When you apply for a residence permit for Finland you face the possibility that the Immigration authorities issue a negative decision. This is not the usual case, according to the statistics: in the last 12 months the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) issued more than 27,000 decisions on residence permits, of which more than 22,000 were positive, according to the official figures.
However, the possibility of getting a negative decision is real. It can happen to anyone for multiple reasons depending on the type of permit applied (for work, family reasons, study...) and it is not necessarily the applicant's fault. Sometimes rejection has to do with deficiencies in the documentation presented or with partial decisions made by organisations other than Migri.
In this article we will make a description of the most typical reasons for rejecting a residence permit application based on work.
If you have already received a negative decision, please keep in mind that this article is just about the general reasons as they are described by the Finnish Immigration Service. Those reasons do not necessarily have to be applicable to your case, but they can be useful to understand how the process goes.
Migri explains on its website that a negative decision "is always based on the fact that the applicant does not fulfil the criteria for the residence permit in question". In this sense, the Finnish Immigration Service stresses that "each application is assessed as based on the criteria defined by law".
Partial decisions from other institutions required
One important thing is that to get some of the permits related to work, the consideration of other authorities in addition to Migri is involved.
This is the case, for example of residence permits for employees, which are granted in two stages and require first a partial positive decision from the Employment and Economic Development Office (TE Office). This means that the TE Office needs to first assess whether or not there is suitable labour from the EU or EEA available within a reasonable period of time.
Processing a residence permit for an entrepreneur also has two stages. The business must be profitable, and the livelihood of the entrepreneur must be secured by the income from the business. The ELY Centre assesses these requirements.
Similarly, a residence permit for a startup entrepreneur requires that the applicant must obtain in advance a positive statement from Business Finland.
If any of those other institutions involved in the process issue a partial negative decision, then decision made by the Finnish Immigration Service will be also negative.
Working conditions and wages
Migri remarks that "the authority must also ensure that appropriate terms and conditions of employment apply to foreign workers". Workers coming to Finland must be aware of the terms and conditions of their employment and their working conditions.
Therefore workers’ wages must be in accordance with the generally applicable collective agreement, and the working conditions of the workers must correspond to the working conditions of Finnish workers with similar duties.
So, when someone applies for a residence permit for work, s/he must be able to receive an appropriate wage and be able to live in Finland on the wage from gainful employment while the residence permit is valid.
Also certain jobs require language skills, training and work experience in the field, such as working as a cook. Lacking any of those conditions can be also a reason for rejection.
Prevent human trafficking
The Finnish Immigration Service explains that from time to time, abuses are linked to work-based residence permits, and suspicions arise that a worker is not coming to Finland to work under reasonable conditions.
In this sense, the authorities must prevent and combat human trafficking. Finland is obliged to do this by the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings as well as the Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and protecting its victims. The number of victims of human trafficking in Finland has tripled in the last three years.
Sometimes the decision may also be negative because the applicant for a residence permit has committed crimes in Finland that make it impossible to grant a residence permit to the applicant.
As said in the beginning, those described above are only the most typical reasons for rejection, but there might be others. If you have got a negative decision on your residence permit application and want to consult a professional about your case, you can get in touch with a lawyer by clicking HERE
