Finland has revised its Citizenship Act, extending the residency requirement for immigrants from 5 to 8 years, effective October 1, 2024. New rules also simplify the counting of days abroad and clarify that time spent without a residence permit or during asylum processing will not count toward residency.
Finland has modified the Citizenship Act to require immigrants to stay longer before acquiring Finnish citizenship, with the period of residence needed now being 8 years. For applicants meeting language skills requirements, it will be 5 years.
Another significant change concerns the residence accepted as part of the required period of residence. The rules for determining what constitutes residence abroad have been simplified, allowing for fewer days abroad to be included in the period of residence.
Finland’s residence permit requirement will no longer include time spent processing asylum applications, as the time spent without one will not be counted.
“Once the amendments enter into force, only residents 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,” says Mari Luukkonen, Process Owner, in charge of the citizenship application process.
The rules regarding residence abroad during the required period of residence are changing, too. Once the amendments have entered into force, 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,” says Luukkonen.
The amendments to the Citizenship Act apply to all citizenship applications submitted on or after 1 October 2024. Applications submitted before 1 October 2024 will be decided by the old version of the Citizenship Act.
At the moment, there are approximately 28,000 pending citizenship applications. The number of applications is expected to increase. Applications without additional information submission will be processed faster, with a processing time of less than a year. The Finnish Immigration Service aims to clear the backlog of citizenship applications gradually by 2027.
“There is a long waiting time because the number of incoming applications has been exceptionally high in recent years. Another reason for longer waiting times is that we have received lots of applications that do not meet the requirements. This will affect the processing times even though we have already made the processing more fluent,” says Luukkonen.
The average processing time for a citizenship application is currently 9–31 months. The processing time depends on how long it takes to verify that the requirements are met. This is the case with applications where there are challenges related to the establishment of the applicant’s identity, for example.
In another major change in Sweden immigration rules, Finland imposed stricter residency permit requirements on 1 September 2024, requiring most applicants to submit their applications in their home country. However, some individuals such as family members of Finnish citizens, foreign students or foreign researchers can still apply in Finland.
