The step-by-step plan for Finland

In this step you see what you arrange in Finland to be allowed to live there. As an EU citizen you get no permit and no card. You go through a chain of three registrations, in a fixed order:

• First Migri, the Finnish immigration service. There you register your right of residence. That's compulsory for more than three months' uninterrupted stay in Finland. It costs € 53, and you only apply once you're already there.
• Then DVV, the agency behind the Finnish population register. There you arrange the kotikunta, your registration in a municipality of residence. That opens access to public healthcare, school and municipal services.
• After that Kela, the Finnish social insurance institution. There you report for social security.

One point catches many people out. With the Migri registration, since 2019 you as a rule automatically get your henkilötunnus, the Finnish personal identity code. But that code gives you nothing. The real gate is the kotikunta.

Three counters, one order. The step-by-step plan holds it for you.

With this step you know whether your car comes along, or whether you sell it in the Netherlands. This sum makes Finland different from the rest of Scandinavia, so it comes before everything.

Finland levies autovero, the Finnish car tax, when a car is first registered in Finland. The relocation exemption (no car tax when you move) was already abolished as of 1 January 2015. Many sites still miss that.

What that means for your car:

• A petrol or diesel car easily pays 9.5 to 20 percent, depending on CO2 emissions. That percentage is of the Finnish market value, and that value is higher than the Dutch one.
• A fully electric car (first use from October 2021) pays 0%. You almost always bring that one.
• The BPM refund on export (Dutch car tax you get back) softens the blow, but rarely covers it.

Work out your car with the calculator of Vero, the Finnish tax administration. Then decide: bring it, or sell it in the Netherlands.

In this step you see what the move is going to cost you. The paperwork here costs almost nothing: € 53 per person for the Migri registration. The rest of the chain is free.

The money is mainly here:

• The crossing. Finland lies beyond the Baltic Sea, and the ferry or the detour via Sweden makes the move more expensive than to the neighbouring countries.
• The car: the sum from the previous step.

Work it out with your own choices in the calculator.

With this step you decide together whether it's going to be Finland. You end up with a few conditions on paper that you both stand behind.

Going alone? Then have this conversation with the people you leave behind. The questions below work for them too.

Take three evenings. One conversation is too short for a decision like this. Agree on three evenings, with a week in between:

• Evening 1, why. What do we hope to find in Finland? What are we leaving behind here? Would that really be different there?
• Evening 2, what we give up. Who and what will we miss? What are we dreading most? What do we do if it disappoints?
• Evening 3, the conditions. What has to be arranged for each of us to say yes? When do we check together whether it's going well, for example after six and after twelve months? And what would be a reason for us to go back?

Write the conditions down. On the kitchen-table card it all fits on one A4 sheet.

Finland has scored as the happiest country in the world for years. Still, it comes with two things that need to be on the table:

• The light. The winter is long, dark and colder than the Swedish one. Even in Helsinki there are January days of -20 °C.
• The distance. A quick trip back to the Netherlands is a flight or well over a day on the ferry, not a car ride.

Divide the work. Agree who takes on which part of this plan: the papers, the house and the cancellations, the school, the move. That way not one of you carries everything. Invite your partner into your plan; then you can both see what's done.

Is one of you going without an income of your own? Whoever lives in Finland and doesn't work in the Netherlands usually no longer builds up AOW. For every year you're not insured, you later get 2 percent less AOW. From the moment you're no longer insured, you have one year to take out voluntary insurance with the SVB. Also discuss who carries the income in the first months, whether the partner without an income keeps an account and money of their own, and how you decide together on big expenses.

Married, registered or living together? It can make a difference for your partner's residence permit, for co-insurance in healthcare and for inheritance. If you're both Dutch, each of you lives in Finland in your own right. If your partner has a nationality from outside the EU, they live there as your family member. If they stay longer than three months, they get a residence card of their own. A spouse always counts as a family member, a registered partner if Finland treats that partnership as equivalent to marriage. If you live together unmarried, you prove a durable relationship and Finland assesses it itself. Check at your healthcare further on in your plan what else applies to you.

Are children coming? How you tell them depends on their age:

• Up to about four: tell them shortly before the move and keep fixed habits, like the bedtime ritual and the cuddly toy in the hand luggage.
• Primary school: tell them well in advance and let them look along: photos of the school, the neighbourhood and the house. Let them choose something, like their room.
• Teenagers: involve them in the decision itself. For them, saying goodbye to friends weighs heaviest. Agree how they keep in touch and when they see their friends again.

For children who don't yet speak Finnish or Swedish, the municipality can offer a preparatory class. That's not an obligation. Ask the municipality where you're going to live, before you choose a home.

Who learns the language, and when? Finnish is not a Germanic language, and it grows on you slowly. Outside the ICT and tech sector in the Helsinki region, Finnish is the working language almost everywhere. On the coast that can also be Swedish. Often the partner without work needs the language most, and precisely that partner has no colleagues to practise with. Plan it together, preferably before you leave.

Choose below the date on which you want to be in Finland. The step-by-step plan works out whether that's feasible with what still has to happen. If it's getting tight, it says so honestly. A target date is yours: you can always move it, and moving it is a perfectly good outcome.