Tightened Finnish citizenship law enters into force

The tightened criteria to get Finnish citizenship entered into force on Tuesday, said the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri).

As per the new law, the period of residence required for acquiring citizenship will be eight years now from five years.

In addition, only time lived in Finland under a residence permit will be taken into account when calculating the period of residence.

The amendments also prohibited asylum applicants from switching to a work-based or education-based application procedure in order to apply for a residence permit.

“Once the amendments enter into force, only residence with a residence permit will be counted towards the required period of residence. The time spent in Finland without a residence permit will not be counted as part of the required period of residence. The time it takes to process an asylum application, for example, will no longer be counted towards the required period of residence. For beneficiaries of international protection, the counting of the period of residence will begin from the day when a continuous residence permit was issued,” said Mari Luukkonen, Process Owner, who is in charge of the citizenship application process of Migri in a press release.

The rules regarding residence abroad during the required period of residence also changed.

A total of 365 days abroad will be accepted as part of the required period of residence. Up to 90 of these days may be from one year immediately preceding the citizenship decision.

“Fewer days abroad will be accepted as part of the period of residence, but the rules for what counts as residence abroad have been simplified, which will help the equal treatment of applicants when applying the law to their applications. In addition, it will be easier than before for the applicant to assess when he or she will achieve the required period of residence,” said Luukkonen.

Applications submitted before 1 October 2024 will be decided in accordance with the old version of the Citizenship Act.

The amendments do not affect citizenship declarations. Citizenship declarations can be submitted by Nordic citizens and former Finnish citizens, for example.

The four-party alliance government led by the Kansallinen Kokoomus (National Coalition Party-NCP) has tightened the immigration policy of Finland.

Earlier, the parliament in early July this year passed the government proposal to bring legislative amendments extending the period of residence required for Finnish citizenship to eight years from five years.

On June 16, 2023, leaders of the ruling parties announced the programme, which included tougher immigration, residence and citizenship laws.

The government tightened the immigration policy despite strong protest by different groups.

Separate demonstrations were held in Helsinki on June 27, 2023 and June 18,2023 protesting against the immigration policy taken by the government.

Several hundreds of people went on demonstrations in Helsinki in August, 2023 protesting against the move.