How to find a job in Finland as a foreigner

Your citizenship decides the first step. EU/EEA and Swiss citizens need no work permit and may start working as soon as they arrive. If you stay longer than three months, you register your right of residence with the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) within three months of arriving, and to register you need a job, a company, a study place, family ties or sufficient resources. Nordic citizens only register their details with the Digital and Population Data Services Agency (DVV).

Everyone else normally needs a job offer before anything else. Migri is explicit: to move to Finland on the basis of employment you must first get a job, and you cannot apply for a first residence permit while visiting Finland. Which permit fits depends mostly on your salary. In 2026 the specialist permit and the EU Blue Card need at least EUR 3,937 gross a month, and the residence permit for an employed person needs at least EUR 1,600. Our Finland work permits guide walks through each route. Migri decides every case, so check its pages for yours.

Finland’s shortages are concentrated, and they are not always where internationals look first. InfoFinland, citing the Labour Force Barometer, lists the fields with the most vacancies as social and health services (nurses, practical nurses, general practitioners), education, specialist and consultancy work such as IT, installation and maintenance, hospitality and tourism, and industry (welders, for example). Social work and care has the highest number of vacancies. Most care and education jobs need Finnish, and many are regulated professions.

Work in Finland, the government’s service for international talent, names bioeconomy, health technology, electronics, cybersecurity, manufacturing and renewable energy as sectors that are actively recruiting. The largest job hub is the Helsinki metropolitan area (Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa), followed by cities such as Tampere, Turku, Oulu and Jyväskylä.

Be honest with yourself about timing. Statistics Finland put trend unemployment at 10.5% in July 2026, so employers have plenty of local applicants for general roles. Internationals get hired fastest where their skills are scarce: senior tech, engineering, specialised manufacturing and research, or care work once the Finnish is in place.

Use the official portals first, then the commercial ones, then go beyond advertised jobs.

• Job Market Finland (tyomarkkinatori.fi): the national public platform for jobseekers, employers and public employment services. If you register as an unemployed jobseeker, you must also publish a jobseeker profile there that employers can search.
• Work in Finland (workinfinland.com): vacancies aimed at international experts, plus guidance on permits and settling in.
• Duunitori (duunitori.fi): a large commercial job search engine that brings Finnish vacancies together in one place.
• Kuntarekry (kuntarekry.fi): jobs with municipalities and wellbeing services counties, including health and social care, with a separate list of recruitments in English. Valtiolle.fi covers central government jobs.
• LinkedIn: InfoFinland advises creating a profile if you apply for expert positions, and many international teams recruit there first.

Job Market Finland estimates that up to 75% of jobs in Finland are not publicly advertised. That makes open applications (avoin hakemus), recruitment events and your network part of the search, not extras. Many companies have an open application form on their careers page; InfoFinland suggests stating the kinds of tasks you would like to do. Temporary agency work is also common in Finland and can be a route to a first Finnish reference.

The standard application is a CV plus an application letter. InfoFinland says a CV is usually one to two pages and the letter a little under a page. Job Market Finland adds that clarity and directness are valued, and that you should explain what your degree actually contained, because titles vary between countries. Some employers ask for a short video application instead of a letter; one to three minutes is the norm.

Finnish working culture is low on hierarchy, and InfoFinland notes that Finns appreciate frankness and getting straight to the point. In interviews that means concrete answers, real examples and no overselling. Punctuality is expected. Bring your application, CV and certificates, including certificates of employment: you normally don’t send them in advance, but bring them to the interview.

Two data-protection rules shape the later stages. According to Finland’s Data Protection Ombudsman, an employer that wants to ask a former employer about your work must get your consent, and personality and aptitude tests are only allowed when they are necessary for the job. If a test is part of the process, it is legitimate to ask what it measures.

Discrimination in working life is prohibited on grounds including age, origin, nationality, language, religion, family circumstances and health, so leave those details off your CV unless they are relevant to the job. The Finnish CV guide goes through the format line by line.

For some jobs, no. Work in Finland notes that many multinationals, ICT companies and gaming studios work entirely in English. For many others, yes: some jobs require Finnish or Swedish by law, such as teacher, doctor or speech therapist, and most customer-facing, care and public-sector work is done in Finnish. Our guide to English-speaking jobs in Finland covers where English is enough and how to learn Finnish alongside the search.

Do these in order, because each step depends on the one before.

• Register and get your personal identity code (henkilötunnus). DVV issues it once you are registered in the Population Information System, either at your own request or when you are granted a residence permit. EU citizens also register their right of residence with Migri within three months.
• Get a tax card. The Tax Administration says you need a tax card and/or tax number to work, and a personal identity code first. Apply at a tax office or in OmaVero; processing normally takes 1 to 3 business days. Give the tax card to your employer.
• Check your Kela coverage. You can usually be covered by Finnish social security and get a Kela card from the day you move if Kela considers you permanently resident or you work in Finland. Work counts only if you earn at least EUR 800.02 a month. Notify Kela with form Y 77e.
• Open a bank account for your salary and sign your employment contract in writing before you start.

Plan for months, not weeks. With a CV aimed at a shortage role and a steady mix of applications and networking, two to six months to an offer is realistic. Generalist roles, or roles that need Finnish you don’t have yet, often take longer. Then add the permit: Migri’s current estimates are two weeks in most cases for the specialist permit and the EU Blue Card through fast track, and one month in most cases for the residence permit for an employed person. A minority of cases take around two months.

Keep your finances realistic too. If you move before you have a job, you carry the cost of the search yourself, and non-EU citizens cannot move on a job-search basis at all unless they graduated in Finland (see the international students guide).

InfoFinland is unambiguous: employment services are always free of charge for employees in Finland, so never pay for employment services. Treat any “agency” that asks you for a fee to secure a job or a permit as a warning sign.

• A real permit application runs through Migri’s Enter Finland service. For work-based permits your employer adds your terms of employment in Enter Finland for Employers, so a genuine employer is visible in your application.
• Nobody can guarantee a permit. Migri decides, and its fees are paid in Enter Finland, not to a middleman.
• Check that the company exists in the Finnish Trade Register and that the offer names a real manager you can speak to.
• Be wary of zero-hours or on-demand contracts offered as a permit route: Migri says they do not meet the requirements for a residence permit for an employed person.

Since 1 January 2025, public employment services have been run by municipalities and employment areas instead of the state TE Offices, while Job Market Finland remains the national online platform. If you are unemployed and live in Finland, register there as a jobseeker to use your local employment services.

In the capital region, International House Helsinki brings Migri, DVV, the Tax Administration, Kela and employment and career guidance under one roof for newcomers. Work in Finland publishes free guidance on permits and settling in, and InfoFinland is the official multilingual guide to living and working in Finland.