How to find a job in Finland as a refugee

Your right to work comes from the law. You don’t apply for it and you don’t need a certificate. It begins three months after you applied for asylum if you presented a valid, authenticated passport or other travel document, and six months after if you did not. From then on you may work in any field, and employers can check your right to work with Migri free of charge.

If you receive a negative decision, your right to work continues during the appeal period, which is 30 days in the normal procedure. If the administrative court rejects your appeal, it ends on the day that decision is served on you. If your application is moved to the accelerated procedure, a right to work you already had is withdrawn.

Migri is clear on one point: getting a job or a study place does not mean you will be allowed to stay. Work anyway if you can. A Finnish employer, a Finnish reference and Finnish words at work are worth having whatever the decision.

With refugee status you receive a residence permit for three years; with subsidiary protection, for one year. Both give an unrestricted right to work in Finland. You then move from the reception centre to a municipality. Migri notes that you are no longer its client but a resident of that municipality, which now provides integration services, health care and other support.

This is when job-seeking properly starts. Register as a jobseeker with your municipality’s employment services on Job Market Finland. Ask for an assessment of your skills and service needs, and bring a written list of everything you have done: jobs, studies, trades, languages, and the informal work that never had a contract.

The Act on the Promotion of Immigrant Integration came into force on 1 January 2025 and gave municipalities more responsibility. Each municipality runs an integration programme for the first stage of life in Finland. It includes an assessment of your skills and service needs, an integration plan, multilingual civic orientation in a language you understand, integration training ending in a Finnish or Swedish language test, and guidance throughout. The Act does not cover asylum seekers; it starts once you hold a residence permit.

According to InfoFinland, you are offered these services during your first three years in Finland if, for example, you are an unemployed jobseeker, you receive income support other than temporarily, or you came as a refugee. Integration training (kotoutumiskoulutus) is free and lasts about a year. It covers Finnish or Swedish, Finnish society and working life, and includes career planning. Not following the measures in your integration plan can affect Kela benefits, so tell your counsellor early if something in the plan doesn’t work for you.

On the same day, responsibility for employment services moved from the state TE Offices to municipalities and employment areas. Job Market Finland remains the national online service. If older advice tells you to “go to the TE Office”, it now means your municipality’s employment services.

Your right to work begins as soon as your application for temporary protection is registered with the police or border authority. It is unrestricted, so you can work in any field. An employer checks your residence permit card or the certificate of a pending application.

Migri says temporary protection has been extended until 4 March 2028, and residence permits issued on this basis are valid until 4 March 2027. You don’t need to apply for a new card when protection is extended. Two newer rules matter. Since 12 June 2026, your temporary protection permit expires if you are granted another residence permit. And since 5 August 2026, only Ukrainian citizens authorised to leave Ukraine can be granted temporary protection.

After a year in Finland, with a permit granted for at least a year, you can apply for a municipality of residence, which gives access to municipal integration and employment services. You can apply earlier if you have a job lasting at least two years or a study place of at least two years. If you have a job or a study place in Finland, Migri recommends applying for an extended permit. Check migri.fi before you decide, because the rules have changed several times.

For most jobs, the employer decides what your foreign qualification is worth, and no official decision is needed. For regulated professions you need a decision before you can work in them. In health and social care that includes physicians, registered nurses, dentists, pharmacists and practical nurses. In education it includes class and subject teachers. The Finnish National Agency for Education (OPH) lists every regulated profession and its authority.

OPH decisions cost EUR 495 in 2026 (a EUR 100 processing fee plus a EUR 395 decision fee) and take three to four months on average. You apply online through Studyinfo.fi. Health and social care professionals apply to the Finnish Supervisory Agency (Lupa- ja valvontavirasto), which took over Valvira’s work on 1 January 2026.

If you are highly educated, contact a SIMHE service at one of ten Finnish universities and universities of applied sciences. They offer guidance on recognising your prior learning, language training and career advice, publicly funded. Our qualification recognition guide compares how this works across countries.

Use the standard Finnish format: one to two pages, direct, results rather than duties. Our Finnish CV guide covers the layout. Then solve the four problems that are specific to your situation.

• Experience from home: give the nearest Finnish or English job title, then one line on the employer, covering sector, size and what it did. A recruiter in Tampere doesn’t know a hospital in Aleppo or a ministry in Kabul. Keep bullets to what you did, for how many people, with what result.
• Gaps from flight: one factual line, then move on. “2022–2024: Relocated to Finland; integration training, Finnish A2” is enough. How much of your story you share is your choice, and a CV is not the place to justify it. Our career gap guide has more wording.
• Missing certificates: list the qualification with the institution and year, and add “recognition decision from OPH” or “assessment in progress” when that applies. Never claim more than you can explain in an interview.
• Finnish evidence: put work try-outs, work placements during integration training and volunteer roles under experience, with concrete tasks. Ask every Finnish supervisor for permission to list them as a reference.

The Finnish Refugee Advice Centre (Pakolaisneuvonta) gives free legal advice on international protection, residence permits and family reunification, by phone and email, generally in Finnish and English. Contact it before you make a permit decision you are unsure about.

For work, start with your municipality’s employment services and your integration counsellor. In the capital region, International House Helsinki offers job-seeking guidance for newcomers. InfoFinland explains public services in many languages, and it reminds jobseekers that employment services in Finland are always free, so never pay anyone for a job.