Often asked
On this page you will find answers to the most common questions that concern our customers the most.
Register as an unemployed job seeker on your first day of unemployment at the latest. You can register as a job seeker through E-services (Työmarkkinatori). Registration can also be done in advance. Unemployment allowance can only be paid for the time you are registered as a job seeker with employment authorities.
Then read the instructions on our website Claiming the allowance.
Register as an unemployed job seeker on your first day of unemployment at the latest. You can register as a job seeker through E-services (Työmarkkinatori). Registration can also be done in advance.
Employment authorities will ask you for an explanation for why you quit your job. If employment authorities considers that there was no valid reason for quiting your job, they will impose a mandatory waiting period, for which you have no right to unemployment allowance. Unemployment allowance can be paid after the mandatory waiting period, if you are still unemployed and registered as a job seeker.
Read more about the mandatory waiting period imposed by employment authorities.
Then read the instructions on our website Claiming the allowance.
Your right to unemployment allowance will be examined at the fund when the application you have sent to the fund is being processed. On our website Conditions for claiming allowance you can see what kind of work meets the work requirement needed.
You can send an application for unemployment allowance via eService.
Read more about sending the application.
As a member of a unemployment fund you should always apply for unemployment allowance from the fund. The fund will based on your application and its attachments examine if you have fulfilled the work requirement. If the work requirement has not been met, you will receive a written decision. After that you can apply for unemployment benefits from Kela.
During the waiting period, we cannot pay you earnings-related daily allowance. The waiting period is applied no more than once a year when you meet the working condition (työssäoloehto) and the maximum payment period starts over.
The waiting period is a period equivalent to seven working days of unemployment. There are 5 working days in a calendar week, so the 7-day mandatory waiting period lasts more than a week.
If you work during the waiting period, the waiting period is calculated on the basis of the number of hours of unemployment.
The waiting period does not run during the period of any vacation paid as a monetary compensation.
If you have untaken annual leave at the end of your full-time employment contract, you will receive monetary compensation from your employer for the untaken vacation. If you receive holiday compensation for full-time work lasting more than two weeks, you are not entitled to a daily allowance for the period covered by the compensation. For example, if you are paid holiday compensation for three weeks of unused leave, you will not be entitled to a daily allowance for approximately three weeks from the end of your employment. This is called periodisation of the vacation compensation.
Read more about the effect of vacation compensation.
Vacation compensation for part-time work and full-time work of up to 2 weeks is taken into account when adapting the daily allowance.
You can send your first application via eService, when you have been a job seeker for two weeks. If your unemployment or lay-off lasts less than two weeks, you can send an application as soon as your unemployment or lay-off ends.
Claims for unemployment allowance must always be made retroactively. An application for daily allowance can therefore be made only up to the current day.
If you have become unemployed, read more detailed instructions on our website Claiming the allowance.
If you have been laid off, read more detailed instructions on our website Claiming allowance for the lay-off period.
After the first application further application must be sent either in periods of 4 calendar weeks (from Monday to Sunday) or monthly. The application must always be made retroactively. Therefore you can send the nex application via eService on the last day of the next application period at the earliest.
If you are unemployed, read more detailed instructions on our website Claiming the allowance.
If you are laid off, read more detailed instructions on our website Claiming allowance for the lay-off period.
We need attachments to examine if you have fulfilled the work requirement and to calculate the amount of your daily allowance. We want to make sure you get exactly the daily allowance you are entitled to.
Although it takes a while to submit the attachments, we have made the application process itself as simple as possible. The experts at the fund will determine the factors affecting the amount of the daily allowance on the basis of your application, the information in the Incomes Register and the attachments you provide.
You can speed up the processing of your application by enclosing the required attachments to your application.
The absence of attachments to your application will significantly slow down the processing of your application. We send a request for the missing information primarily by a message send via eService, from which you will receive an e-mail notification. Please make sure, that the fund has your currant e-mail address on My data / Contact data -page of eService.
If you have became unemployd, read more detailed instructions on our website Attachments for an application.
If you have been laid off, read more detailed instruction on our website Attachments for an application when laid off.
You can send attachments to the fund via eService either in connection with the application or via the “Send attachments” -link on the front page of eService.
The Incomes Register is a national electronic database, which was designed primary for the needs of the Tax Administration. The information that unemployment funds need are mostly voluntary information that the employers can report if they want to. Unfortunately, most employers do not report all the information the funds need.
Read more about the information available on the Income Register.
On the Income and tax details -page of eService, you can check if the fund has your latest tax card. If the fund doesn’t have your tax card, send a copy of it with you application or order a revision tax card for social benefits from My Tax -service.
The benefits paid by the unemployment fund (unemployment allowance, mobility allowance and alternation compensation) are not salary, and are therefore taxed differently from salary income. Read more about the taxation of benefits.
If you start a part-time job, where the working hours are a maximum of 80% of full-time hours, you can receive adjusted unemployment allowance during your part-time work. To receive the adjusted allowance you must be a registered as a job seeker looking for full-time employment.
Read more about adjusted allowance.
If you are in full-time employment and your working hours are reduced on your own initiative or you enter into an agreement with your employer to reduce your working hours, you have no right to adjusted unemployment allowance.
Salary received from part-time work or a gig job are taken into consideration for the application period during which the salary is paid. That is, for the period to which the pay date falls. Thus, when salary is paid retrospectively, earned income may acceft the daily allowance for a different period than during which the work was actually done.
Our aim is to process applications from completely unemployed applicants without delay. We aim to process all other applications within two weeks of their arrival at the fund. However, as the number of applications varies from month to month, you should be prepared for at least 1–2 weeks of processing. The law requires us to give you a decision within 30 days of receiving the application, provided that all necessary information is available to us.
Applications will be processed on a first-come, first-served basis. There is a bulletin of processing time on our website. By following the bulletin, you will see when the application we are currently processing have arrived to the fund. You can check the status of your own application on the Application processing status -page of eService.
When your application has been processed, you will receive a notification of payment via SMS. Please make sure, that the fund has your current mobile phone number on My data / Contact data -page of eService.
We want you to get your daily allowance quickly, and we are working hard to achieve this. However, from time to time, we receive a lot of applications within a short period of time. This is typical particularly at the turn of the month, as many people claim the daily allowance in calendar month periods. This may prolong our processing time, as the processing of applications requires further clarification by hand.
We process all applications in the order in which they are received. We cannot process applications outside the queue because we know that all our customers are in a hurry to get their money. You can speed up the processing of your application by filling in your application carefully and submitting all attachments without being separately asked to do so.
You can follow the status of application processing in the “Application processing time” table at the bottom of each page.
As soon as your application has been processed, the status of its processing will appear as “Complete” on the “Application Processing Tracking” page of the “Application Tracking” section of eService, and the title “Next Payment” will appear on the first page of eService, showing the upcoming payment date, the period to be paid, and the gross and net amounts of the upcoming payment.
Only on the morning of the working day following the day of processing the application (after 7 a.m.) will the “Paid benefits” and “Decisions” pages of the “Payments and decisions” section of eService display more detailed information on the daily allowance to be paid and any decision related to the payment.
For example: An application received by the Fund on Tuesday will be processed on Friday, after which the status of the application in eService will appear as ‘Complete’ and the first page of the eService will show a brief notice about the upcoming payment. On Monday (after 7am), the member will receive an SMS notification of the upcoming payment, and the details of the payment and any decision related to the payment will be available in eService. The daily allowance will show in the member’s bank account on Tuesday.
Due to data security legislation, the unemployment fund cannot notify your trade union of your unemployement or lay-off. Please notify your union of any changes in your situation yourself, so that your union can update your memberhip information.
The easiest way to make notifications to your own union is through their the on-line-services. Contact information for the unions can be found here.
