Residence permit application for a researcher

1. You are a researcher.

• You hold a doctoral degree, a master’s degree (a second-cycle degree) or a bachelor’s degree (a first-cycle degree).

• you have signed an agreement on research activity (a hosting agreement) with a research organisation.

 

2. A research organisation has signed a hosting agreement with you.

• To ensure that the hosting agreement contains all the necessary information, please see the contract template.

 

3. Income requirement

You must have sufficient financial resources.

• If you are in an employment relationship with the research organisation, you must be able to earn your living in Finland through gainful employment throughout the time you stay in Finland. 
  • Your salary must at least correspond to the salary specified in the collective agreement that applies to your employment relationship. If there is no general collective agreement in your sector, your gross salary must be at least EUR 1,331 per month in 2023. Read more on the page Income requirement.

• If you are not in an employment relationship, you must have at least EUR 1,000 per month at your disposal for your living costs in Finland. You can secure your income with funds, earnings from work or even other types of income, such as a research scholarship. Before you arrive in Finland, make sure that you have enough funds for the entire time you are carrying out your research:

  • If you are coming to Finland to do research for less than a year, you must have sufficient financial resources for the entire time you spend here doing research.
  • If you are coming to Finland to do research for at least one year, you must have sufficient financial resources for at least one year, that is 12,000 euros.
  • You will be granted a residence permit for two years if you are going to do research for at least two years and have EUR 24,000 at your disposal. If you only want the residence permit for one year at a time, you must have EUR 12,000 at your disposal in your own bank account. We will assess your financial resources every time you submit an application to us. If necessary, we will ask you to submit additional documentation of the source of your assets.

See also the general requirements for granting a residence permit.

General attachments

• Valid passport (you must present it when you submit the residence permit application)
• Passport photo (OLEL_PK) complying with the photo guidelines issued by the police or a photograph retrieval code you received from a photo shop
• Colour copies of the passport page containing personal data and of all passport pages that contain notes
• 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

• The agreement signed by the researcher and the research organisation, containing the following information:
  • the title and purpose of the research activity or the research area;
  • an undertaking by the researcher and the research organisation to endeavour to complete the research activity;
  • the start and end date or the estimated duration of the research activity;
  • information on the legal relationship between the research organisation and the researcher;
  • information on the working conditions of the researcher, if the legal relationship between the research organisation and the researcher is an employment relationship;
  • information on the intended mobility from Finland to another EU Member State, if the mobility is known at the time when the application is submitted;
• Certificate of the highest degree completed 

• Clarification of income, if the legal relationship between the research organisation and the researcher is not an employment relationship.

You can fill in the application online in Enter Finland. The fee for an online application is lower than for a paper application. If you apply for your first residence permit in Enter Finland, you might not need to visit a service point when you apply for an extended permit.

If you cannot use Enter Finland, fill in a paper application. You will find a link to the application at the bottom of the page.

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 or a service point of the Finnish Immigration Service in Finland 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 or a service point of the Finnish Immigration Service in Finland to prove your identity.

• If you are abroad, book an appointment at a Finnish mission (embassy or consulate).
• If you are in Finland, book an appointment at a service point of the Finnish Immigration Service.

When you apply for an extended permit, you may avoid the need to visit a service point to prove your identity if you log in to your existing Enter Finland account using Finnish online banking credentials. Read more on the page Identification.

For more information, see: 

• Handling your matters at a Finnish mission
• Handling matters at a service point of the Finnish Immigration Service

• If you applied online in Enter Finland, you will receive notifications of your application's progress and of possible requests for additional information by email and text message.
• If you applied on paper, you will receive notifications of your application's progress and of possible requests for additional information by email.

For more information, see: Processing of applications

You can follow the processing of your application with the help of our chatbot, Kamu, by giving Kamu the diary number of your application. Kamu will also tell you the expected processing time of your application. 

For more information, see: What affects the processing time of your application