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Instructions for appealing

Appeal instructions will be attached to the decision you receive. The instructions specify the Administrative Court to which you may appeal, the appeal period, the attachments needed, and the ways you may submit your appeal to the Administrative Court. The appeal process is slightly different for some application types:

Residence permit for an employed person

  • You may appeal against the decision by the Finnish Immigration Service and the partial decision by an Employment and Economic Development Office (TE Office). You should apply the decision and the partial decision at the same time.
  • An employer may only appeal against the partial decision. If an employer wants to appeal against a partial decision that the TE Office has issued to an employee, the employer must have a written authorisation from the employee.

Residence permit for an entrepreneur

  • You may appeal the decision by the Finnish Immigration Service and the partial decision by a Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment (ELY Centre). You should apply the decision and the partial decision at the same time.

Au pair

  • Your host family cannot appeal the decision.

Asylum seeker

Certain decisions cannot be appealed

Not all decisions by the Finnish Immigration Service can be appealed. If the decision you get is not open to appeal, it will be mentioned in the decision.

The Aliens Act includes a list of decisions that are not open to appeal. For example, you cannot appeal a decision made by the Finnish Immigration Service to grant you a residence permit on the basis of temporary protection. It is also impossible to appeal a decision made by the Finnish Immigration Service to grant a residence permit to a foreign national who arrives in Finland as a quota refugee.