At a press conference on 18 December 2025, Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture unveiled guidelines for a bill that will tighten residence-permit conditions for students from outside the EU and their families. The draft, expected in Parliament by February 2026, proposes three major shifts.
First, the monthly financial-support requirement will be codified in law and indexed to inflation—set initially at €850, up from Migri’s current €560 guideline. Second, immediate family members would be allowed to join a student only after the first year of studies, a cooling-off period designed to ensure the principal applicant has a realistic grasp of Finnish living costs. Third, applicants would need to pass a basic English, Finnish or Swedish test unless their prior schooling was conducted in English.
The reforms stem from an investigative report showing some agents overseas marketed Finnish degrees using misleading claims about job prospects, saddling students with debt and exposing them to labour exploitation.
![Finnish Government Plans Higher Financial Thresholds and Language Tests for Non-EU Students]()
For prospective students navigating these upcoming rules, external visa specialists can be a useful ally. VisaHQ, for example, offers step-by-step guidance on Finnish study and family-reunification permits, document checklists and real-time status tracking, all in one portal (https://www.visahq.com/finland/). Using such services can minimise paperwork errors that might otherwise delay an already tighter application window.
By raising the financial and language bar, Helsinki hopes to filter out high-risk cases while still attracting talent for its labour-shortage sectors, notably ICT and health care.
Universities are divided: Aalto University welcomed the clarity and said it could maintain enrolment by expanding merit-based scholarships, while several universities of applied sciences fear a drop in applicants from Africa and South-East Asia. Employers’ group EK supports the language requirement, arguing that graduates with usable Finnish or Swedish integrate faster into the workforce.
For corporate mobility programs, the delayed-family-reunification rule will influence relocation packages; some firms may cover travel costs for spouses after the first academic year. Educational agents operating in key source markets will need to register with Finnish higher-education institutions under a proposed accreditation scheme.
First, the monthly financial-support requirement will be codified in law and indexed to inflation—set initially at €850, up from Migri’s current €560 guideline. Second, immediate family members would be allowed to join a student only after the first year of studies, a cooling-off period designed to ensure the principal applicant has a realistic grasp of Finnish living costs. Third, applicants would need to pass a basic English, Finnish or Swedish test unless their prior schooling was conducted in English.
The reforms stem from an investigative report showing some agents overseas marketed Finnish degrees using misleading claims about job prospects, saddling students with debt and exposing them to labour exploitation.
For prospective students navigating these upcoming rules, external visa specialists can be a useful ally. VisaHQ, for example, offers step-by-step guidance on Finnish study and family-reunification permits, document checklists and real-time status tracking, all in one portal (https://www.visahq.com/finland/). Using such services can minimise paperwork errors that might otherwise delay an already tighter application window.
By raising the financial and language bar, Helsinki hopes to filter out high-risk cases while still attracting talent for its labour-shortage sectors, notably ICT and health care.
Universities are divided: Aalto University welcomed the clarity and said it could maintain enrolment by expanding merit-based scholarships, while several universities of applied sciences fear a drop in applicants from Africa and South-East Asia. Employers’ group EK supports the language requirement, arguing that graduates with usable Finnish or Swedish integrate faster into the workforce.
For corporate mobility programs, the delayed-family-reunification rule will influence relocation packages; some firms may cover travel costs for spouses after the first academic year. Educational agents operating in key source markets will need to register with Finnish higher-education institutions under a proposed accreditation scheme.
