Fewer people apply for residence permit due to coronavirus

The number of residence permit applications submitted to the Finnish missions abroad decreased in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, said the Finnish Immigration Services (Migri) on Wednesday.

The Migri at a press conference in the morning disclosed that a total of 21,160 applications for a first residence permit were submitted in 2020, which was 31,510 in the previous year.

The decrease applies to residence permit applications submitted on the basis of work (2020: 8,771, 2019: 12,687), family ties (2020: 8,369, 2019: 11,753) as well as studies (2020: 3,299, 2019: 6,493).

In 2020, a total of 20,757 first residence permits in Finland were granted (2019: 25,412). The number of decisions did not decrease as much as the number of applications.

Last year, a total of 8,508 first residence permits were granted on the basis of work (2019: 9,461). Including employees coming to Finland to work with a certificate for seasonal work, a total of 20,117 permits were granted on the basis of work (2019: 19,380). A total of 8,592 residence permits were granted on the basis of family ties (2019: 10 251) and 3,225 on the basis of studies (2019: 5,246).

For the second year in a row, work continued to be the most common reason for applying for a residence permit in Finland.

“We expect work-related immigration to increase in the future, and therefore it is important that the processing of residence permits is seamless,” said Jari Kähkönen, Director General of the Finnish Immigration Service.

“One of our goals for this year is to achieve a processing time of two weeks for permits for specialists, start-up entrepreneurs and their family members during the year 2021. Last year, the median processing time for first permits for specialists was 14 days, which is a promising start, but there is still work to be done,” said Kähkönen.