Frequently asked Questions

• Your employer will issue a notice of lay-off or termination.
• Register at the TE Office as an unemployed jobseeker. Notify the TE Office of the lay-off or termination. You can find instructions on how to register at the TE services website. You can register online.
• Apply for a daily allowance at the unemployment fund. You must apply for the daily allowance retroactively. You can submit the first application after two weeks of unemployment or after the lay-off has ended. Always fill in your application with full weeks from Monday to Sunday.
• Attach your salary information and a notice of lay-off or termination to your application. You can submit your application and the attachments online via eService.

• Earnings-related allowance is paid during unemployment or lay-off, as well as during employment-promoting services agreed upon in the employment plan.
• In order to receive earnings-related allowance, you must be a member of the unemployment fund for at least 26 weeks and fulfil the employee’s 26 weeks employment condition during the membership period. We will examine the fulfilment of the membership and employment conditions in connection with your application for earnings-related allowance.
• In addition to these, you must meet the labor market policy criteria. Compliance with the labor market policy criteria will be examined by the TE Office which will issue a statement, binding the fund. The conditions are examined when you register as a job seeker at the TE Office.

• Earnings-related allowance is calculated based on your salary, for a period of at least 26 weeks prior to unemployment. The weeks used to determine the daily allowance must meet the employment condition. In order to determine the daily allowance, we request that you submit a pay certificate as an attachment to the application.
• The daily pay used to determine the daily allowance is obtained by dividing the wages of the 26 employment weeks by the number of working days included in this period (5 days a week). Days for which no wages have been paid due to an acceptable absence, such as unpaid sick leave, are not counted as working days.

See an estimate of the amount of your daily allowance by using the counter.

• You can submit your attachments online via eService.
• Attach a pay certificate, as well as copies of the notice of lay-off or termination and your employment contract;
  You can also attach to your application a revised tax card issued for the benefit;
  You do not need to send original copies of the attachments;
  Printed attachments can be sent to Open Unemployment Fund A-kassa, P.B. 116, FI-00531 Helsinki, Finland;
  If there are changes in your circumstances affecting your entitlement to daily allowance, please notify us immediately.

More information about obtaining a revised tax card.

• Applications are processed in the order in which they are received. The application processing status is updated on weekdays on our website. There you can see the processing status of initial applications and applications containing working days. Further applications will be paid according to a separate schedule.
• Via eService, you can see the payment date of your application if it has already been processed. From the eService settings, you can also subscribe to a text message notification for benefits to be paid. You will be notified on your phone of the payment date and the amount to be paid into your account.

• If you are laid off for entire days, you will receive full earnings-related allowance for the days of the lay-off.
• If you have been laid off by shortening your working day, you will be paid a daily allowance that is adjusted according to your income. This is called an adjusted daily allowance.

• Your tax rate will be increased to at least 25% when the earnings-related allowance is paid unless you deliver a revised tax card for the benefit to the unemployment fund. If the withholding tax for salary has been, for example, 15.50 percent, without a revised tax card it will automatically be increased to 25 percent. Please note that the tax percentage of the earnings-related allowance cannot be changed if you have ordered a revised tax card for your salary from the tax administration.
• As a general rule, the unemployment fund receives tax withholding information directly from the Tax Administration. It is not necessary to send paper versions of tax cards that are meant for salary or revised tax cards meant for benefits to the unemployment fund.
• You can order and submit a revised tax card for benefits by using the Tax Administration’s MyTax service. In addition, see the tax administration’s instructions “How to request a tax card for wage or benefit income in MyTax”.
• Your tax rate is also determined for other benefits, i.e., job alternation compensation, mobility allowance and restructuring protection allowance, in the same way as the earnings-related allowance.

Periods and benefits that prevent:

Below we have compiled the most common periods or benefits that prevent you from receiving a daily allowance. This list is not exhaustive.

• You have a set waiting period
• A non-remunerated deadline, i.e., a cooling-off period, has been set for you at the TE Office
• You will receive a salary or equivalent compensation from your employer for the period of notice
• You will receive other financial benefits related to the termination of employment from your employer (for example, a severance package or a “golden handshake”)
• You are being paid for your annual leave period for full-time work
• You are receiving an old age pension
• You are receiving maternity, special maternity, paternity and parental allowance or special care allowance
• You are receiving a sickness or partial sickness allowance
• You are receiving a rehabilitation allowance, a full disability pension or a rehabilitation assistance
• If you are under 25 years of age and have not completed vocational training leading to a degree after comprehensive school or upper secondary school, and you have not applied for at least two study places in the joint application process.

Benefits that reduce:

Below is a breakdown of some of the most common benefits that reduce the earnings-related daily allowance. This list is not exhaustive.

• Part-time pension
• Partial disability pension under the earnings-related Pensions Act
• Child home care allowance paid to the family (care allowance and care increase)
• Daily allowance and accident pension under the Accident Insurance Act
• Supplementary pension arranged by the employer
• Invalidity benefit received from another state.

The income you receive during unemployment will affect your earnings-related allowance when the income is actually paid to you. This is called a payment-based adjustment of the daily allowance.

Read more about earnings-related daily allowance

During a strike, you must apply for possible strike pay from your trade union. In some cases, the unemployment fund may also pay unemployment benefits during a strike.

Read more

As a rule, the Unemployment Fund receives new tax withholding information directly from the Tax Administration. Until 2024, the tax cards became valid at the beginning of February, and January taxes were withheld using the tax rate stated in the previous year’s tax card. Starting in 2025, tax cards are valid from the beginning of January and the income ceiling stated in the tax card is calculated for the full year.

We get the information from the Tax Administration if you have a tax card that is meant for salary. The Tax Administration also delivers the information directly to the Fund when you have ordered a revised tax card meant for benefit electronically in MyTax and declared A-kassa as the payer of the benefit.

If the Unemployment Fund has a tax card for salary, the withholding rate from benefit is always at least 25 per cent, even if the tax card has a lower percentage. this applies to both the tax card received as a direct transfer and the revised tax card.

If you want to change the rate used for the benefit, deliver a new revised tax card for the benefit to the Fund.

You can order and submit a revised tax card for benefits by using the Tax Administration’s MyTax service. Go to MyTax service by clicking this.

Submitting the correct tax card speeds up the processing of your case.