National pensions

To qualify for national pensions, you must be covered under the Finnish social security system and you must have lived in Finland for at least three years after reaching the age of 16.

In addition, any other pension or benefits you receive may not exceed a certain limit. If you exceed this limit, it is not worthwhile to apply for a national pension. To find out the amount of your prospective earnings-related pension, contact the Finnish Centre for Pensions or your own pension provider, or go to www.tyoelake.fi. You can file your application for earnings-related pension with Kela.

Kela will not issue a decision on your national pension until the amount of earnings-related pension benefits you are entitled to is known. To this end, the other pension providers inform Kela of their individual pension decisions, allowing Kela to issue a decision on the national pension.

Types of national pension available at different ages

You can apply from Kela

• Disability Pension if you become disabled when you are between 16 and 64 years of age
• Unemployment Pension if you are long-term unemployed, aged 60 to 64 and born before 1950
• Old-Age Pension at the age of 65. If you postpone the start of your pension, you will receive a larger pension. At the earliest, you can begin to receive Old-Age Pension at age 62, in which case the pension is referred to as an Early Old-Age Pension.