Effects of the coronavirus on customers who are in Finland

• You are applying for a residence permit
• You are applying for Finnish citizenship
• You need a new residence permit card
• You are applying for an alien’s passport or a refugee travel document
• You have booked an appointment at a service point
• You have submitted your application by email or by post before 1 September
• You have received a request for additional information
• You have applied for a permit abroad but you cannot travel to get the permit
• You are an asylum seeker

You are in Finland and applying for a residence permit or an extended permit 

• If your permit is about to expire soon, you can submit your application in the online service Enter Finland. 
• If you are applying for an extended permit or a permanent residence permit, you must be in Finland. You cannot apply for an extended permit or a permanent residence permit if you are outside Finland.
• You are required to visit a service point within three months of the date when you submitted your application.

Many matters can be dealt with online

• The online service Enter Finland is the quickest and most affordable way to apply. 
• The online service will guide you through the whole process of filling in the application. 
• Use Enter Finland to pay the processing fee and to follow the status of your application. 
• You will get a certificate of a pending application from Enter Finland.

You are applying for Finnish citizenship 

You have received a request for additional information 

You have applied for a permit abroad but you cannot travel to get the permit

• If you have submitted your application in the online service Enter Finland, log in and send your message there.
  • Replying to a request for additional information in Enter Finland (video)
• If you have submitted a paper application, email us at hakemukset@migri.fi or send your message by post. 

Asylum seeker 

You have applied for asylum in Finland

To apply for asylum in Finland, you must talk to a police or a border control official in person. Even during the coronavirus situation, you can come to Finland and submit an asylum application. Persons applying for asylum are allowed to come to Finland. Tell the border control authorities immediately that you wish to seek asylum.

The Finnish Immigration Service often arranges interviews over a video connection

At the moment, interviews are arranged as usual. However, you cannot participate in an interview if you have any coronavirus-related symptoms or if you have been exposed to the coronavirus. For this reason, asylum interviews may have to be postponed to a later date more often than usual.  

The interviews are arranged over a video connection as often as possible. This means that you will participate in the interview from a reception centre or a detention unit and the employee of the Finnish Immigration Service will be at the Finnish Immigration Service. Sometimes it is possible that you will also be at the Finnish Immigration Service, but you will participate in the interview over a video connection from a different room than the employee of the Finnish Immigration Service. The interview can also be held in a room where there is a transparent screen between you and the employee of the Finnish Immigration Service.

If you are about to have an asylum interview, we will make you an appointment and you will receive an invitation to the interview. The exact address and time of the interview is given in the invitation.

How to obtain the decision

If the asylum decision can be sent to you by post and if it is not necessary to reserve an interpreter for the notification, you will only be notified by post, as usual. The decision will be sent with an advice of receipt.

Customers are more often informed of the decision on their asylum application over a video connection

The Finnish Immigration Service and the reception centre will agree on a time for a meeting, where the decision will be interpreted to you. An employee of the reception centre will tell you the time when we will contact you.

When we have made a decision on your asylum application, we will make an appointment with you so that you can hear the decision.

• An employee at the reception centre will tell you when the meeting will take place.
• We will contact you over a video connection; the reception centre will tell you when this will happen. If there are exceptional reasons, we can also inform you of the decision over the phone. In that case we will call you on the reception centre phone number.
• An interpreter who will interpret all of our discussion has been reserved for the event. The interpreter will use a telephone or video connection to do the interpreting.
• After that, the decision will be sent to you by post. The decision will be sent with an advice of receipt. 

Minor asylum seekers unaccompanied by a guardian and their representatives will also be notified about the decisions in this way.

Telling you about the decision by telephone or through a video connection will not affect the time period during which you can appeal the decision. The appeal period is calculated from the date when you have received the decision by post.

The date when the decision is served is the date when you have received the decision letter; this also applies to minor asylum seekers unaccompanied by a guardian. 

• In case only the representative of the minor is served with the decision, the appeal period is calculated from the date when the representative has received the decision letter. 
• If the decision letter is sent to both, the representative and the minor, the appeal period is calculated separately for each of them. For each of them, the appeal period is calculated from the date when they receive the decision by post. 

The bulletin ‘Finnish Immigration Service tells clients about asylum decision by phone or via a video connection’ can be found in several languages at migri.fi/en/brochures-and-publications.