Employer’s role and obligations
An employee who is not a citizen of an EU or EEA country must apply for a residence permit. Your employees must fill in and submit their own residence permit applications but you can help them select the right application form.
Employers have a key role in their employees’ residence permit processes
In almost all cases, the employer must fill in the terms of employment for the employee’s residence permit application. For more information, see the page Filling in the terms of employment.
We explain the role of the employer in our ‘Residence permit on the basis of employment’ webinar.
As an employer, you also have the following responsibilities:
- To meet the obligations of an employer.
- To ensure that a foreign employee you hire has the necessary skills and competence needed for the job.
- To ensure that a foreign employee you hire has the right to reside and work in Finland.
- To ensure that your employees’ terms of employment comply with Finnish legislation and the applicable collective agreement.
- To ensure that information on all foreign employees you have hired and on the tasks that they have been performing is available at the workplace for inspection by occupational safety and health authorities. For more information on what data needs to be stored, see the website of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in Finland.
- To inform the shop steward, the elected representative and the occupational safety and health representative of the foreign employee’s name and the applicable collective agreement.
On this page:
- Residence permit on the basis of work
- Notification of decision
- An employee’s right of residence and right to work
- Employees’ rights
- Employee announcement
Residence permit on the basis of work
There are more than 20 different residence permits that can be granted on the basis of work. You will find a list of the possible grounds for a residence permit on the page Applications. Which of the permits is the right permit for your employee depends on the nature of the employee's duties and possibly on the duration of the employment relationship. If your employee does not know which application to choose, the Application Finder will be of help.
The processing of your employees’ applications will be faster if your company applies for and is granted employer certification. You can read more on the page Employer certification.
Employees who are citizens of an EU or EEA country are allowed to work in Finland without restrictions. However, they must register their right of residence. If an employee of yours is a British citizen, read more on British citizens’ right to work in Finland.
As soon as your employee has submitted a residence permit application online in Enter Finland, you can log in to Enter Finland for Employers and supplement the application by filling in the employee's terms of employment. The online service Enter Finland is the quickest way for your employee to receive a decision on an application. See the user instructions of Enter Finland for Employers.
If your employee cannot use Enter Finland to apply for a residence permit, he or she can submit a paper application. In that case, you need to fill in and sign the form ‘Terms of employment’ and give it to your employee, who then needs to attach the form to the application.
Your employee must apply for an extended permit before his or her previous permit expires.
- Your employee’s right to work ends if he or she does not apply for an extended permit before the first permit expires. In that case, it is no longer legal for your employee to keep working.
- However, your employee’s right to work will usually continue to be in force even if he or she has not received a decision on the application for an extended permit. This requires that the application was submitted before the first residence permit expired. Read more on the page Right to work while your application for an extended permit is being processed.
Employers may follow the progress of an employee’s application. If you use Enter Finland for Employers, you can track the processing stage of your employee’s application online without needing to contact the Finnish Immigration Service for an update. For more information on the processing stages, see the page Processing of applications.
Your employee can use the Finnish Immigration Service’s chatbot, Kamu, to track the status of the residence permit application. Kamu will tell your employee the application's place in the application queue. For more information, see the page Chatbot.
Notification of decision
A decision on a residence permit application on the basis of work must be made within two months of the date when all of the following conditions are met:
- The residence permit application contains all the information that was required on the application form.
- The employer has submitted the terms of employment that are required as an attachment to the application.
- The employee has proved their identity.
Proving one’s identity means that the applicant visits a service point of the Finnish Immigration Service in Finland, or a Finnish mission (embassy or consulate) or a service point of an external service provider abroad to prove his or her identity. The counting of the two-month time limit is interrupted if the application is incomplete and needs to be supplemented. See the page Processing times for more information.
If your employee is applying for a residence permit for an employed person, the TE Office will first make a partial decision on the application, after which the Finnish Immigration Service processes the application and makes a decision.
- As an employer, you will always be notified of the partial decision. If you are using Enter Finland for Employers, the partial decision is usually sent to your Enter Finland account.
- The partial decision of the TE Office will be served on you after the Finnish Immigration
- As an employer, you will be notified when a decision on the residence permit application has been made.
You have the right to appeal against the partial decision in all cases.
In contrast, you may appeal against the decision of the Finnish Immigration Service only if the Finnish Immigration Service has issued a negative residence permit decision for reasons related to the employer. Such reasons can be, for instance, that the employer has evaded the provisions on entry into the country. In these cases, the part of the decision that you have the right to appeal against will be served on you.
In the following cases, the Finnish Immigration Service may issue a negative decision without a partial decision:
- The applicant does not have a valid travel document.
- An entry ban has been imposed on the applicant.
- The applicant is considered a danger to public order and security.
- There are reasonable grounds to suspect that either the applicant or the employer intends to evade the provisions on entry into the country.
When a decision has been made, a notification will be sent to the employer. If you are using Enter Finland for Employers, you will see in your account when a decision has been made on your employee’s matter.
You may appeal against the decision of the Finnish Immigration Service if the Finnish Immigration Service has issued a negative residence permit decision for reasons related to the employer. Such reasons can be, for instance, that the employer has intended to evade the provisions on entry into the country. In these cases, the part of the decision that you have the right to appeal against will be served on you.
An employee’s right of residence and right to work
An employee's right of residence in Finland and the right to work in Finland are two different things. Your employee may be staying legally in Finland but may not necessarily have the right to work in Finland.
You can check if your employee has the right to reside in Finland by asking him or her to show:
An employee who does not have these documents may still be residing legally in Finland. Your employee may be, for instance, an asylum seeker or a seasonal worker who is working in Finland for up to three months with a visa or visa-free.
An employee who has the right to work in Finland usually has the right of residence in Finland as well, but not the other way around: Your employee may be staying legally in Finland but might not necessarily have the right to perform the work that you have planned. This is why you, as the employer, must primarily establish that your employee has the right to work in Finland.
This is how you can verify your employee’s right to work:
- The employee’s residence permit shows what type of work the employee is allowed to do and how many hours a week he or she is allowed to work.
- See the page Work in Finland for information about what type of right to work the holders of a certain residence permit may have. The right to work may be unrestricted or restricted to certain fields of work.
- If your employee has applied for an extended permit, you can ask him or her to show you their residence permit card and a certificate of a pending application for an extended permit.
- If the employee has applied for an extended permit before his or her previous residence permit expired, the right to work will usually continue to be valid even if a decision has not yet been made on the application for an extended permit. Read more about the Right to work while your application for an extended permit is being processed.
- If you are using Enter Finland for Employers and the employee is applying for an extended permit on the basis of work, you can see in the online service whether or not your employee has submitted an application for an extended permit.
- You can ask to see the employee’s certificate for seasonal work.
- For more information on the right to work based on a certificate for seasonal work, see the page Certificate for seasonal work.
- You can ask to see a certificate of an asylum seeker’s right to work or ask the asylum seeker about his or her right to work. For more information, see the page Asylum seeker’s right to work.
- You can ask about your employee’s right to work by email. Read more on the page Certificate of the right to work.
In some cases, an employee does not need a residence permit. If that is the case, the employee has a restricted right to work in certain fields of work for a maximum of 90 days. Read more on the page Right to work without a residence permit.
Remote working abroad for a Finnish employer
If you have employees who work only remotely and live abroad:
- they are not required to have a residence permit in Finland;
- they are not required to have the right to work in Finland.
For information about taxation, visit the website of the Finnish Tax Administration (vero.fi).
If you have employees that live and work in Finland, you must make sure that they have the right to reside and work in Finland.
Protection of workers’ rights in Finland
The following authorities are responsible for monitoring that employees' rights in Finland are respected:
- Police (permit matters, right of residence in Finland, suspicions of human trafficking)
- Occupational Safety and Health Administration (permit matters, terms of employment)
- Finnish Tax Administration (combating the grey economy).
Employee announcement
You must submit an employee announcement if you hire a person who comes from outside the EU/EEA countries and already has a valid right to work and a valid residence permit, such as a permanent residence permit or a permit granted on the basis of family ties.
Under law, an employer who employs a person from outside the EU must submit an employee announcement to the TE Office. For more information about the employee announcement, see the website of the TE Office (in Finnish).
For instructions on how to submit an employee announcement, see Enter Finland for Employers.
You do not need to submit an employee announcement if your employee is only now applying for a residence permit and you have already added or will add the terms of employment in the employee’s application.