Finland
Finland is home to some great remote talent. Want to know how you can hire that talent, legally, without wading into months of paperwork and thousands of dollars in fees? In the next few minutes, we’ll teach you.
Country snapshot
CURRENCY
Euro (EUR)
EMPLOYER TAXES
Up to 27.22%
PAYROLL FREQUENCY
Monthly
OFFICIAL LANGUAGE
Finnish & Swedish
It’s the fastest way to hire globally
Hiring employees takes months, at the minimum. When you hire with Thera's locally-generated contracts, it’s a matter of days or weeks. This means you can hire the best talent, fast, without losing them to a hellish procession of paperwork.
It’s a lot cheaper
It costs just $0 to sign up for Thera, then $25 per month to hire your contractors with Thera. If you hired employees manually (or did contracting on your own), you’d likely be on the hook for thousands of dollars each month. Setting up an entity alone can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
It’s more flexible for you & your team
Can be less risky than hiring employees
Hiring employees is a bigger commitment, and can open you up to increased liabilities and regulations. When you hire contractors overseas, your biggest risk is misclassification—but laws surrounding contractor classification are often significantly more straightforward.
Some people want to be employees
The contractor life isn’t for everyone—some people want the security that being an employee often appears to provide. Though it’s rare, this does happen, and it’s one disadvantage of manage an all-contractor team.
You might not have as much control over your talent
Most countries’ contractor-employer relationship laws stipulate that the employer can’t set fixed working hours, among other things. These laws give contractors more freedom over how and when they do their work than an employee would have. In reality, however, most contractors are willing & able to work on the company’s schedule—it’s a matter of setting expectations beforehand.
Hiring in Finland? That’s excellent. There are two options: You can hire your talent as employees, or you can hire them as contractors. Because of Finland’s labor law structure, there are benefits and disadvantages to each approach.
Hire talent as contractors
Hire talent as employees
If you’ve read up until this point, you’ll know that it’s easier, cheaper, and more flexible to hire contractors in Finland than employees. Still, there are valid reasons why you might want to hire employees instead. The content below is for you—we’ll cover employer taxes and obligations in Finland.
Employer tax
Employer Contributions
- Up to 27.22%
Paid Time Off (PTO)
Annual leave is calculated from the period of April 1st through March 31st of the following year. Vacation is typically taken between May 2 -September 30 (4 weeks in the summer and 1 week in the winter).
Employees earn 2 vacation days per month or 2.5 days per month for continuous employment of over a year. Employees who have at least 15 years of service receive 3 vacation days per month.
Public Holidays
There are 10 public holidays.
Sick Days
Employees who have been employed for at least a month receive full sick pay for 9 working days. After 9 days, the employee must provide a medical certificate from a doctor.
Maternity Leave
Pregnant employees are allowed to choose when maternity leave begins with a maximum of 50 days before the expected due date. Once maternity leave begins, the employee receives benefits for 105 working days (Monday-Saturday, excluding holidays).
The employee must notify the employer and apply for maternity pay at least 2 months before starting maternity leave.
Paternity Leave
Fathers are given 54 days of paternity leave, with a maximum of 18 days to be used at the same time as the mother. The remaining days are to be taken in more than two periods.
Parental Leave
Both parents are allowed to take parental leave with benefits up to 158 days and ends when the child is approximately 9 months old. Parents are to agree when each takes the leave since it cannot be taken by both simultaneously.
Other Leave
None.
Marriage Leave
None.
Bereavement Leave
None.
Termination Process
An employer must provide valid reasoning for the termination of an employee. If an employee has performed poorly, the employer must first receive a warning and an opportunity to improve before being terminated.
An employee must provide written notice to the employer and honor the notice period before ending work.
Fixed-term employment cannot be terminated.
Notice Period
Notice period when the employer initiates the termination:
- Up to one year employment – 14 days’ notice
- One to four years of employment – one months’ notice
- Four to eight years of employment – two months’ notice
- Eight to 12 years of employment – four months’ notice
- Over 12 years of employment – six months’ notice
Notice period when employee initiates the termination:
- One to 5 years of employment – 14 days’ notice
- More than 5 years of employment – 1-month notice
Severance Pay
There is no statutory severance pay unless the employee’s termination is unjustified, or the employer has decided voluntarily to provide it.
Probation Period
6 months.
Working Hours
A full-time workweek is 40 hours, or 8 hours per day.
Overtime
Overtime work requires the employee’s consent for each overtime period, and to be considered overtime, must be under the employer’s initiative and approval. Overtime hours cannot exceed 138 hours over a 4-month period and 250 hours annually. Additional 80 hours of overtime may be agreed upon if it is necessary.
Overtime increases pay to the rate of 150% of the regular pay for the first two hours and 200% for the following hours. Weekly overtime is paid at the rate of 150% of the regular pay. Any work performed on Sunday is compensated at 200%.
Overtime pay can differ depending on collective agreements.
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