Number of students’ residence permit applications on rise

The numbers of students' first residence permit applications have continued to increase, said the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) in a press release on Tuesday.

By the end of July 2024, a total of 9,293 applications had been submitted, whereas the corresponding figure in 2023 was 8,762.

A student usually applies for their first residence permit from abroad once they have been granted a study place and they wish to move to Finland.

Residence permit applications are submitted by citizens of non-European Union countries.

The largest numbers of applications have been submitted by citizens of Nepal, Bangladesh, China, India and Sri Lanka.

By the end of July, a decision had been made on the 8,159 first applications submitted by students, and a residence permit had been issued to 96% of them.

Around 94% of the students applying for their first residence permit receive a decision within 30 days or less. In 2023, the average processing time was 38 days.

Key reasons for the improved processing times include increased use of automation and efforts made to develop the permit process.

In particular, automated decisions have sped up the processing of students' residence permits.

“This year, automation has accounted for decisions on 19% of applications out of all positive decisions, which has significantly sped up the processing of the applications. Thanks to automated decisions, our experts can spend more time on applications which require further examination and which the automated system cannot yet handle. This speeds up the processing of all students' applications,” said process owner Anu Tarén, who directs the processing of residence permits for students and researchers.

Some students may face delays in starting their studies, however.

One of the factors leading to this situation is that, according to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, there was a backlog of student identifications at the embassies of New Delhi and Abu Dhabi among others.

This is why some applications will not be received for processing until August and September.