Check the income ceiling of your tax card – are your Kela benefits taxed correctly?
Kela would like to remind its customers to check the income ceiling of their 2025 tax card and, if necessary, to request a new tax card from the Tax Administration. By doing so, you can make sure your Kela benefits are taxed correctly at the right withholding rate.
If Kela pays you benefits, we recommend that you check the income ceiling (tuloraja) of your tax card and request a new tax card if necessary. If you exceed your income ceiling in the last months of 2025, your Kela benefits will be taxed at a higher rate than usual. Some Kela benefits are taxable income while others are not.
You can see your current tax card and request a new one in the Tax Administration’s MyTax e-service. Go to the Incomes Register to check your income information. Make sure you request a revised tax card for the payment of social security benefits.
If the new tax card applies to future payments, you can ask the Tax Administration to send the new tax card directly to Kela. In that case, you do not need to notify Kela of the new tax card.
Kela can make adjustments to tax withholdings only during the year the tax is withheld
If Kela has already paid a benefit to you and you want to change the amount of withheld tax afterwards, you have to request a new tax card first. Then notify Kela of the new tax card and ask for a correction of the withheld amount, as Kela does not automatically correct the tax withheld on already paid benefits. The tax card must be valid for social security benefits from the first day of payment of the benefit for which you wish to correct the withholding.
The taxation can be corrected only during the year in which the withholding is made. If you want the amount withheld in 2025 to be corrected retroactively, your new tax card must reach Kela by mid-December. If you request a revised tax card on 12 December 2025 or later, it may not be possible for Kela to make any adjustments to the tax withholding for 2025.