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Frequently asked questions

Often the same questions preoccupy our members. We have compiled a list of frequently asked questions from us by subject areas. Please read these questions and answers if you want to know if we have already answered your question.

If you can’t find an answer to your question on our website, please contact us(opens in new window)

In this section, we have answered frequently asked questions about earnings-related allowance. For example, if you have any questions about applying for or the amount of earnings-related unemployment allowance, please read the frequently asked questions section.

FAQ about applying for an allowance and attachments

You should register no later than on the first day of your unemployment. You can also register as a jobseeker before the start of your unemployment or layoff. More information: www.te-palvelut.fi.

Your entitlement to an earnings-related allowance can begin or the first day of the waiting period (if applicable) can be set no earlier than on the day on which your job search becomes valid.

You can submit the earnings-related allowance application online via the secure Openetti service.
If you wish you can also send your application by post, or by delivering it in person to our office (mail box).
Our postal address is: Opetus ja Tiede -työttömyyskassa (Unemployment Fund for Education and Science), Rautatieläisenkatu 6, 00520 Helsinki Our street address is: Opetus ja Tiede -työttömyyskassa (Unemployment Fund for Education and Science), Kellosilta 7, 00520 Helsinki

If you become unemployed after full-time employment, you should send your first application for a period of at least two full calendar weeks (Monday to Sunday). Later, you can apply for your earnings-related allowance in periods of four full calendar weeks (Mon-Sun) or by one month. If you become unemployed after part-time employment, send your first application for a period of at least four full calendar (Mon-Sun) weeks or one month. The application should be completed for each day from Monday to Sunday and sent no earlier than on the last claim date. The allowance is applied for retroactively, i.e. for time passed. 

Keep in mind that the allowance must be claimed within three months of the date on which its payment should start. The follow-up application must also be submitted to us within this time.

The attachments required for the earnings-related allowance application depend on your circumstances. Your application should provide an account of your activities prior to becoming unemployed.
We will receive information about the salary and employment from the incomes register starting from 1.1.2020. This means that we will receive primarily information about the salary from the register. Basically, you do not need to send us payslips or pay certificates with the applications. Please notice that, if the register does not have the relevant information about your salary and employment, we will ask more information from your accountant or you about your salary and employment. Sending payslips or pay certificate with your application can possibly speed up the processing of your application in the beginning of the year 2020. This is because the incomes register is a new system and the use of this system has just started.
 
Attachments:
1) payslips or pay certificate (at least 26 calendar weeks) for the working weeks counted in the employment condition.
2) A copy of your employment certificate/extract from your personal record/ work contract.
3) Your employer’s certificate showing your actual weekly working hours (weekly working hours report, printable from the section Forms), if you have fulfilled your employment condition as a part-time hourly teacher whose wages have been paid according to the hours taught. A separate weekly working hours report should be completed for each employment relationship. Please check whether any other attachments are needed from the section Application attachments.

We will receive information about the salary and employment from the incomes register starting from 1.1.2020. This means that we will receive primarily information about the salary from the register. Basically, you do not need to send us payslips or pay certificates. Please notice that, if the register does not have the relevant information about your salary and employment, we will ask more information from your accountant or you about your salary and employment.  Sending payslips or pay certificate with your application can possibly speed up the processing of your application in the beginning of the year 2020. This is because the incomes register is a new system and the use of this system has just started.
A certificate from your employer showing your actual weekly working hours (weekly working hours report) for the above-mentioned period is needed if you fulfilled your employment condition as a part-time hourly teacher whose wages have been paid according to the hours taught. A separate weekly working hours report is completed for each employment relationship (Forms). To enable the fund to monitor the fulfilment of the employment condition, you should also provide us with an account of the periods for which you are not claiming an allowance, such as employment that continues for more than one month, sickness, study, parental leave etc. Please check whether any other attachments are needed from the section Application attachments.

If you have applied for an adjusted allowance from us for the duration of a school year, we do not need a weekly working hours report. If you return to claim an allowance from us after your employment has ended or been reduced, we need the weekly working hours report to determine the fulfilment of the employment condition.
 
We use the weekly working hours report to allocate your working hours to working weeks. Otherwise, your pay might be incorrectly allocated to working weeks in our calculation of your allowance. This would lead to a smaller earnings-related allowance than you are entitled to. 

No, you do not. If the employer’s account shows the same information as is required on the unemployment fund’s form, the employer’s form serves as a weekly working hours report. 

A tax decision is required as an attachment to your allowance application if you are engaged in part-time business activities. In the adjustment of your allowance, we will base your income from your part-time business activities on the earned-income portion of your business income as confirmed in your personal taxation, plus any salary you may have received from your business.

You do not need to send your tax card to the unemployment fund, as we usually receive our members’ tax information for tax withholding directly from the Tax Administration. 

You can request a revised tax card for benefits to be sent directly to the unemployment fund through the Tax Administration’s online service MyTax, for example. Select “Opettajien Tk” (Teachers’ UF) as the payer of the benefit. This way we receive the tax information automatically to our system usually during the following business day. If you request the revised tax card in another way, please send it to us either by Openetti or by post.

Please note that the tax withholding information that becomes valid on 1 February is requested from the Tax Administration on the basis of membership. If you joined at the turn of the year or later, please check from Openetti in Personal information – Tax data whether we have received information on your tax withholding rate. If there is no tax data, please order a revised tax card for earnings-related allowance in MyTax


The withholding tax for an earnings-related allowance is the basic rate on a tax card determined for employment income, however, no less than 25 %. 

If you provide the unemployment fund with a revised tax card determined for benefits, the tax withholding percentage indicated on it is not increased. You can request the revised tax card for benefits to be sent directly to the unemployment fund through the Tax Administration’s online service, for example.

More information on the taxation of earnings-related allowance is available on the website of the Tax Administration at vero.fi.

If you are applying for daily allowance in the Openetti service, submit an application until the beginning of your full-time employment. The application asks you to answer why you are applying for a shorter period of time? Here you can enter the start date of your full-time employment.

Your full-time employment begins on the date from which you receive a salary based on your full-time work. For this reason, we may ask you to provide a copy of your employment contract/commission/decision on being accepted for a public office, as this document specifies the first date of your employment or public service relationship and, hence, the date from which you will be paid. This is especially relevant for teaching work at educational institutions.

Example:

NN starts work as a classroom teacher. The first day of employment is on 10 August , but the salary is paid from 1 August . NN is not entitled to an unemployment allowance between 1 and 9 August.

If you are applying for daily allowance in the Openetti service, submit an application until the beginning of your full-time employment. The application asks you to answer why you are applying for a shorter period of time? Here you can enter the start date of your full-time employment. If your employment starts in the middle of the calendar month, you should append a copy of your employment contract/commission/decision on being accepted for a public office, as this document specifies the first date of your employment or public service relationship and, hence, the date from which you will be paid.

Our current processing time is on our webpage (frontpage). We will update the information about the processing time regularly.
For example the amount of arriving applications, time of the year and the type of application can have influence on our processing time.

We receive many applications during the turn of the months and turn of the year. Yearly we receive multiple amount of applications especially in the summer.

The applications for fully unemloyed will be processed urgently.  In addition to this, if you work very little during your application period and the salary paid during this application period is under the standard entitlement, your application will be processed almost as urgently as an application for fully unemployed. All the other application types will be processed after these applications.

You can submit a follow-up application (fill in the application for 4 weeks), even though the first application has not yet been processed. Openetti / the application directs you to apply by filling in more limited information than when filling in your first application.

FAQ about entitlement to allowance and its amount

You are entitled to an earnings-related allowance if you have been insured as a member of the unemployment fund for at least 26 weeks immediately preceding your unemployment and you have fulfilled the condition regarding previous employment during your membership with the fund.

The condition for previous employment is met if you have been in paid employment that is subject to unemployment insurance for a minimum of 26 calendar weeks in the 28 months immediately preceding your unemployment, and your working hours have been at least 18 hours a week and you have received pay in accordance with the relevant collective agreement.

In the education sector, i.e. in teaching work in educational institutions, the condition for previous employment is met with weeks during which your working hours were at least half of the lowest weekly hours of a full-time hourly teacher in the relevant education sector (e.g. 8 h in comprehensive school and upper secondary school). In education sectors in which there are no full-time hourly teachers, the required working hours are 8 h per week. 

Please note the following exceptions to the employment and membership conditions:
If your last week of employment that counted towards the employment condition was before 30 December 2013, the membership and employment condition is 34 calendar weeks. 

If your last week of employment that counted towards the employment condition was before 31 December 2009, and you have never received an earnings-related or basic allowance, the membership and employment condition is 43 calendar weeks.

The 28-month review period may be extended by a maximum of seven years for an acceptable reason. Acceptable reasons for the extension include full-time studies, sickness or maternity leave and military service. 

The earnings-related allowance is calculated on the basis of your established pay over a period of at least 26 weeks preceding your unemployment. Certain pay components are deducted from the established pay, such as the holiday bonus and holiday compensation. In addition, a percentage is deducted from the pay equivalent to 60 per cent of the total amount of the employee’s employment pension, unemployment insurance and sickness insurance contributions. In 2022, the deducted percentage is 4.29%. The daily pay is established by dividing the monthly salary by 21.5. The amount of your earnings-related allowance is calculated when your first allowance application is processed. You can use the allowance calculator to calculate an approximate estimate of your earnings-related allowance.

Unemployment allowance can only be paid after a waiting period. The waiting period is spent when you have been registered as an unemployed jobseeker with the Employment and Economic Development Office for five fully unemployed days or an equivalent period. For example, if you work every day for 50% of the hours of a full-time employee, it will take about 10 days for your waiting period to be spent. 

The waiting period must accrue during a maximum of eight consecutive calendar weeks. The waiting period is not counted during weekends. It cannot include days during which you would not be eligible for an allowance for some other reason (for example, during a suspension period or before your membership condition is met). 

The waiting period is set when you are applying for an allowance for the first time. When the employment condition is re-fulfilled during your unemployment (part-time employment or periods/days of full-time employment), the waiting period may have to be set again. A waiting period is always set if more than a year has passed from the start of the previous maximum payment period (first day of payment) to the first possible payment day for a new maximum payment period. If the previous first possible payment date was within a year of the first possible payment date for the new maximum payment period, and a waiting period was set at the beginning of the previous maximum payment period, no new waiting period is set. If the dates are within one year of each other, but no waiting period was set the previous time, it is set now.

The most typical maximum payment period for an earnings-related allowance among our members is 400 payment days. The allowance is paid for five days a week. If you are fully unemployed and your allowance can be paid without any interruptions, this amounts to 80 weeks of allowance. Another way to calculate the duration is to use the average number of days per calendar month, 21.5 The entitlement to an allowance would then continue for just over 18 months. However, members of the Teachers’ Unemployment Fund rarely receive an uninterrupted allowance; it is common that they are employed in between allowance periods. This can result in the re-fulfilment of the employment condition. When you re-fulfil the employment condition, you are entitled to another maximum payment days. See Re-determination of the earnings-related allowance. There are special provisions in the Act on Unemployment Security regarding the maximum payment period of an earnings-related allowance for young and ageing allowance recipients. See Payment period of earnings-related allowance.

The amount of the allowance is only recalculated in some of the situations in which the employment condition has been re-fulfilled. If your previous first earnings-related allowance payment date was within one year of the first possible payment date in the summer of 2019, and the amount of your allowance was recalculated in the summer of 2018, your allowance remained the same in year 2019. This practice is based on the Act on Unemployment Security and is described in more detail here. Example: NN’s entitlement to an allowance in the summer of 2018 began so that the employment condition had been met at the end of NN’s fixed-term employment on 31 May 2018. A new waiting period was set, and NN’s first allowance payment date was on 8 June 2018. NN went to work again for the 2018‒2019 school year. The employment ended on 31 May 2019, and NN registered as an unemployed jobseeker from 1 June 2019. 1 June 2019 is the first possible date for which earnings-related allowance is paid, and it is within a year of the previous first payment date, which was on 8 June 2018. As the amount of the allowance was calculated at that time, it is not recalculated now, even though NN’s salary in the school year 2018‒2019 was better than in the school year 2017‒2018.

Your right to receive allowance will be decided on the grounds of your application, attachments and the statement from the TE-office.  Please send us an application so that we can process it and decide your right to receive allowance.

If you work full-time (over 80% of the maximum full-time working hours in that sector) and it is mentioned on your work contract that you have unpaid periods due to operating periods of institution,  you can send an application to us from these periods. A current application for full-time emloyment at a TE-office is a prerequisite for the payment of allowance.

If you have a part-time work (80% or under 80% of the maximum full-time working hours in that sector), you can apply adjusted allowance in application periods of one month or one calendar month. A current application for full-time emloyment at a TE-office is a prerequisite for the payment of allowance.

FAQ about business activities

The TE Office will issue a binding statement to the unemployment fund on whether you are self-employed in business activities and whether your business activities should be considered full-time or part-time. The TE Office assesses the nature of your business activities on the basis of the amount of work, not the amount of earned income. If you are a part-time entrepreneur, you can receive an adjusted earnings-related allowance after the TE Office has issued a statement that your business activities are part-time. Whenever possible, your last confirmed tax decision will be used as the basis for adjustment. The income from your business activities according to the tax decision is divided on a monthly level, so if you are a part-time entrepreneur, you should apply for an allowance in one-month periods. You can read more information on entrepreneurship on our fomepage in the section Entrepreneurship.  

You should inform the TE Office that you are starting business activities. For the first 4 months of business, the TE Office will not assess the full-time or part-time nature of business activities you have started while unemployed. Thus, you have the right to earnings-related allowance for at least 4 months after starting your business activities, if you keep your full-time job search valid at the TE Office. When your business activities have lasted 4 months, the TE Office shall assess whether your self-employment is full-time or part-time employment and provides a labour policy statement to your unemployment fund.

If you are starting a part-time entrepreneurship and you have income during the first 4 months, you may receive an adjusted earnings-related allowance. The income that you are making in your business activity will be adjusted to your earnings-related allowance. At the beginning of your business activities, you should report the income for the first 6 months using a monthly bookkeeping account that shows the business income and expenses. When the business activities have continued for at least 6 months, the average of the reported 6 months is used as the basis for calculating the adjusted earnings-related allowance for the following 6 months. After this, the average from 12 months’ bookkeeping is used. Later, your income from part-time business activities will be adjusted on the basis of tax decisions. 

Whenever possible, your last confirmed tax decision will be used as the basis for adjustment. The income from your business activities according to the tax decision is divided on a monthly level, so if you are a part-time entrepreneur, you should apply for an allowance in one-month periods.


Fill in an application in Openetti and enter in the application 1 hour on the date on which the invoicing service fee is paid to you. Attach a copy of the invoicing service fee/pay slip to the application.

FAQ about entitlement to extended allowance and retirement

You may be eligible for an extended earnings-related allowance period after the 500-day maximum payment period in the following circumstances: Extended allowance for people born between 1957–1960 If you were born between 1957 and 1960 and turn 61 before exhausting your 500-day maximum payment period, you are entitled to an extended earnings-related allowance period on top of the 500 days until the end of the calendar month in which you turn 65. You must also have been working for at least five years during the past 20 years. Extended allowance for people born in 1961 – 1962 If you were born 1961 – 1962 and turn62 before exhausting your 500-day maximum payment period, you are entitled to an extended earnings-related allowance period on top of the 500 days until the end of the calendar month in which you turn 65. You must also have been working for at least five years during the past 20 years. Extended allowance for people born in 1963 If you were born 1963 and turn 63 before exhausting your 500-day maximum payment period, you are entitled to an extended earnings-related allowance period on top of the 500 days until the end of the calendar month in which you turn 65. You must also have been working for at least five years during the past 20 years. Extended allowance for people born in 1964 If you were born 1964 and turn 64 before exhausting your 500-day maximum payment period, you are entitled to an extended earnings-related allowance period on top of the 500 days until the end of the calendar month in which you turn 65. You must also have been working for at least five years during the past 20 years. The right to extended allowance is gradually being abolished.  

If you were born between 1950 and 1957, you can retire on an old-age pension from your extended earnings-related allowance period at the age of 62 without a reduction in the pension payments. 
The entitlement to such an old-age pension applies to unemployed person who meet all the following conditions:
  • you were born between 1950 and 1957
  • you have turned 62 years of age
  • you have received an extended earnings-related or basic allowance for at least one day in the month preceding the start of your pension.
Please request a certificate from the unemployment fund for retirement. The certificate can only be issued when your allowance has been paid for at least one day in the month preceding the start of your pension.

Check with your pension company when you should submit the pension application. 

You do not need to separately apply for an extended allowance period; the unemployment fund will automatically check your eligibility in connection with processing your application when you have reached the 500-day maximum payment period. You can send your application according to your normal application rhythm as before.

If you have received an extended earnings-related allowance, ask the unemployment fund for a certificate on the additional allowance days paid. We can provide this as soon as we have paid you an allowance for at least one day in the month preceding the start of your pension. For example, if you apply for a pension from 1 October, we can issue the certificate after having paid you an allowance in September.

If you have not received an extended allowance, you can apply for an allowance normally up to the end of the month preceding the start of your pension and inform us on the application from which date you will be applying for a pension. Send your pension application to the pension company in advance. They can provide you further instructions regarding your pension.

FAQ about job alternation leave

You should first discuss the job alternation leave with your employer. Your employer commits to replacing you with an unemployed jobseeker from the Employment and Economic Development Office. If your employer agrees to the job alternation leave, you should make a job alternation leave in writing. The job alternation leave should be submitted to the TE Office before the start of your job alternation leave. The TE Office will help your employer in finding a suitable substitute, if needed. 

You can send the application to the fund in advance or when you have begun your job alternation leave, however, no later than within three months of the date on which your job alternation leave began.

In addition to the application, the unemployment fund needs a copy of the job alternation agreement and a pay certificate for 52 weeks or 12 full months preceding the job alternation leave. The unemployment fund will check your accumulated employment history from the Finnish Centre for Pensions.

We will receive information about the salary and employment from the incomes register starting from 1.1.2020. This means that we will receive primarily information about the salary from the register. Basically, you do not need to send us a pay certificate with the application. Please notice that, if the register does not have the relevant information about your salary and employment, we will ask more information from your accountant or you about your salary and employment. Sending a pay certificate with your application can possibly speed up the processing of your application at least in the beginning of the year 2020. This is because the incomes register is a new system and the use of this system has just started.

If you or your family member are engaged in business activities,  please send us a copy of the last confirmed tax decision. We also need a statement from the Employment and Economic Development Office that you are eligible for the compensation despite the business activities. If a tax decision is not yet available for the period of business activities, you must provide a copy of your bookkeeping for the period.

If you have been working for 20 years so that the employment history according to the employment pension acts clearly meets the requirement, you do not need to have your employment history separately checked. If there are breaks in your employment history due to, for example, family leaves or military or non-military service and you are uncertain whether your employment history is sufficient, you should have it checked in advance. See Job alternation compensation.

We usually receive our members’ tax rates determined for earned income directly from the Tax Administration at the beginning of the year. According to the Tax Administration’s instructions, the withholding tax rate determined for a salary is at least 25% for job alternation compensation. 

If we have not received the information directly from the Tax Administration, please send us a revised tax card for benefits. If you wish, you can request a revised tax card for benefits from a Tax Office in any case, and we will withhold your taxes accordingly. 

The job alternation compensation is always paid retroactively, and the decision and first payment can only be made once your job alternation leave has begun. Each payment period is four calendar weeks (or one calendar month if, for example, you have earned income that needs to be adjusted or you receive a child home care allowance from Kela). At the start of your job alternation leave, your first compensation may be paid for a shorter period, for example, two weeks. The same applies at the end of your leave.

You can view the processing status of your job alternation compensation in our Openetti service.

After receiving a job alternation compensation for the first time, you can calculate the next payment dates as follows: if the payment rhythm is four calendar weeks, the payment date is the Wednesday following the end of the period, and, if the payment rhythm is one calendar month, the payment date is two banking days from the last day of the month.

A holiday bonus or holiday compensation do not affect the job alternation compensation, so you do not need to inform the unemployment fund about them.

If you receive pay for annual holidays during the job alternation leave, the job alternation compensation cannot be paid for the period for which you receive holiday pay.

FAQ about mobility allowance

Mobility allowance is only simultaneously paid for one employment relationship and training related to it.

The travelling time is calculated from your home address to the address of your workplace. Time spent on changing means of transport is also taken into account, including any waiting times for connecting transport. Any waiting times due to public transport schedules before or after your work shift are also included in the travelling time. However, deviations from the fastest route are not taken into considerations. For example, the time that it takes to take a child to day care is not counted into the travelling time.

To start with the travelling time is calculated using the fastest possible public transport connection. If you have a car at your disposal, the travelling time is calculated based on the use of the car if commuting by car is even faster than commuting by public transportation. So if the commute based on using your car means that you have the right to receive mobility allowance, then you can decide to use public transportation or even carpool instead of you own car. 

If the distance between your original home address and your new workplace entitles you to mobility allowance, you can receive the allowance even if you move closer to your workplace before your employment begins. However, the move must be related to accepting a job. This also applies to moving because of work-related training.

If the preconditions for receiving mobility allowance are met, the allowance can be first paid on the basis of the training, and its payment may be continued after the training on the basis of the employment relationship. The total duration of the allowance period is 60 days from the start of training. 

Mobility allowance from the Unemployment Fund is only for members who start at a new job. TE-office, however, can reimburse travel expenses if you attend a job interview, for example. For more information about reimbursements by TE-office, please see TE Office website.

The duration of the mobility allowance period depends on on the duration of the employment relationship. The allowance period is 30 days, if  your employment lasts at least 2 months, 45 days, if your employment lasts at least 3 months and 60 days, if your employment lasts at least 4 months.

The allowance is paid for a maximum of 5 days per week. The number of days changes depending on the month and the first day of employment. For part-time employment, mobility allowance is only paid for the days when you are actually working.

FAQ about Openetti

The changes will only take effect with a delay so they are not updated immediately in Personal information.

The applications are updated in the system in automatic runs executed four times a day. This is why the application may not be displayed as having arrived immediately after you have sent it. If you receive a form identifier (such as archive id: 123456) when submitting the form,  your application was sent successfully to the system. This also applies to individual electronic attachments that you have sent using the ‘Send attachments ‘  function.

The applications are updated in the system in automatic runs executed few times a day. This is why the application may not be displayed as having arrived immediately after you have sent it but there may be a delay. If you receive a form identifier (such as archive id: 123456) when submitting the form, the application was sent successfully to the system. This also applies to individual electronic attachments that you have sent using the function Application attachments. You can see the documents that you have sent next day the latest. 

You can see the submitted applications and the attachments through the e-service Openetti (from 26.4.2018). Paper applications sent by post will not be found in Openetti. Applications appear on the service 12 months after their arrival (starting from 26.4.2018 at most).


This can be caused by one of three reasons:

  1. You have submitted your application without attachments and indicated on the application that you would send them separately. Your application will remain pending until you send the attachments and we will not send you a request for additional information. Please submit the attachments that you have indicated in your application.
  2. You have not given permission for e-mail notifications and you have not chosen E-letters in Personal information.  This is why you will not receive an email message about the request for information.
     You will receive the request for additional information by post at your home address.
  3. Your application is waiting for additional information that will not be requested from you. 
    If alternatives 1 or 2 do not apply to your situation, you do not need to do anything. Your application is waiting for additional information that we have requested directly from another authority or your employer. This may refer to, for example, information from the time of your membership in a previous unemployment fund (if you have reported that you have previously been a member of another unemployment fund on your application). We may also be checking information on an attached document regarding your employment from your employer.

The quickest way to be informed of a request for additional information is as follows:
Ensure that your email address is up to date in the service. In Personal information, select Permit e-mail notification. Select also E-letters. 

This will allow you to receive an email message about the request for additional information and then read the electronic letter in Openetti concerning the request for additional information. Please note that you will not receive a separate paper letter about the request for additional information.

This can be caused by one of three reasons:

  1. You have submitted your application without attachments and indicated on the application that you would send them separately. Your application will remain pending until you send the attachments and we will not send you a request for additional information. Please submit the attachments that you have indicated in your application.
  2. You have not given permission for e-mail notifications and you have not chosen E-letters in Personal information.  This is why you will not receive an email message about the request for information.
     You will receive the request for additional information by post at your home address.
  3. Your application is waiting for additional information that will not be requested from you. 
    If alternatives 1 or 2 do not apply to your situation, you do not need to do anything. Your application is waiting for additional information that we have requested directly from another authority or your employer. This may refer to, for example, information from the time of your membership in a previous unemployment fund (if you have reported that you have previously been a member of another unemployment fund on your application). We may also be checking information on an attached document regarding your employment from your employer.

Login is done with the help of Suomi.fi e-identification. This means that you can log into Openetti by using your bank identifiers, citizen certificate (an ID card) or mobile certificate. For more information Public Service Info. If you have any problems in login, please contact Public Service Info.

If you are not able to log into Openetti with the help of Suomi.fi e-identification, you can send your application to us by post.

Please inform us about the problem by sending a message to us: asiakaspalvelu@opetusjatiede.fi. Inform your name and date of birth in your message.

If you have previously filled out an application in Openetti and saved a draft, there can be problems when you return to fill up application again. In these situations, correct the dates in application.

For example, you have saved the draft 26.02.21. The application period is one month and the days are filled until 26.02.21. When you try to send application for the February, application is submitted in accordance with the draft. The system does not correct the application period, you must change the dates until 28.02.21.

You can access the calendar section of the application period by clicking the Edit button in the upper-right corner of Application period information. You can first select your application period.

The other option is delete the draft. If necessary, the draft can be cleared by selecting disable draft saving. Openetti suggest an application period for the correct time. For a month, if this is the application period.

There have been technical problems sending e-mail notifications for some members. The problem is being investigated and efforts are being made to solve the problem as soon as possible.

If your application should already be processed, you should check Openetti to see if you have been sent a letter of request for further information. It’s also a good idea to check Openetti’s Personal Information -section to make sure that the email address is up to date. In addition, it is a good idea to make sure that the e-mail notification has not drifted into the junk e-mail folder.

We have noticed that recent updates of some antivirus programs (such as Avast!) now block access to Openetti. Nonetheless, the Openetti service continues to be a trustworthy website. You can adjust your antivirus settings to allow access to Openetti by setting our website as a trusted site. If you are using Avast!, you should untick ‘Enable HTTPS scanning’ in the browser protection settings.


Clearing the browser’s cookies and cache may also resolve the login problem.

The maximum size of the file attachments is 10 MB, which cannot be exceeded. When scanning documents on your computer, note that they must be saved in .pdf-, .jpg-, .jpeg-, .png-, .gif- or .tiff  format. You should also check the settings of your scanner. You do not need to use photograph quality resolution or colours for scanning documents. We recommend that you select black-and-white document/text as the source material for scanning. If you scan the source material using the option ‘text’ (black-and-white file), this will reduce the file size and allow you to add several attachments to your application.


The size of an individual file will increase if you scan several pages, such as several pay slips, into one file. You can try splitting the documents into two or more files.

You need the Adobe Reader program to use the printable forms. The forms can be used with version 6 or later of the program. You can download the latest version free of charge from Adobe’s website.

The service works best with the Firefox or Chrome. If you use another browser, you may experience difficulties. If you have problems opening the forms, this may also be caused by your internet browser settings. You should make the necessary changes.

This may be avoided by updating your browser and Adobe Reader to the latest versions.

If you have selected that you have been employed, the application form must contain the hours you     worked. You can not mark zero hours. If you are working full-time and weekends is your free time, choose ”Unemloyed”. If you are working also on weekends, put the correct working hours. For example, if you have a part-time job on the weekends.

If you don´t want to mark unemployed on the weekends, follow the instructions below. You can access the calendar section of the application period by clicking the Edit button in the upper-right corner of Information for the application period. First, you have to select what your main activity has been during the application period. In addition to this, you can select several other options for the application period. You can choose ” Employed”. Also choose ”Other reason, what”. You can write here: Free.  When you go futher, this option will be included and you can choose this option for the weekends.

Always report a reason for breaks in the application. The system will not allow you to submit an application without an explanation for the missed time. The time between your applications has to be complete.  Select reason for break from the drop-down menu and also put the correct dates.

Example: Your last application was for the August. Now you are making an application for the Chistmas break. The system directs you to also fill the section: Report a reason for break between the applications.

Follow the instructions below:

1. Press Apply for earnings-related allowance from Openetti’s front page.

2. Change the dates, if necessary (for example 22.12.2020-6.1.2021)

3. Select what your main activity has been during the application period. Select Unemployed.

4. You are applying for a period that is under 4 weeks, please select one reason: Full-time employment for more than two weeks.

5. Starting from: put 07.01.2021 (if you start a full-time work)

6. Report a reason for break between the applications, choose Employed and mark dates 12.08.20 to 21.12.20.

7. Please answer the Pay day -question.


This is an informative notification of the system. This does not prevent your application from being sent. Please continue to fill application in a normal way. If you have not yet registered as a jobseeker, you should register as soon as possible.

You can try to send application only. After that, send the attachements separately using  Send attachements -function. The files need to be in .pdf, .tif, .png or .jpg file format. File name cannot contain  any special characters.


Please check the forms and have you answered all required fields. Usually the programme will   notify you of any missing information in a message appearing on the page. An incomplete application cannot be submitted. You can also try to switch browser. System also saves the draft automatically.  Sometimes the draft ”gets stuck” and the only way to go futher, is to delete the draft and to start all over again. Deleting the draft can be done by choosing x disable draft saving from the top right of the page. After this we recommend unchecking this option again so that the new drafts continue to be saved. By doing this, the possibly stuck draft will be deleted and applying should work again as normal. If you still have problems with the application, please contact our customer service. You can send email and ask for guidance : asiakaspalvelu@opetusjatiede.fi.