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Retaining Finnish citizenship at the age of 22

If you are a citizen of both Finland and another state, you may lose your Finnish citizenship at the age of 22. The Finnish Immigration Service will notify you of the risk of losing your citizenship. You may keep your Finnish citizenship if you have a sufficient connection to Finland.

Losing your citizenship at the age of 22

You will lose your Finnish citizenship when you reach the age of 22 if you meet both of these conditions:

  • In addition to being a Finnish citizen, you are a citizen of another state.
  • You have not had a sufficient connection to Finland.

Even if you lose your Finnish citizenship automatically, your children will not lose their Finnish citizenship.

Sufficient connection

If you have a sufficient connection to Finland, you will not lose your Finnish citizenship. Your connection is sufficient if you meet at least one of the following conditions:

  • You were born in Finland and your municipality of residence is in Finland at the time you reach the age of 22 years.
  • You have lived in Finland or another Nordic country (Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) for a total of seven years before you reach the age of 22 years.
  • You have taken at least one of the following actions when you were between 18 and 21 years of age:
    • You have applied for a Finnish passport/identity card or you have been granted a Finnish passport/identity card..
    • You have completed or you are currently completing military or civil service or the voluntary military service for women in Finland.
    • You have been granted Finnish citizenship on application or by declaration.
    • You have given a notice to a Finnish mission abroad or to the Digital and Population Data Services Agency in Finland of your wish to keep your Finnish citizenship. You cannot give this notice to an honorary consulate or the Finnish Immigration Service. You must give this notice in writing but its form is free.

Notification of the threat of losing citizenship

The Finnish Immigration Service notifies persons whose home municipality has been in Finland for less than seven years of their risk of losing their Finnish citizenship. At the same time, we inform them of the possibility of keeping their citizenship.

We send this notification each year to persons who will reach the age of 18 during that year and whose address is available in the Population Information System. For this reason, it is important that you keep your information up to date in the Population Information System. To check your data, you can contact the Digital and Population Data Services Agency. The Digital and Population Data Services Agency enters information on the automatic retaining and losing of Finnish citizenship in the Population Information System and notifies you of it.

If you have already lost your Finnish citizenship

If you have lost your Finnish citizenship at the age of 22 because you did not have a sufficient connection to Finland, you can get your citizenship back by declaration.

Apply for citizenship by declaration:

Citizenship declaration for a former Finnish citizen, KAN_7