In September, the Finnish authorities decided to tighten the rules for issuing their citizenship - and from October 1, the period required to acquire it through the naturalization mechanism increased from 5 to 8 years. However, there is a small list of exceptions: the five-year period was left for those who no longer need to learn Finnish or Swedish, as well as those who married a Finnish citizen and have lived with him for at least three years. For those who applied before the new rules came into force, the old ones will still apply.
Who can obtain Finnish citizenship through naturalisation?
It will not work just to become a Finnish citizen, you need to meet certain criteria.
- First, the applicant must be at least eighteen years old. Exceptions are possible, but then the person must be legally married.
- Secondly, the applicant must have lived legally in Finland for at least 8 consecutive years and not violate the law (administrative fines and penalties are not counted). Legal residence also implies that the applicant has paid taxes on time and has a job or other source of legal income in Finland, allowing him to provide for his own needs.
- The applicant must write and speak tolerably in one of the two official languages, regardless of whether it is Swedish or Finnish. Sign language will be credited to the deaf and dumb.
In what situations can an applicant be denied naturalization?
Obtaining citizenship is not a right, but an opportunity. Sometimes the authorities may refuse to provide such an opportunity:
- If the migration authorities consider the applicant to be a potential threat to Finnish national security or public order,
- If the acquisition of citizenship by a person is considered contrary to the public interest,
- If a person wants to receive the benefits due to Finnish citizens, but is not going to live, work and pay taxes in the country.
If you submitted an application and did not receive a response, just wait: there are a lot of applications, but the employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Justice involved in their processing are not very few: as of November 1, 2024, there were 28,700 people in the queue for consideration of applications.
What else has changed?
There are other important changes as well.
- For example, the Finns now calculate the period of stay in Finnish territory of applicants for citizenship differently. Now a person can stay abroad for a maximum of a year (one extra day - and then the period lived abroad will be deducted from the required period of stay; and if you live abroad for more than five years in the allotted seven, then that's it, goodbye, the cherished blue passport, you will have to count from scratch).
- In the last year before the decision, you cannot live abroad for more than 3 months.
- The rules for those who have applied for asylum will also change. Under the old rules, the countdown was counted from the moment a person applied for asylum, and under the new rules, only from the date when he was given the first permanent residence permit.
