Studying abroad
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Financial aid for students consists of the study grant, a government guarantee for a student loan and the housing supplement for students. You can get student financial aid for your studies abroad in the following situations:
- You complete an entire course of study abroad.
- You complete a period of study or participate in on-the-job-training abroad as part of a course of study you are completing in Finland.
Have you moved from Finland to another country? Read more about whether you can be paid other Kela benefits outside Finland.
Completing an entire course of study abroad
Kela can pay you student financial aid for studies you complete abroad if you study full-time and your studies would qualify you for student financial aid in Finland.
Studies completed at a foreign educational institution are considered full-time studies if the institution has defined them as full-time studies. Your can also be considered to study full-time if
- you are enrolled in an institution of higher education and the scope of your studies corresponds to about 5 credits per month of study
- you are enrolled in some other educational institution and the scope of your studies is about 25 hours per week according to the curriculum.
The educational institution you are enrolled in must also be regulated by the government. This means that the educational institution is subsidised by the state, supervised by the educational authorities or accredited by an approved accreditation agency. Private educational institutions can also qualify.
Visit the website of the World Higher Education Database (WHED, whed.net) for a list of government-regulated institutions of higher education.
You cannot be paid student financial aid for your studies abroad in the following situations:
- Your study programme can be fully completed online.
- You are attending a programme preparing you for university study.
- You are completing an individual course.
- You participate in a language course.
- You have not been granted the right to study towards a degree by your educational institution.
- The educational institution you are enrolled in is an officially registered company and not a government-regulated educational institution.
- You get financial aid from abroad.
Student financial aid for Finnish citizens
If you are a Finnish citizen, you can get financial aid for a course of study you complete entirely abroad if you meet one of the following conditions:
- You have had a municipality of residence in Finland for at least 2 years out of the 5 years preceding the beginning of your studies. This means that you begin your course of study within 3 years after you have moved abroad.
- You have close ties to Finland otherwise. We will take into account periods of residence in Finland and family ties as well as factors related to your income, work and other corresponding circumstances. Kela will assess your case based on an overall evaluation of your circumstances.
Student financial aid for citizens of other countries
If you are not a Finnish citizen, Kela will usually not pay you student financial aid for a course of study you complete entirely abroad.
However, you can get student financial aid if you meet one of the following conditions:
- You have the right of permanent residence in Finland as an EU citizen (migri.fi).
- You have the right of permanent residence in Finland under the withdrawal agreement between the UK and the EU (migri.fi).
- You are a worker defined in EU law (migri.fi) or in the withdrawal agreement between the EU and the UK (migri.fi) or the child of such a worker.
You must also always meet at least one of the following conditions:
- You have had a municipality of residence in Finland for at least 2 years out of the 5 years preceding the beginning of your studies.
- You have close ties to Finland otherwise. We will take into account periods of residence in Finland and family ties as well as factors related to your income, work and other corresponding circumstances. Kela will assess your case based on an overall evaluation of your circumstances.
If you are a worker defined in EU law or in the withdrawal agreement between the EU and the UK or the child of such a worker, you must also meet at least one of the following conditions:
- You work in Finland for at least 4 months and for an average of 10 hours per week or you have taken out a compulsory earnings-related pension insurance policy for self-employed persons. You can be paid student financial aid only while you are working in Finland.
- You are the child of a citizen of an EU or EEA country, Switzerland or the United Kingdom who is working in Finland. You can be paid student financial aid only while your parent is working in Finland.
- You have kept your status as an EU worker in Finland even though you have stopped working in Finland and started a course of study abroad. Your studies must be closely related to your work in Finland.
- You have kept your status as an EU worker in Finland even though your employment in Finland ended through no fault of your own and you have since started a course of study abroad. If this is the case, your studies do not have to relate to your work in Finland.
Are you going on student exchange?
You can be paid student financial aid for a period of study, on-the-job learning or on-the-job training you complete abroad if it is recognised as part of a course of study you are completing in Finland. You can apply to a place of study or training abroad through an exchange programme or find a place of study or training by yourself.
If you are in upper secondary school, you usually cannot get financial aid for the year you will spend as an exchange student or for any other period of study abroad because the studies are not recognised as part of the Finnish upper secondary school curriculum. However, you can get financial aid if your upper secondary school in Finland issues you a certificate stating that the school will recognise at least 20 credits’ worth of studies completed in an upper secondary school abroad per term.
If you are enrolled in a degree programme at a Finnish institution of higher education and you are registered as attending, you must pay the healthcare fee for students in higher education.
Read more about how living or studying abroad affects the student healthcare fee.
How much student financial aid can you get for studies abroad?
When you study abroad, you can be paid the same amount of study grant as part of your student financial aid as students enrolled in upper secondary education (upper secondary school or vocational education) or higher education in Finland. Read more about the taxation of the study grant.
The government guarantee you can get for your student loan as part of your student financial aid is EUR 1,000 per month for all students studying abroad.
Before going abroad, talk to your bank about the details concerning the disbursement and repayment of student loans. Read more about how to apply for a student loan at a bank.
You can be paid the housing supplement for students if you live in a rented house or apartment abroad and you are enrolled as a student at
- a foreign educational institution
- a Finnish educational institution, and you are completing a degree-related study unit abroad.
Your housing costs or your parents’ income do not affect how much housing supplement you can get.
The amount of housing supplement you can get while studying abroad is usually EUR 210 per month. If the house or apartment you live in while studying abroad is owned by or rented from your parents, the maximum student housing supplement you can get is EUR 83 per month.
You cannot get housing supplement for the same time for your home in Finland.
You also cannot get housing supplement if you live in a house or apartment that you own or your partner owns or if you live with your parents. The bostadsrätt housing available in Sweden counts as owner-occupied housing.
Estimate how much you can get
Use our calculator to check how much student financial aid you might get. The result is an estimate.
We will pay your student financial aid to your Finnish bank account. It is paid on the 1st day of each month or on the closest following business day.
If you would like the payments to be made into a foreign bank account, write down the name, BIC code and address of the bank and your IBAN account number on your application for student financial aid. You must cover any additional costs of having financial aid paid abroad.
Finnish citizens who have lived abroad for 3 years become non-resident for tax purposes (vero.fi) and have limited liability to pay tax in Finland. This means that they pay tax to Finland only for their Finnish income. Foreign nationals who move out of Finland to another country have limited tax liability immediately after they have moved.
If you have limited tax liability, submit a tax-at-source card or a non-resident’s tax card to us. The income type on the tax card must be the study grant. If you do not submit a tax card, a tax-at-source of 35% will be deducted from your study grant.
In OmaKela, go to Lähetä liite (Send supporting documents) to send us a copy of your tax card. Alternatively, you can mail your tax card to Kela, PL 10, 00056 KELA.
Student financial aid period for studies abroad
The maximum aid period for your studies depends on what kind of educational institution you study at abroad.
The maximum aid period for your studies depends on the type of study programme you pursue in the same way as it does for upper secondary education pursued in Finland.
In the annual income check, financial aid months mean the months for which you are paid either the study grant or the housing supplement for students or both.
The maximum aid period for your studies depends on the scope of your degree programme in the same way as it does for higher education studies completed in Finland. This means that your maximum aid period depends both on the scope of the degree programme and when you began your first course of study in higher education.
If the scope of the degree programme is not specified in accordance with the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS), the maximum aid period is determined based on the regular completion time of your studies.
In the annual income check and in the monitoring of your study progress, financial aid months mean the months for which you are paid either the study grant or the housing supplement for students or both.
Months of financial aid available during the academic year
You will be paid student financial aid for full months of study, starting from the start date of the course of study. Student financial aid is paid for any month in which there are at least 18 days of active study. This rule applies to all studies that are completed entirely abroad.
You can also get financial aid for the summer months if your study full-time during the summer.
How to apply for financial aid for your studies abroad
If you complete your entire degree abroad, do as follows:
- Apply for student financial aid and the student housing supplement in the OmaKela e-service (available in Finnish and Swedish).
- Take a photo of the supporting documents and send them to us via OmaKela. If you live and study abroad, you do not need to send us a copy of your lease agreement.
- Visit OmaKela to see if your application has been decided, how much you will get and when your benefit will be paid. You will also see reminders to submit any missing supporting documents.
If you are not yet paid student financial aid, you can apply for the study grant, a student loan guarantee and the housing supplement for students at the same time on the same application for student financial aid. You do not have to apply for the housing supplement separately.
If you are already being paid student financial aid and you go abroad as an exchange student, notify us about this by submitting a notification of changes for student financial aid in OmaKela. You can apply to be paid the student housing supplement while you study abroad at the same time.
If you are an EU citizen and you do not have Finnish online banking credentials, you can use the identification method used in your country to contact us (eIDAS identification). Read more about how EU citizens can log in to and handle matters in Kela’s e-service.
If you cannot use OmaKela, send your application to Kela by post. Save the form Application – Financial aid for students – For those pursuing a degree abroad OT 3e (PDF) to your device and fill it in after saving it. Print out the completed form and send it and any supporting documents to Kela, PL 10, 00056 KELA.
Apply for student financial aid
Submit your application and supporting documents online.
You must send us a certificate of enrolment issued by your place of study once per academic year. The certificate must show that you are a full-time student and that you are enrolled in the programme for which you are paid student financial aid. Send us the first certificate of enrolment after you have registered as attending at your place of study.
After that, send us a new certificate of enrolment every time the previous one expires or a new academic year or academic term begins.
Once per academic year, you must also send us a transcript of records issued by your place of study. The transcript must show the credits you earned in the previous academic year.
Take photos of the documents and use the Lähetä liite (Send supporting documents) function in the OmaKela e-service (available in Finnish and Swedish) to send them to us. The supporting documents must be in Finnish, Swedish or English. If the documents issued by your place of study are written in some other language, they must be translated into one of these three languages before you can submit them to Kela. We accept translations that you have done yourself.
If you are a first-year student, send us also the following supporting documents with your application for student financial aid:
- Certificate of admission to the educational institution. The certificate must state the degree you are studying for, the regular completion time for the degree and that you are a full-time student.
- Certificate showing the start and end dates of the academic year.
- Certificate of attendance issued by the educational institution. You can send in the certificate later once you have registered as attending.
- Certificate showing that the educational institution is regulated by the government.
- Your personal study plan and a notice of admission from your place of study for courses of 30 credits (högskolepoäng/ETCS) or more if you are completing a degree in Sweden that consists of individual courses (fristående kurser). The study plan must show the degree being completed and its regular completion time in addition to the number of credits and the courses the degree consists of.
- A copy of the I-20 form issued by your educational institution if you are studying in the United States.
- Certificate showing grants or scholarships as well as any financial assistance provided by the educational institution. The certificate must show the purpose of the grant, scholarship or financial assistance, the time for which it is awarded, its amount, its source, and the date of payment.
- Statement declaring any income you get from abroad.
- Proof of a material change in your parents’ income and of any income your parents get from abroad if your parents’ income affects your study grant or student loan guarantee.
- A completed version of the form Appendix to application for student financial aid filed by foreign resident OT 10e (PDF) if you are a foreign citizen.
If you apply to be paid student financial aid during the summer months, tell Kela the months for which you are applying for student financial aid. If you are studying at a school that is not an institution of higher education, please also tell us about the planned duration of your summer studies.
Apply for financial aid as soon as your place of study has notified you of your admission. The earliest you can be paid student financial aid is from the beginning of the month in which your application arrives at Kela.
Submit your application as soon as possible even if you do not have all the supporting documents required for it. You can send additional supporting documents to us later.
Kela can issue you a certificate that shows the amount of student financial aid you are being paid by Kela if you need one, for example, to satisfy a residence permit requirement. The certificate can be issued in Swedish, English, German, Spanish or French. Kela can issue the certificate before you have been given a decision on student financial aid, but it does not guarantee that you will actually be granted financial aid.
Please remember to inform us about any changes in your life situation, so that you are paid the correct amount of student financial aid. You can report changes via our e-service OmaKela or by phone.
If you go on exchange
If you go abroad as an exchange student, do as follows:
- Apply for student financial aid and the student housing supplement by submitting a notification of changes (muutosilmoitus) in OmaKela.
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You can write down the dates on which you will travel to your exchange destination and back to Finland under Additional information on the notification of changes. These dates can affect the months for which you can get student financial aid while studying abroad.
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- Take photographs of the supporting documents and send them in OmaKela.
- Submit proof of your on-the-job-training or exchange studies together with your application. However, you do not need to submit proof if the period of study you will complete abroad is a part of studies you are completing at a Finnish institution of higher education.
- If you live and study abroad, you do not need to send us a copy of your lease agreement to qualify for the housing supplement for students.
- Visit OmaKela to see if your application has been decided, how much you will get and when your benefit will be paid. You will also see reminders to submit any missing supporting documents.
If you cannot use OmaKela, send your application to Kela by post. Save the form Notification of changes – Financial aid for students OT 15e (PDF) to your device and fill it in after saving it. Print out the completed form and send it and any supporting documents to Kela, PL 10, 00056 KELA.
Study progress
You can be paid student financial aid only if you make sufficient progress with your studies. We monitor your progress in studies you complete abroad in the same way as we do for studies you complete in Finland.
Read more about study progress in upper secondary school or a vocational school.
Read more about study progress in higher educationof higher education.
European universities usually use the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). ECTS credits correspond to the credits awarded for completing higher education studies in Finland. One academic year consists of 60 ECTS credits.
If you study outside Europe, the amount of study credits you earn must be equivalent to the ECTS requirement.
Income limits for students who study abroad
The same income limits apply to students who study abroad as to students who are enrolled in upper secondary education (upper secondary school or vocational education) or higher education in Finland. You must make sure that you do not exceed your annual income limit.
Report any grants you are paid and income you get from abroad to Kela each year.
You do not have to report any taxable income you have earned or been paid in Finland. We get this information directly from the Tax Administration.
We will convert your foreign income into an equivalent amount in euros usually at the exchange rate quoted by the European Central Bank for the date of conversion. When we convert your foreign income from previous years, we will use the mid-rate (average exchange rate) for the year when you got the income as the exchange rate.
Examples of studies in different countries
Educational institutions in Sweden are supervised by the Ministry of Education and Research. Contact the Swedish financial aid authority CSN (csn.se) for information about which educational institutions and study programmes are covered by the financial aid system. If CSN pays student financial aid to students enrolled in a specific study programme, the educational institution that offers the study programme is government-regulated. The studies offered by the educational institution you choose must also meet the other criteria set out in the Finnish Act on Student Financial Aid.
You can apply to Swedish institutions of higher education on the website of the Swedish Council for Higher Education (Universitets- och högskolerådet, URH). The application website is available in both Swedish (antagning.se) and English (universityadmissions.se).
What studies qualify you for student financial aid?
If you are enrolled in an institution of higher education, you can get student financial aid for both a degree programme and for completing a degree that consists of individual courses (fristående kurser).
You cannot get financial aid for the following courses:
- Courses called Svenska som främmande språk and Behörighetsgivande kurs i svenska do not qualify you for student financial aid because they cannot be included in a higher education degree.
- Basår studies are preparatory studies offered at an upper secondary school level. Preparatory studies do not qualify you for student financial aid.
- Studies offered as kompletterande utbildningar are usually studies that relate to art and culture (konst- och kulturutbildningar). They do not correspond to any studies that can qualify you for student financial aid in Finland.
Visit the website of the Department for Business Innovation & Skills (BIS) (gov.uk) for information on institutions of higher education that are regulated by the government. Accredited institutions of higher education are listed under the Office for Students (OfS) Register. These educational institutions have the right to grant degrees that are recognised in the United Kingdom.
All degree studies that you can apply for via the UCAS joint admissions process (ucas.com) are regulated by the government.
When are vocational or private educational institutions considered government-regulated?
Vocational schools and upper secondary schools in the United Kingdom are considered government-regulated if their degrees are granted by such bodies as City and Guilds, Edexcel, AQA, CCEA, OCR or WJEC.
Financial aid is not available for Access, Foundation and Bridging courses preparing course participants for university admission. An exception to this rule are Foundation courses that are included in the actual degree programme. This kind of Foundation course counts as year 0 in a standard 3-year degree programme, which means that the total duration of the degree programme is 4 years. This kind of course qualifies you for student financial aid.
The U.S. Department of Education does not regulate educational institutions in the same way as, for example, the authorities do in Finland. Instead, the quality of education providers is monitored and evaluated via a separate accreditation system.
You can find more information on the official accreditation organisations on the websites of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA, chea.org) and the U.S. Department of Education (ope.ed.gov).
You should also check out these search engines for accredited educational institutions:
If you have any questions about accreditation, please contact the Fulbright Center (fulbright.fi).
How to contact Kela while you are abroad
We recommend using the OmaKela e-service (available in Finnish and Swedish) to send us your applications, supporting documents and messages. You can also see the decisions and responses you get from Kela in OmaKela. Log in to OmaKela with your Finnish online banking credentials or mobile ID.
If you are an EU citizen and you do not have Finnish online banking credentials, you can use the identification method used in your country to contact us (eIDAS identification). Select Ulkomaalaisen tunnistustavat (Identity verification methods for foreign customers) on OmaKela’s login page. After you have logged in to the e-service, you can send us a message or submit an application form.
You can also contact Kela by calling our customer service or by sending us a secure email.
If you live abroad and you do not have Finnish online banking credentials or a mobile ID or you cannot use eIDAS identification, you can contact Kela in all matters related to student financial aid by sending us a secure email.
Send email to Kela over a secure connection. For reasons related to information security, we only respond to emails that are sent via a secure connection.
Write your email address in the Lähettäjä (Sender) field that you will see after you click on the link. You will get an email message that contains a link you can use to send us email over a secure connection. The link is active for 30 days. Write ulkomaat.opintotuki@kela.fi as the recipient of your email in the secure email interface.
When you have completed a degree abroad
Report the degree you have completed abroad as soon as possible after you have graduated by completing and submitting the form Notification of degree completed in a foreign educational institution OT 29e (PDF) to Kela. Send us a copy of your degree certificate with the application.
It is important that you report your degree to Kela because you can get a higher pension after you have completed a degree. If the degree you have completed is a higher education degree, you can also get student loan compensation.
Remember to also let us know if you intend to return to Finland after completing your studies or if you will stay abroad.
What else is going on in your life?
Are you leaving Finland to study abroad?
If you leave Finland to go study in an EU or EEA country, Switzerland or the United Kingdom, remember to order a European Health Insurance Card in time. The card gives you access to medical care abroad at the same price as in Finland.
What benefits can you get if you study abroad?
In addition to student financial aid, you can usually also get other benefits from Kela while you study abroad. What criteria apply to the benefits?