Students likely to lose residence permit, if receive social support

The government has taken an initiative to enhance post-decision monitoring of study-based residence permit to check whether international students receive social assistance, said the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment in a press release.

The ministry prepared a draft proposal to bring amendments to the respective law in this regard and sent out for comments on Friday.

The deadline for submitting comments is February 27, 2026. The Government intends to submit the proposal to the Parliament during the spring session 2026 and the amendments would enter into force as soon as possible.

The government took the initiative of monitoring to prevent the misuse of the residence permit, said the Ministry.

The residence permit of a foreign student could be revoked in future if the student receives social assistance.

Automated post-decision monitoring would be used regularly to determine whether a student receives social assistance. In that way, the Finnish Immigration Service would quickly become aware of any such cases. The amendment would apply to students arriving in Finland from outside the EU and EEA countries.

The proposed change belongs to a set of government measures that aim to prevent situations where international students have difficulties to make ends meet in Finland.

The purpose of the proposal is to ensure that students in Finland fulfil the conditions of their residence permit by providing for their livelihood themselves.

The Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) would receive information on social assistance of students directly from the Social Insurance Institution-Kela.

While the Migri already obtains information on the use of social assistance by students as part of post-decision monitoring, a single payment of social assistance has not led to the cancellation of the permit. Going forward, regulation would be clearer and more binding.

As part of its automated post-decision monitoring, the Migri processed over 37,000 residence permits between September 2023 and December 2025 and found 333 cases where students had been granted social assistance.