Benefit payments and taxation at the turn of the year

Income tax and tax cards

Taxes in January 2020 will be withheld according to the tax information that was in effect in December 2019. Tax percentage rate for benefits will be at least 25 per cent. The amount of collected taxes will be reset at the turn of the year.

The unemployment fund will primarily receive the new tax withholding information directly from the Tax Administration as of 1 of February 2020 and the tax card for salary does not need to be submitted to the unemployment fund. However, a tax card for benefits needs to be sent separately.

Amount of basic unemployment allowance is increased

The amount of the earnings-related allowance is tied to the amount of basic unemployment allowance, and the latter will be increased to 33,66 euros per day. Starting from next year, this means that the overall amount of earnings-related allowance will be increased as well. The increase affects also those earnings-related allowances that have been calculated and determined in 2019.

Payment of earnings-related allowance at the turn of the year

Bank holidays during Christmas time will change the payment schedule of the earnings-related allowance. We recommend sending the applications via our eService so that they are immediately available to us for processing.

Fully unemployed or temporarily laid-off follow-up applications of four calendar weeks are paid according to the payment schedule found below. First applications or follow-up applications that include working hours or other information that must be processed separately cannot necessarily be processed in accordance with the same schedule.

Payment schedule for the fully unemployed or temporarily laid-off applications of four calendar weeks

Activity model will be abandoned at the beginning of 2020

The Finnish government has proposed to the parliament that the activity model will be abandoned at the beginning of 2020. The earnings-related allowances that have been reduced due to the activity requirement will be paid in full amount as of 1 of January 2020. However, if the application includes unemployed days from 2019, they will be paid in accordance with the legislation that was in effect in 2019.

Monitoring of activity requirements will be abandoned as well. As of January 2020 it is no longer required that the applicants must submit e.g. certificates of services that promote employment in order to fulfill the activity requirement. Please note, however, that work periods, studies and entrepreneurship must be reported to the TE Office and in the earnings-related allowance application as before.