Frequently asked questions: Finnish citizenship

Period of residence

The period of residence required for becoming a Finnish citizen was extended from 5 years to 8 years. 

In some cases, the required period of residence is shorter than 8 years. Your required period of residence is 5 years if:

• you have the required language skills
• you are the spouse of a Finnish citizen 
• you are stateless. 

For co-applicants aged 15 to 17, the required period of residence is 5 years. A co-applicant is a child whom you have custody of and for whom you apply for Finnish citizenship at the same time as you apply for citizenship for yourself. 

Your required period of residence is 2 years if:

• you are a Nordic citizen or
• you are the spouse of a Finnish diplomat.

Further amendments were made to the period of residence required of applicants who have been granted international protection. If you have been granted international protection, your required period of residence is 8 years. In addition, the way the period of residence is calculated has changed for applicants who have been granted international protection. The counting no longer begins from the day when you submitted your asylum application. Instead, the period of residence is counted from the start date of your first continuous residence permit (an A permit).

Residence abroad

The amendments to the Citizenship Act changed the duration of residence abroad that can be included in the period of residence. During the required period of residence, you can reside outside Finland for 365 days. During one year immediately before the citizenship decision, you can reside abroad for a maximum of 90 days. 

Processing time of applications

Citizenship decisions for persons who have been granted international protection or who are stateless must be made within one year of the submission of the citizenship application.

No, those who can apply by declaration are not affected. The reform of the Citizenship Act only affects those who seek to acquire Finnish citizenship on application.

Your application will be decided in accordance with the old version of the Act because you submitted your application before 1 October 2024. 

In this case, we will consider your child’s application to have become pending at the same time as your own application. The previous version of the Citizenship Act will be applied to your child’s application, too.

Please see the list of processing fees on the page Processing fees and payment methods.

You need to pay the processing fee when you submit the application. If you apply online, you can pay the processing fee before you submit the application.

You must apply for an extended permit before your current permit expires. Staying in Finland without a residence permit is a violation of the Aliens Act and the police may fine you for it. The time you have stayed in Finland without a residence permit will not be counted towards your period of residence. We will not expedite the processing of a citizenship application when the applicant's residence permit is about to expire. The expiry of a residence permit is not a sufficient reason to expedite the processing of a citizenship application. 

You must have a valid passport during the entire time your citizenship application is being processed. Renew your passport if it is about to expire while your citizenship application is still pending. Please note that the expiry of a passport is not a sufficient reason to expedite a citizenship application. Staying in Finland without a passport is a violation of the Aliens Act and the police may fine you for it.

When you apply for citizenship, you must provide a reliable account of your livelihood in your application. You need to prove how you have earned your income over the past 5 years. If the required period of residence is shorter than that, provide documents on your income covering the shorter period. Read more about proving your means of support.

No, they do not. There are no specific income thresholds for acquiring Finnish citizenship. However, your income must be legal and enough to live on. If you are applying for citizenship, read more on the page Means of support.

You are not required to have a specific amount of money but you must have enough funds and income for living in Finland. You must be able to provide a reliable account of the sources of your funds and income. You can prove that you have legal means of support by presenting proof of being employed, of having a business, of receiving pension or benefits, or of having other funds or assets. The money cannot come from criminal activities. See the application form for further details on what documents you must submit as proof of your income sources. 

Submit the application when you meet all the requirements and have the required attachments. The decision may be negative if you do not meet the requirements or if a mandatory attachment is missing.

No, not yet. If you have the required language skills, you must have lived in Finland for 5 years.

No. Your required period of residence is shorter only if your current spouse is a Finnish citizen. Read more about the required period of residence.

No, your required period of residence is 8 years. Your period of residence is calculated from the date when you received your first continuous residence permit (an A permit). In some cases, a shorter period of residence is enough. See the page Period of residence for more information.

The time without a valid residence permit will not be counted as part of your period of residence. Applications for an extended permit must be submitted before the old residence permit expires. The time you reside in Finland without a residence permit is illegal residence.

In total, you can spend 365 days outside Finland during the required period of residence. Up to 90 of these days can be from the one-year period preceding the citizenship decision. If you spend more time abroad, the exceeding days will not be counted towards your period of residence. If you exceed the maximum number of days abroad, this will postpone the day when you will meet the period of residence requirement. 

For example: If your required period of residence is 5 years and you get a decision on 1 July 2025, we will count the days you have spent abroad between 1 July 2020 and 1 July 2025. If you have been abroad for a maximum of 365 days, the days abroad will be accepted as part of your period of residence. During one year immediately before the decision, which in this example would be 1 July 2024–1 July 2025, a maximum of 90 days abroad are accepted as part of your period of residence. The day when you leave Finland and the day when you return to Finland will be counted towards your period of residence.

Yes. All trips abroad during the required period of residence until the day when you receive a decision on your application will be counted as time abroad.

No, the reason why you have spent time abroad is not relevant.

When we calculate your period of residence, a maximum of 90 days spent abroad during one year immediately before the citizenship decision are accepted. Extra days abroad will not be counted towards your period of residence. If you exceed the maximum number of days abroad, this will postpone the day when you meet the period of residence requirement.

The day when you leave Finland and the day when you return to Finland will be counted towards your period of residence, not as a day abroad. For example: If you have been travelling from 1 October to 31 October, this will amount to 29 days abroad.

If you have attained the language skills required for citizenship, you can apply for Finnish citizenship once you have lived in Finland for 4 years without interruption.  

Read more about which certificates are accepted as proof of sufficient language skills.

Yes, proof of language skills is always required, no matter how long the applicant has resided in Finland before applying for citizenship.

In some cases, it is possible to derogate from the language skills requirement.

You can use either examination to prove the required language skills. You can choose yourself which one to take. Read more on the page Language skills. Read more about how to prove your language skills.

Yes, it is sufficient if you took the maturity test in Finnish or Swedish.

No. Language proficiency can only be demonstrated with one of the certificates listed on our website.

In that case, the applicant can attach to the application the most recent school report that shows the grade awarded in the Finnish or Swedish language.

No, it cannot. You can demonstrate that you meet the language skills requirement by submitting a Finnish comprehensive school or upper secondary school leaving certificate showing that you have passed the examination in Finnish or Swedish as your native language or as a second language.

If you have completed basic education or upper secondary education in Sweden, we would advise you to obtain the National Certificate of Language Proficiency (YKI) or the Civil Service Language Proficiency Certificate, for example. Read more about how to prove your language skills.

Ask a teacher who has taught you in Finland to issue a certificate confirming that you were unable to read and write when you arrived in Finland. 

In addition, you need to submit a certificate that states the level of your speaking and comprehension skills in the Finnish or Swedish language (on the scale of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) or a certificate showing that you have regularly participated in studies in the Finnish or Swedish language. Read more about requesting an exception to the language skills requirement.

Ask a doctor who is treating you to issue a certificate in which the doctor states whether your illness or disability is such that it permanently prevents you from acquiring the required language skills. The doctor’s certificate must describe how your illness or disability prevents you from learning a language and how your condition has been treated. The Finnish Immigration Service does not have a list of doctors to recommend. Please contact the doctor who is treating you to ask for a certificate.

In addition to a doctor’s certificate, submit certificates of all language courses you have taken in Finland.

As a former Finnish citizen, you can apply for Finnish citizenship by submitting a citizenship declaration. Read more about citizenship declarations.

However, you cannot regain Finnish citizenship by declaration if you lost it because you gave false information in your earlier citizenship application and received your citizenship on wrongful grounds.

You also cannot regain Finnish citizenship by declaration if you lost it because of the annulment of paternity.

No, you will not lose your Finnish citizenship in that case. Finnish legislation allows multiple citizenship (dual citizenship).

Please note that if you hold another citizenship in addition to your Finnish citizenship, you will not necessarily retain your Finnish citizenship automatically when your turn 22. Read more about retaining Finnish citizenship at the age of 22.

Documents attached to your citizenship declaration must be original documents when you submit your application at a service point of the Finnish Immigration Service in Finland or a Finnish mission abroad. When your application is being processed, you must also present original documents, if requested, to the Finnish Immigration Service.

Documents issued by foreign authorities must be legalised. For further information about legalisation, see the website of the Digital and Population Data Services Agency (dvv.fi).

Yes, translations are required if the documents have been issued in a language other than Finnish, Swedish or English. The translation must be made by an authorised translator. You can search for authorised translators on the website of the Finnish National Agency for Education (oph.fi).

As a former Finnish citizen, you can apply for Finnish citizenship by submitting a citizenship declaration. Read more about citizenship declarations.

If you are a former Finnish citizen, you can submit a citizenship declaration in order to regain your citizenship. Read more about citizenship declarations.

In this case, the child obtained Finnish citizenship at birth if the child’s father was a Finnish citizen when the child was born and was married to the child’s mother when the child was born.

If the child's parents were not married when the child was born but got married before 1 June 2003, the child obtained Finnish citizenship automatically when the parents got married. This requires that the paternity was confirmed. In contrast, if the parents got married after the child’s birth and after 1 June 2003, the child did not obtain Finnish citizenship when the parents got married.

Further, the child did not obtain Finnish citizenship when the parents got married in the following cases:

• If the parents were not the child’s guardians when they got married.
• If the child had reached the age of 18.
• If the child got married before the parents got married.

Read more about children and Finnish citizenship.

In this case, you do not need to submit a new application. You can add the child as a co-applicant to your own application by filling in the supplement form KAN_LIITELOMAKE for the child.

• If you and your spouse applied for citizenship with the online service Enter Finland, you can fill in the child’s supplement form and upload it on Enter Finland. Book then an appointment for a service point of the Finnish Immigration Service. Bring the child with you to the service point.
• If you and your spouse applied for citizenship with a paper form, fill in the child’s supplement form and book an appointment for a service point of the Finnish Immigration Service. Bring the child with you to the service point when you submit the supplement form. 

A residence permit application must be submitted for the child within 3 months of the child being born. This means that if you do not get a decision on your citizenship applications soon after the birth, you will need to apply for a residence permit for the child.

There are currently backlogs in the processing of citizenship applications. In particular, the backlogs concern applications where we have to ask for additional information or documents in order to process them. The processing time is shortest for applications where the customer has arrived in Finland with a permit obtained in advance, the customer has a national passport and he or she meets the general requirements for naturalisation.

We will contact you if additional information is needed for your application.

The Finnish Nationality Act allows multiple citizenship. You should consult the authorities of the country in question regarding the possibility of regaining citizenship. The easiest way to do so is to contact the embassy of the state in question. You will find embassies' contact information from website of the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (um.fi).

Send your residence permit card to the Finnish Immigration Service by post (PL 10, 00086 Maahanmuuttovirasto). The Finnish Immigration Service will annul your card, and the card is no longer valid.

Finnish passports are issued by the police. If you hold a Finnish refugee travel document or an alien’s passport issued by Finland, you must return your refugee travel document or alien’s passport to the police before you can obtain a Finnish passport. You can find further information, contact details, and instructions on how to apply for a passport on the website of The Police of Finland (poliisi.fi). 

This depends on when you have met the requirements for acquiring Finnish citizenship. If you met the requirements when your declaration became pending, that date will be registered in the Population Information System as the date when you acquired Finnish citizenship. If you did not yet meet all the requirements when you submitted the declaration, the date when you acquired Finnish citizenship will be the date on which the requirements were met. For example, if you submit a citizenship declaration on 1 January 2023 and meet all the requirements already then, 1 January 2023 will be registered in the Population Information System as the date when you acquired Finnish citizenship.