family ties to a partner in an established relationship is not possible if the couple is not married, not cohabiting and not in a registered partnership. However, in some situations, a residence permit can be granted to a partner in an established relationship on other grounds if the applicant has sufficient financial resources.

As a rule, a person applying for a residence permit in Finland on the basis of family ties must have sufficient financial resources. Applicants usually secure their financial resources through their sponsor’s salary. The sponsor is the family member who lives in Finland. Family members of Finnish citizens are not required to have sufficient financial resources.

For more information, see the page Income requirement for family members of a person who has been granted a residence permit in Finland.

International protection means granting a person refugee status or subsidiary protection.

A family member of a person who has been granted asylum may apply for family reunification without needing to meet the income requirement if the application is submitted within three months of the date when the sponsor was served with the asylum decision. In such cases, the family must have been established before arrival in Finland. The same condition applies to quota refugees.

By contrast, family members of a person who has received subsidiary protection must always meet the income requirement. The income requirement must also be met by family members of a person who has received refugee status if the family was established after the sponsor’s arrival in Finland. The income requirement must be met by family members of quota refugees, too, if the family has been established after the sponsor was admitted into the refugee quota.

The income requirement does not apply to family members if the sponsor who has been granted refugee status or subsidiary protection is under 18 years of age.

For more information, see the page Income requirement for family members of a person who has been granted international protection.

The person who applies for a residence permit on the basis of family ties must present reliable proof of the family relationship between the applicant and the sponsor. This proof is usually a document, such as a marriage certificate or a child’s birth certificate. The documents must be legalised and, when necessary, translated into one of the Finnish Immigration Service’s languages of contact.

If no documents exist, the Finnish Immigration Service will investigate the matter by hearing the applicant and the sponsor in an interview. The applicants are interviewed at a Finnish embassy or consulate abroad.

In the interview, the applicant and the sponsor may be asked about their family life and everyday topics related to it, such as about the family’s home and place of residence. The statements given in the interview are not expected to be identical. The primary purpose of the interviews is to investigate whether the family members led a family life together before the sponsor left the country.

The Finnish Immigration Service may provide the applicant and the sponsor with an opportunity to prove their biological kinship through DNA analysis if no other adequate evidence of family ties is available in the form of documents or through interviews. The DNA analysis is carried out by the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare.

A person who applies for a residence permit on the basis of family ties is asked to provide documents on his or her family ties. As a rule, the applicant must have led an actual family life with the sponsor who lives in Finland before the sponsor moved to Finland.

Biological kinship does not always constitute sufficient grounds for granting a residence permit on the basis of family ties. For instance, if a parent who lives in Finland applies for a residence permit for his or her biological child who is a foreign national, the child may not necessarily be granted a residence permit if the parent has never lived together with the child. Granting a residence permit to a child requires that the parent has legal custody of the child, that the parent has lived with the child, and that the parent has actually taken care of the child.

There are situations in which a family life has not been possible. This is always taken into account when decisions are made. A newly married couple, for example, may not have been able to live together prior to the marriage because of cultural or religious reasons. All applications for a residence permit on the basis of family ties are considered individually before a decision is made.

The family relationship between the applicant and the sponsor can be deemed to have broken if they have lived apart for a sufficiently long time. Usually, family ties are considered to be broken if the family members move to separate homes. When assessing the family ties of an underage child and the person who has legal and actual custody of the child, the family relationship can be deemed as broken only after a longer period of living apart.

When assessing the family ties of beneficiaries of international protection, the reason for living apart is always observed. If the family members have lived apart for reasons related to refugee status, their family life is not considered to have ended even if they have lived apart for a long time.

In Finland, the legal basis for granting a residence permit on the basis of family ties is laid down in the Aliens Act. The requirements for the permit must be met by the applicant before a permit can be granted. All decisions on residence permits on the basis of family ties are made after an overall consideration of the applicant’s situation. If the decision is negative, the reasons for the negative decision are stated in the decision.

There are many possible reasons for a negative decision. For example:

the applicant’s financial resources may not be sufficient
the sponsor may not have been granted a residence permit
the applicant and the sponsor may not be considered to be family members under the Aliens Act.

A sponsor’s spouse may be refused a residence permit if there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the purpose of the marriage is to evade the provisions on entry into or residence in the country. Suspicions of a marriage of convenience (a sham marriage) may arise if, for instance, the spouses give contradictory information about each other’s important personal details, such as name, citizenship, family, address or occupation.

There may be grounds to suspect a marriage of convenience if, for example:

the spouses have not lived together or have only lived together for a very short time
a sum of money has been handed over in order for the marriage to be contracted
the spouses do not speak a language understood by both parties
the spouses are inconsistent about each other’s personal details
the past history of one or both of the spouses contains evidence of previous marriages of convenience
the spouses have never met before their marriage.

When the possibility of a marriage of convenience is evaluated, cultural and religious differences are one of the factors that are taken into account. In some cultures, spouses may not live together prior to marriage, for example.

There may be grounds to suspect the genuineness of an applicant’s marriage if the applicant has married someone:

immediately after his or her residence permit application on some other grounds has been rejected
immediately after his or her residence permit has been withdrawn
immediately after being served with a decision on denial of admittance or stay or a decision on deportation.

However, the relevance of each of these factors is always assessed individually. The applicant and the spouse are always heard, either in an interview or in writing.