The map zooms out to Europe and the areas become countries. The figures come from Eurostat and national statistics for 2021–2025 and are not directly comparable with the Finnish municipal map.
The charts run from demographic change to economic effects, crime, migration and the asylum system, and societal effects. Under each chart's title is a short finding from its figures. The table and the sources are under the chart, and the share button gives a link, an image or the data as a CSV file.
The charts on benefit dependency and on taxes and incomes divide people of foreign background into five groups by background country. The groups come straight from the source, Suomen Perusta's kuntaluvut.fi service.
The chart of the share outside the labour force groups people by citizenship, and its groups are narrower. The large refugee countries are the same four, but Eastern Europe there means Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Estonia, and Western countries Sweden, Germany and the United States. The Middle East there means Iran, Turkey, Egypt and Morocco. Poverty is split by origin into Finnish and foreign background, and labour force survey unemployment into Finnish and foreign citizens.
In most charts the quick choice Large refugee countries picks the same four: Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan and Syria. In the background-country and employment-gap charts the same choice is wider, and in the language chart it picks languages.
The knowledge base brings together statistics and research on immigration in Finland. Start with the tour, browse the questions by topic or see all the articles at the end of the page.
This section collects statistics, research and source material on immigration and integration, and on their effects on crime, the economy and society more broadly. The material is intended for policy and social analysis, not for drawing conclusions about individuals or population groups. Migrants are a large and highly diverse group of people with very different backgrounds and reasons for moving. The aim is not to characterize the group as a whole, but to highlight the partially negative effects associated with certain types of immigration to the country.
The tour takes you through eight questions, one at a time.
Besides the key questions, the topics hold 48 questions. A card opens the article its figure comes from.
The population structure of Finland and Europe is changing faster than public debate often suggests, driven by immigration and birth-rate differences.
The statistics below show the scale of the change in Finland and how it compares with the rest of Europe. The debate also often overlooks that part of the growth in the foreign-background population in fact arises in Finland and does not come from immigration alone. At the same time foreign-background fertility has fallen close to the native level.
The immigration debate often holds that investing in integration in particular is what reduces the problems associated with immigration.
Finland spends a great deal on integration, yet many of its measures show weak results, especially for certain immigrant groups. Integration can be measured from many angles: school outcomes, language skills, residential segregation and the effectiveness of integration measures. Whatever the measure, the differences between background groups are large and narrow slowly. Some groups need practically no integration measures at all, while others absorb considerable spending without particularly successful outcomes.
Immigration is often defended through labour supply and public-finance benefits.
Labour migration can be economically positive, but register data and fiscal models show that the positive effects are not seen among immigrant groups of every migration reason or background country. Humanitarian and family migration in particular show up in the data as higher benefit use and less tax paid. On the other hand, residents on work grounds pay clearly more in taxes than they receive in transfers, and the whole foreign-background population paid slightly more in taxes than it received in transfers in 2023. The use of public services is not included in these comparisons.
Crime is one of the side effects most often raised in the immigration debate.
This section measures it primarily through suspicion records. Suspect statistics describe the earliest stage of the process and overstate the level, but the overrepresentation does not disappear in conviction statistics. At most it shrinks.
Social cohesion should not be taken for granted.
Several studies find a negative relationship between ethnic, and above all cultural, diversity and trust. According to a meta-analysis of the literature, the association is small on average. The values held in Europe's Muslim communities are an example of deep cultural differences. These differences are found above all between people from the main refugee-sending countries and the Finnish or European native population. Cohesion is also tested by whether society's obligations, such as military service, are shared evenly.
The asylum system is justified as protecting the persecuted and helping the world's poorest and most vulnerable.
Most applicants, however, do not meet the criteria for international protection, the system does not reach the world's poorest, and brain drain leaves source countries worse off than before. In Finland about half of first-instance decisions have been positive in recent years, with international protection granted in a little under half of all decisions. Population growth in Africa and the Middle East is explosive. Even if Europe took in only a small share of those countries' people in need, climate migrants or those living in miserable conditions, it would place considerably greater strain on the receiving countries than it does now, while doing practically nothing for the countries they leave.
Immigration divides opinion.
Although parties that have broadly supported and pursued immigration have won a substantial majority of votes in parliamentary elections, criticism of immigration is more common than immigration-critical parties themselves. An often-overlooked side of immigration is its political effects: voting behaviour among people of foreign background differs markedly from that of Finnish-background voters. Immigrants particularly favour parties that push for a more permissive immigration policy. The political effect is weakened by the fact that voter turnout among people of foreign background is markedly lower than among the native population.
Other countries have comparable sites and statistical sources. Finland is roughly 10–20 years behind them in demographic change.
Under each country are the knowledge-base articles that hold its figures and the statistics, map and incident sites about it. There are 13 sites from 9 countries.
The knowledge base has 41 articles in 7 topics. Each opens on its own page with its charts, sources and publications.
The population structure of Finland and Europe is changing faster than public debate often suggests, driven by immigration and birth-rate differences. The statistics below show the scale of the change in Finland and how it compares with the rest of Europe. The debate also often overlooks that part of the growth in the foreign-background population in fact arises in Finland and does not come from immigration alone. At the same time foreign-background fertility has fallen close to the native level.
Demographic change is sometimes branded a conspiracy theory. What can be called a conspiracy theory is the claim of a deliberate and planned replacement of the population with people of foreign background. The two are often conflated, however, so that the discussion of demographic change itself can be set aside.
Whatever the label, the change is there in the statistics. The number of speakers of the domestic languages (Finnish, Swedish, Sámi) has fallen every year since 2014, and over 2000–2025 it shrank by about 75,400 while the number of foreign-language speakers grew by about 547,000. Finland's 21st-century population growth has therefore come entirely from people of foreign background. The same shows in the municipalities: in 2015–2025 the number of domestic-language speakers fell in 264 of 308 municipalities, and in 22 of the 66 municipalities whose population grew, the net growth came entirely from foreign-language speakers.
There were about 37,600 people of foreign background in Finland in 1990 and about 660,800 in 2025. Most of the growth is still foreign-born, but the Finland-born second generation is growing fast and passed 100,000 in 2025. It is also the only foreign-background group whose net migration has been negative every year since 1994, though the numbers are small: in 2025, 951 left the country and 266 came.
Charts: Population structure change
Väestökello is a statistics site run by Suomen Perusta, the Finns Party's think tank, tracking Finland's population changes in real time.
Open the service: väestökello.fi
The chart breaks population change down by language group. The annual change in domestic-language speakers turned negative in 2014 and has not returned to positive since.
| Year | Total population change (Change from previous year, people) | Domestic languages (Finnish, Swedish, Sámi) (Change from previous year, people) | Foreign-language speakers (Change from previous year, people) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | 30,524 | 19,809 | 10,715 |
| 1992 | 25,980 | 17,580 | 8,400 |
| 1993 | 22,930 | 13,574 | 9,356 |
| 1994 | 20,842 | 14,637 | 6,205 |
| 1995 | 18,072 | 11,882 | 6,190 |
| 1996 | 15,494 | 10,202 | 5,292 |
| 1997 | 15,029 | 7,604 | 7,425 |
| 1998 | 12,297 | 4,578 | 7,719 |
| 1999 | 11,656 | 3,792 | 7,864 |
| 2000 | 9,813 | 4,535 | 5,278 |
| 2001 | 13,786 | 3,816 | 9,970 |
| 2002 | 11,394 | 3,578 | 7,816 |
| 2003 | 13,437 | 5,633 | 7,804 |
| 2004 | 16,879 | 8,513 | 8,366 |
| 2005 | 18,969 | 7,818 | 11,151 |
| 2006 | 21,375 | 8,882 | 12,493 |
| 2007 | 23,529 | 7,428 | 16,101 |
| 2008 | 25,830 | 8,220 | 17,610 |
| 2009 | 25,113 | 8,614 | 16,499 |
| 2010 | 23,849 | 6,498 | 17,351 |
| 2011 | 25,991 | 5,552 | 20,439 |
| 2012 | 25,407 | 3,285 | 22,122 |
| 2013 | 24,596 | 2,477 | 22,119 |
| 2014 | 20,483 | -755 | 21,238 |
| 2015 | 15,555 | -3,701 | 19,256 |
| 2016 | 15,989 | -8,442 | 24,431 |
| 2017 | 9,833 | -9,499 | 19,332 |
| 2018 | 4,789 | -13,632 | 18,421 |
| 2019 | 7,373 | -13,525 | 20,898 |
| 2020 | 8,501 | -11,702 | 20,203 |
| 2021 | 14,448 | -10,747 | 25,195 |
| 2022 | 15,729 | -22,221 | 37,950 |
| 2023 | 39,881 | -22,421 | 62,302 |
| 2024 | 32,120 | -19,734 | 51,854 |
| 2025 | 16,910 | -19,334 | 36,244 |
Stacked bars: the lower part is those born abroad, the upper part those born in Finland, and the bar's full height is the foreign-background population in total.
| Year | Foreign background, born abroad | Foreign background, born in Finland |
|---|---|---|
| 1990 | 32,804 | 4,814 |
| 1991 | 44,027 | 5,138 |
| 1992 | 52,127 | 5,566 |
| 1993 | 60,819 | 6,306 |
| 1994 | 66,241 | 7,222 |
| 1995 | 71,633 | 8,217 |
| 1996 | 75,877 | 9,243 |
| 1997 | 82,227 | 10,394 |
| 1998 | 88,695 | 11,623 |
| 1999 | 94,410 | 12,985 |
| 2000 | 98,977 | 14,268 |
| 2001 | 107,140 | 15,664 |
| 2002 | 113,298 | 17,128 |
| 2003 | 119,309 | 18,730 |
| 2004 | 125,850 | 20,374 |
| 2005 | 135,143 | 22,216 |
| 2006 | 145,584 | 24,224 |
| 2007 | 159,346 | 26,463 |
| 2008 | 174,543 | 28,898 |
| 2009 | 188,249 | 31,606 |
| 2010 | 202,443 | 34,623 |
| 2011 | 219,666 | 37,828 |
| 2012 | 238,208 | 41,408 |
| 2013 | 256,241 | 45,283 |
| 2014 | 273,306 | 49,405 |
| 2015 | 286,803 | 53,122 |
| 2016 | 306,840 | 57,947 |
| 2017 | 321,494 | 62,629 |
| 2018 | 335,414 | 67,205 |
| 2019 | 351,721 | 71,773 |
| 2020 | 367,417 | 76,614 |
| 2021 | 388,196 | 81,437 |
| 2022 | 422,121 | 86,052 |
| 2023 | 480,303 | 90,965 |
| 2024 | 527,613 | 96,336 |
| 2025 | 558,617 | 102,183 |
Foreign background passes from the parents, so the group includes children born in Finland. How large that part is says which group is turning from an immigrant population into a settled one. Of people of Somali background 40.5 % were born in Finland, of Ukrainian background 5.2 %. The difference follows from when the migration happened and from the group's fertility.
| Group | % of the background group |
|---|---|
| Somalia | 40.5 |
| Former Yugoslavia | 32.1 |
| Sweden | 28.1 |
| DR Congo | 27.6 |
| Morocco | 26.0 |
| Iraq | 23.0 |
| Türkiye | 20.1 |
| Afghanistan | 19.2 |
| Vietnam | 18.8 |
| Nigeria | 16.4 |
| Pakistan | 16.3 |
| Syria | 15.9 |
| Estonia | 15.7 |
| Russia | 14.8 |
| Iran | 14.5 |
| Romania | 14.3 |
| Bangladesh | 14.0 |
| Former Soviet Union | 12.7 |
| India | 11.5 |
| China | 11.4 |
| Nepal | 11.1 |
| Poland | 10.7 |
| Germany | 8.4 |
| United States | 6.8 |
| Philippines | 5.8 |
| Sri Lanka | 5.5 |
| Ukraine | 5.2 |
| Thailand | 5.2 |
| United Kingdom | 3.7 |
The foreign-background population is markedly younger than the Finnish-background population. Of the foreign-background population 12.2% are aged 35–39, against 6.0% of the Finnish-background population. With no migration in either direction, the foreign-background share would therefore grow in the site's population model until 2053, from 11.7% to 13.8%. The Finnish-background population does not grow through its own natural increase, and Finland's population growth today rests almost entirely on immigration. The difference in age structure only accelerates demographic change.
| Age | Finnish background (% of group) | Foreign background (% of group) |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 4.0 | 5.3 |
| 5 | 4.4 | 6.5 |
| 10 | 5.4 | 6.6 |
| 15 | 5.7 | 6.1 |
| 20 | 5.5 | 6.5 |
| 25 | 5.5 | 8.9 |
| 30 | 6.2 | 10.9 |
| 35 | 6.0 | 12.2 |
| 40 | 6.2 | 10.4 |
| 45 | 6.1 | 7.7 |
| 50 | 5.7 | 5.6 |
| 55 | 6.3 | 4.3 |
| 60 | 6.8 | 3.4 |
| 65 | 6.5 | 2.4 |
| 70 | 6.4 | 1.5 |
| 75 | 6.2 | 0.9 |
| 80 | 3.7 | 0.5 |
| 85 | 2.1 | 0.3 |
| 90 | 0.9 | 0.1 |
| 95 | 0.3 | 0.0 |
| Year | Native background (% of population) | Foreign background (% of population) |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 98 | 2 |
| 2001 | 98 | 2 |
| 2002 | 98 | 3 |
| 2003 | 97 | 3 |
| 2004 | 97 | 3 |
| 2005 | 97 | 3 |
| 2006 | 97 | 3 |
| 2007 | 97 | 4 |
| 2008 | 96 | 4 |
| 2009 | 96 | 4 |
| 2010 | 96 | 4 |
| 2011 | 95 | 5 |
| 2012 | 95 | 5 |
| 2013 | 95 | 6 |
| 2014 | 94 | 6 |
| 2015 | 94 | 6 |
| 2016 | 93 | 7 |
| 2017 | 93 | 7 |
| 2018 | 93 | 7 |
| 2019 | 92 | 8 |
| 2020 | 92 | 8 |
| 2021 | 92 | 9 |
| 2022 | 91 | 9 |
| 2023 | 90 | 10 |
| 2024 | 89 | 11 |
| 2025 | 88 | 12 |
| 2026 | 88 | 12 |
| 2027 | 87 | 13 |
| 2028 | 86 | 14 |
| 2029 | 85 | 15 |
| 2030 | 85 | 15 |
| 2031 | 84 | 16 |
| 2032 | 83 | 17 |
| 2033 | 83 | 18 |
| 2034 | 82 | 18 |
| 2035 | 81 | 19 |
| 2036 | 80 | 20 |
| 2037 | 80 | 21 |
| 2038 | 79 | 21 |
| 2039 | 78 | 22 |
| 2040 | 77 | 23 |
| 2041 | 77 | 23 |
| 2042 | 76 | 24 |
| 2043 | 75 | 25 |
| 2044 | 74 | 26 |
| 2045 | 74 | 26 |
| 2046 | 73 | 27 |
| 2047 | 72 | 28 |
| 2048 | 72 | 28 |
| 2049 | 71 | 29 |
| 2050 | 70 | 30 |
| 2051 | 70 | 31 |
| 2052 | 69 | 31 |
| 2053 | 68 | 32 |
| 2054 | 68 | 33 |
| 2055 | 67 | 33 |
| 2056 | 66 | 34 |
| 2057 | 66 | 35 |
| 2058 | 65 | 35 |
| 2059 | 64 | 36 |
| 2060 | 64 | 36 |
| 2061 | 63 | 37 |
| 2062 | 63 | 38 |
| 2063 | 62 | 38 |
| 2064 | 61 | 39 |
| 2065 | 61 | 39 |
| 2066 | 60 | 40 |
| 2067 | 60 | 40 |
| 2068 | 59 | 41 |
| 2069 | 59 | 41 |
| 2070 | 58 | 42 |
| 2071 | 58 | 42 |
| 2072 | 57 | 43 |
| 2073 | 57 | 43 |
| 2074 | 56 | 44 |
| 2075 | 56 | 44 |
| 2076 | 55 | 45 |
| 2077 | 55 | 45 |
| 2078 | 55 | 46 |
| 2079 | 54 | 46 |
| 2080 | 54 | 46 |
| 2081 | 53 | 47 |
| 2082 | 53 | 47 |
| 2083 | 53 | 48 |
| 2084 | 52 | 48 |
| 2085 | 52 | 48 |
| 2086 | 51 | 49 |
| 2087 | 51 | 49 |
| 2088 | 51 | 49 |
| 2089 | 50 | 50 |
| 2090 | 50 | 50 |
| 2091 | 50 | 50 |
| 2092 | 49 | 51 |
| 2093 | 49 | 51 |
| 2094 | 49 | 51 |
| 2095 | 49 | 51 |
| 2096 | 48 | 52 |
| 2097 | 48 | 52 |
| 2098 | 48 | 52 |
| 2099 | 48 | 53 |
| 2100 | 47 | 53 |
| Year | Other Asian languages (People) | Middle Eastern and North African languages (People) | Russian and other former Soviet languages (excl. Baltic) (People) | Western European languages (People) | Other African languages (People) | Eastern European languages (People) | Baltic languages (People) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 11,787 | 11,910 | 29,095 | 16,982 | 7,663 | 9,332 | 10,511 |
| 2001 | 13,016 | 13,109 | 32,108 | 18,208 | 8,252 | 10,476 | 11,511 |
| 2002 | 13,876 | 14,262 | 34,483 | 19,077 | 8,814 | 10,694 | 12,413 |
| 2003 | 15,399 | 15,400 | 36,532 | 20,340 | 9,535 | 11,416 | 13,290 |
| 2004 | 16,832 | 17,732 | 38,719 | 21,011 | 10,120 | 11,933 | 14,428 |
| 2005 | 18,733 | 19,348 | 41,316 | 22,592 | 10,907 | 12,630 | 16,102 |
| 2006 | 20,788 | 20,852 | 44,037 | 24,490 | 11,705 | 13,569 | 18,343 |
| 2007 | 23,455 | 22,566 | 47,340 | 26,832 | 13,059 | 15,094 | 20,792 |
| 2008 | 26,475 | 24,545 | 51,172 | 28,847 | 14,652 | 16,929 | 23,478 |
| 2009 | 29,659 | 26,843 | 54,410 | 30,411 | 16,192 | 18,147 | 26,358 |
| 2010 | 32,456 | 29,267 | 57,545 | 32,209 | 18,025 | 19,364 | 30,010 |
| 2011 | 35,727 | 31,626 | 61,702 | 34,304 | 19,660 | 20,804 | 34,838 |
| 2012 | 39,054 | 34,291 | 66,336 | 36,501 | 21,145 | 22,515 | 40,331 |
| 2013 | 42,544 | 37,407 | 70,647 | 38,759 | 22,745 | 24,353 | 45,100 |
| 2014 | 46,269 | 40,866 | 74,485 | 41,423 | 24,459 | 26,290 | 48,608 |
| 2015 | 50,061 | 44,274 | 77,874 | 43,739 | 26,297 | 28,109 | 50,766 |
| 2016 | 54,060 | 52,768 | 81,610 | 46,155 | 28,414 | 29,879 | 52,135 |
| 2017 | 57,550 | 60,087 | 84,210 | 47,996 | 30,050 | 31,458 | 52,792 |
| 2018 | 61,477 | 65,115 | 87,319 | 50,057 | 31,872 | 33,106 | 53,244 |
| 2019 | 66,583 | 70,150 | 90,883 | 52,992 | 33,640 | 35,052 | 53,311 |
| 2020 | 70,738 | 74,714 | 94,600 | 56,152 | 35,367 | 36,979 | 53,827 |
| 2021 | 75,811 | 79,262 | 99,742 | 60,717 | 37,042 | 39,536 | 55,051 |
| 2022 | 86,390 | 85,193 | 108,563 | 66,444 | 39,343 | 42,688 | 55,704 |
| 2023 | 103,914 | 91,390 | 133,699 | 72,513 | 42,014 | 46,014 | 56,037 |
| 2024 | 122,734 | 97,155 | 149,609 | 77,114 | 45,160 | 47,844 | 55,622 |
| 2025 | 138,020 | 101,841 | 158,015 | 79,993 | 48,090 | 48,183 | 54,583 |
| 2026 | 147,526 | 107,882 | 165,755 | 84,187 | 51,723 | 50,247 | 54,975 |
| 2027 | 156,567 | 113,983 | 173,417 | 87,875 | 54,295 | 52,318 | 55,346 |
| 2028 | 165,603 | 120,139 | 181,076 | 91,557 | 56,888 | 54,392 | 55,695 |
| 2029 | 174,633 | 126,345 | 188,729 | 95,233 | 59,499 | 56,470 | 56,019 |
| 2030 | 183,655 | 132,601 | 196,375 | 98,902 | 62,127 | 58,549 | 56,316 |
| 2031 | 192,671 | 138,906 | 204,012 | 102,564 | 64,772 | 60,630 | 56,587 |
| 2032 | 201,661 | 145,268 | 211,664 | 106,210 | 67,422 | 62,712 | 56,839 |
| 2033 | 210,624 | 151,686 | 219,327 | 109,842 | 70,078 | 64,795 | 57,072 |
| 2034 | 219,563 | 158,159 | 226,998 | 113,458 | 72,743 | 66,878 | 57,286 |
| 2035 | 228,479 | 164,685 | 234,677 | 117,061 | 75,417 | 68,963 | 57,479 |
| 2036 | 237,368 | 171,261 | 242,357 | 120,649 | 78,103 | 71,048 | 57,651 |
| 2037 | 246,240 | 177,880 | 250,032 | 124,226 | 80,799 | 73,135 | 57,800 |
| 2038 | 255,096 | 184,545 | 257,703 | 127,792 | 83,511 | 75,224 | 57,925 |
| 2039 | 263,931 | 191,249 | 265,364 | 131,347 | 86,238 | 77,313 | 58,026 |
| 2040 | 272,744 | 197,988 | 273,011 | 134,888 | 88,981 | 79,404 | 58,103 |
The cities of Espoo, Helsinki and Vantaa together with the Regional Council of Uusimaa published a forecast of Uusimaa's foreign-language population for 2022–2040 in August 2023. The forecast projects the total foreign-language population growing from about 53,000 (2000) to over 554,000 (2040). Realised statistics run through 2021. Everything from 2022 onward is the report's own projection, not measured data. The vertical line separates realised statistics from the report's forecast. The report was published in 2023. Actual population growth in 2022–2025 has in fact already exceeded the report's projections, as immigration to Finland has been at record highs in those years.
| Year | Other Asian languages (People) | Middle Eastern and North African languages (People) | Russian and other former Soviet languages (excl. Baltic) (People) | Western European languages (People) | Other African languages (People) | Eastern European languages (People) | Baltic languages (People) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 7,474 | 5,757 | 13,108 | 9,995 | 6,561 | 4,046 | 6,080 |
| 2001 | 8,208 | 6,309 | 14,245 | 10,778 | 7,133 | 4,704 | 6,756 |
| 2002 | 8,754 | 6,961 | 15,223 | 11,195 | 7,724 | 5,009 | 7,361 |
| 2003 | 9,654 | 7,614 | 16,205 | 11,988 | 8,299 | 5,481 | 7,926 |
| 2004 | 10,390 | 8,541 | 17,158 | 12,153 | 8,760 | 5,704 | 8,392 |
| 2005 | 11,579 | 9,416 | 18,450 | 13,136 | 9,390 | 6,219 | 9,341 |
| 2006 | 12,825 | 10,301 | 19,785 | 14,429 | 9,975 | 6,652 | 10,691 |
| 2007 | 14,376 | 11,151 | 21,570 | 15,930 | 10,804 | 7,260 | 12,320 |
| 2008 | 16,060 | 12,184 | 23,327 | 17,133 | 11,772 | 8,001 | 14,153 |
| 2009 | 17,975 | 13,364 | 24,808 | 18,013 | 12,586 | 8,604 | 16,060 |
| 2010 | 19,459 | 14,447 | 26,355 | 19,065 | 13,391 | 9,154 | 18,415 |
| 2011 | 21,359 | 15,689 | 28,335 | 20,361 | 14,255 | 9,755 | 21,653 |
| 2012 | 23,339 | 17,081 | 30,514 | 21,712 | 15,171 | 10,439 | 25,341 |
| 2013 | 25,445 | 18,720 | 32,599 | 23,023 | 16,149 | 11,127 | 28,829 |
| 2014 | 27,686 | 20,676 | 34,614 | 24,741 | 17,320 | 12,046 | 31,274 |
| 2015 | 29,903 | 22,815 | 36,624 | 26,100 | 18,795 | 12,764 | 32,983 |
| 2016 | 32,169 | 26,939 | 38,649 | 27,556 | 20,448 | 13,825 | 34,141 |
| 2017 | 34,624 | 31,086 | 40,474 | 28,756 | 21,787 | 14,816 | 34,606 |
| 2018 | 37,461 | 34,543 | 42,436 | 30,126 | 23,341 | 15,807 | 34,855 |
| 2019 | 41,209 | 37,791 | 44,693 | 32,092 | 24,947 | 17,144 | 34,947 |
| 2020 | 44,193 | 40,948 | 46,684 | 34,062 | 26,275 | 18,398 | 35,206 |
| 2021 | 47,226 | 44,010 | 49,174 | 36,629 | 27,646 | 19,944 | 36,095 |
| 2022 | 50,605 | 47,113 | 51,358 | 38,307 | 29,186 | 21,377 | 36,556 |
| 2023 | 54,055 | 50,184 | 53,565 | 40,029 | 30,761 | 22,887 | 37,005 |
| 2024 | 57,570 | 53,221 | 55,793 | 41,792 | 32,367 | 24,477 | 37,443 |
| 2025 | 61,149 | 56,224 | 58,041 | 43,596 | 34,003 | 26,146 | 37,872 |
| 2026 | 64,789 | 59,190 | 60,309 | 45,441 | 35,666 | 27,897 | 38,290 |
| 2027 | 68,486 | 62,120 | 62,597 | 47,327 | 37,354 | 29,728 | 38,700 |
| 2028 | 72,241 | 65,013 | 64,905 | 49,251 | 39,065 | 31,642 | 39,101 |
| 2029 | 76,051 | 67,868 | 67,234 | 51,214 | 40,798 | 33,639 | 39,496 |
| 2030 | 79,916 | 70,684 | 69,583 | 53,216 | 42,553 | 35,718 | 39,885 |
| 2031 | 83,836 | 73,462 | 71,953 | 55,257 | 44,329 | 37,883 | 40,268 |
| 2032 | 87,809 | 76,201 | 74,345 | 57,336 | 46,127 | 40,132 | 40,648 |
| 2033 | 91,838 | 78,900 | 76,759 | 59,454 | 47,946 | 42,467 | 41,024 |
| 2034 | 95,924 | 81,560 | 79,195 | 61,612 | 49,786 | 44,890 | 41,395 |
| 2035 | 100,065 | 84,181 | 81,654 | 63,808 | 51,649 | 47,401 | 41,763 |
| 2036 | 104,265 | 86,763 | 84,133 | 66,045 | 53,537 | 50,000 | 42,125 |
| 2037 | 108,520 | 89,305 | 86,634 | 68,321 | 55,451 | 52,689 | 42,482 |
| 2038 | 112,835 | 91,805 | 89,154 | 70,639 | 57,394 | 55,467 | 42,831 |
| 2039 | 117,208 | 94,262 | 91,694 | 72,998 | 59,366 | 58,335 | 43,172 |
| 2040 | 121,641 | 96,673 | 94,251 | 75,400 | 61,369 | 61,293 | 43,503 |
Replacementclock.org ("Great Replacement Clock") shows the White, or European-descended, share of the population in 45 countries from 1950 to 2100. The site is run by the writer Leo Pier. No country records this share directly, so the figures are the site's own estimates derived from official statistics. Past years are reconstructions and future years are scenarios.
Open the service: replacementclock.org
The foreign-born share of the population has risen rapidly in most of Western Europe over the past 15 years. In Germany, for instance, it rose from 12.0% to 20.5%, about 1.7 times, and in Sweden from 14.3% to 20.8%, nearly one and a half times.
| Group | 2010 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Luxembourg | 32.5 | 51.5 |
| Ireland | 16.1 | 23.3 |
| Austria | 15.3 | 22.5 |
| Iceland | 11.0 | 21.8 |
| Sweden | 14.3 | 20.8 |
| Germany | 12.0 | 20.5 |
| Belgium | 13.9 | 20.2 |
| Spain | 13.5 | 19.3 |
| United Kingdom | 11.3 | 18.9 |
| Norway | 10.8 | 18.7 |
| Estonia | 16.3 | 17.8 |
| Netherlands | 11.1 | 16.8 |
| Slovenia | 12.4 | 15.5 |
| Denmark | 9.0 | 14.4 |
| France | 11.3 | 14.0 |
| Latvia | 14.8 | 11.6 |
| Greece | 11.9 | 11.0 |
| Finland | 4.3 | 10.0 |
| Lithuania | 5.1 | 9.7 |
| Poland | 1.7 | 2.6 |
The projection assumed Finland would gain 20,000 people from net migration in 2021 and 15,000 a year after that. Actual net migration has been clearly higher, peaking at 57,914 in 2023. The projection does not break the population down by language or origin.
According to senior researcher Pasi Saukkonen, at the end of 2023 Helsinki had 134,084 residents of foreign background, about one fifth of the area's population. Of these, 109,300 were themselves born abroad and 24,784 born in Finland, so the growth is still overwhelmingly first-generation immigrants. The city grew by 10,472 people in 2023, of which 10,219 came from net migration. Of Helsinki's net migration, 81% was international and 19% domestic. The largest background countries were Russia and the former Soviet Union, Estonia, Somalia, Iraq, China and Sweden, but the fastest growth in 2020–2023 came from the Philippines (+1,457), Bangladesh (+958) and Sri Lanka (+765). The Asian-origin share of the foreign-born population rose from 28% (2020) to 32% (2023), and students' share of residence permits granted from 14% (2020) to 25% (2023).
Statistics Finland's latest population projection (24 October 2024) estimates that net migration continuing at its current level would raise Finland's population to 6.5 million by 2070. For 2060 it gives 6.34 million, where the projections made between 2009 and 2021 put the same figure between 5.3 and 6.2 million. It does not break the population down by language. In the projection, population growth rests on immigration rather than on births.
Iltalehti, 21 May 2025. An analysis published by the Kalevi Sorsa Foundation, written by Aapo Hiilamo, a doctor of demography. It is a stochastic population projection built on the model developed by University of Washington researchers for the UN's projections, which forecasts a probability distribution rather than a single figure. The seven million of the headline is the upper end of that distribution, not its central value: the median for 2050 is about 6.2 million, very close to Statistics Finland's own point projection. Hiilamo's central claim is that growth in the population and in the number of employed rests on migration alone, because the forecast ranges for births and deaths are far narrower than the one for migration, and that successful immigration could add more than a million people by 2050 against a scenario where net migration settles lower. The analysis cites a Ministry of Finance sensitivity calculation in which a permanent rise of 7,500 people in annual net migration would cut the sustainability gap by about 0.3 percentage points of GDP, about €0.9bn by the analysis's conversion. The ministry assumed that the population's average income level, use of public services and benefits, and employment rate stay unchanged as net migration rises (Ministry of Finance, method description of the sustainability-gap calculations, 2 October 2023). The analysis also notes that Statistics Finland raised its net migration assumption by 25,000 to 40,000. The same article carries the opposing figure: Sitra's spring 2025 stochastic projection puts about 24,000 a year as the best match to what has actually happened, and says that even at that level the problems of ageing are not removed but postponed by a few decades. Both are projections, not measurements.
In 2025, 14,168 foreign citizens permanently resident in Finland acquired Finnish citizenship, 2,656 more than in 2024 (+23%) and the highest number during Finland's independence. Most went to Iraqi citizens (1,960, or 14% of all citizenships granted), followed by Russian (1,494), Syrian (1,282) and Afghan (1,075) citizens. 92% of them kept their previous citizenship. Naturalisation was tightened on 1 October 2024: the required period of residence is now generally 8 years instead of the previous 5, or 5 years if the language requirement is met. The change applies only to applications submitted on or after that date, so it is barely reflected in the 2025 figures yet.
Statistics Norway (SSB) also projects the share of immigrants and their Norwegian-born children in the population. The group corresponds to Statistics Finland's foreign background, whose parents were both born abroad, and its share is 21.8% now. In the main alternative the share is 29.0% in 2050 and 32.0% in 2100. In the high-immigration alternative it is 43.0% in 2100, and with immigration held constant 36.2%. None of SSB's alternatives passes half. The share among those under 18 falls in the main alternative from 22.7% to 18.3% by 2100, because the children of immigrants' Norwegian-born children no longer belong to the group. The site's own calculation follows the same rule, and in it the share among those under 18 grows more slowly than the whole population's. The site's share still passes half, for two reasons. Its net migration relative to the population is about twice that of SSB's main alternative. SSB also assumes fertility rising from 1.48 in 2025 to 1.63 by 2040, while the site's calculation holds the Finnish background's rate at its 2025 level of 1.29. If the Finnish background's fertility followed SSB's assumption, the share in the site's calculation would be 47.0% in 2100 and would not pass half.
Helsingin Sanomat published a calculation suggesting the number of descendants of today's Finnish-background population could fall from about 5 million to under 1 million by 2113 at the current fertility rate (1.25). It was a thought experiment by Heikki Bergholm, not a scientific study. It was based on 2022 birth data (~38,600 births to the native-background population) and an unchanged 81-year life expectancy.
The population stood at 5,652,881 at the end of 2025 and grew by 16,910, almost half of the previous year's increase. There were 660,800 people of foreign background, 11.7% of the population. The second generation passed 100,000 for the first time and has doubled in 11 years. The share was highest in Uusimaa (20.1%) and lowest in South Ostrobothnia (4.9%), and the highest share among municipalities was in Vantaa (30.5%). There were 646,392 foreign-language speakers, 11.4% of the population, the largest groups Russian (102,618), Estonian (48,495) and Ukrainian (46,696).
Professor Matti Virén calculated on X that the foreign-background population grew from 37,600 in 1990 to 660,800 in 2025, an average of 8.6% a year. If the same annual growth compounded until 2060, there would then be 11.8 million. Virén puts the Finnish-background population at about 4.5 million then and the whole population at about 16 million. He compares this with the official population projections, in which the population is about 6.5 million. By his count growth averaged 7.2% a year in 2015–2025. Virén chairs the board of Suomen Perusta, the Finns Party's think tank.
The number of people speaking a domestic language (Finnish, Swedish, Sámi) fell below five million in March 2026 for the first time in 34 years: 4,999,717 people at the end of March, 88% of the population. The population shrank by 1,948 in January–March 2026. Statistics Finland attributes the fall to natural decrease, as deaths exceeded births by 4,308. Net migration was positive, at 1,556, but did not cover the gap, because the Finland–Estonia population-register treaty caused more emigration than usual to be recorded. Emigration recorded from Uusimaa, for example, rose by 2,913. The increase comes from the register treaty rather than a new wave of departures. In 2025, 18% of babies were born to foreign-language mothers.
Erik Dale's private website, headlined “Når blir nordmenn minoritet i eget land?” (“When do Norwegians become a minority in their own country?”), uses an interactive cohort model built on SSB's tables to compute the share under three lineage rules. If a child counts as immigrant background whenever at least one parent does, the share passes half in 2069 with immigration held constant. On SSB's own definition, under which the third generation leaves the group, the share does not pass half on any of the six migration paths. The model is not an SSB projection, and its author lists the model's simplifications. The site's population projection tool offers the same choice: on the broader rule Finland's share would pass half earlier than on Statistics Finland's rule.
Alongside migration, fertility is a significant factor in demographic change. Fertility has fallen steeply since the early 1990s among both Finnish-background and foreign-background women, and the gap between the groups has narrowed in the process. That combined foreign-background figure hides wide variation by background country. Women from Syria, Pakistan, Iraq, Bangladesh, Somalia and Afghanistan still exceed 2.0 children per woman, while those from China, the Philippines and Vietnam fall below the Finnish-background rate.
The difference shows up a generation later. A small first generation still produces a large second one where fertility is high.
Charts: Total fertility rate by background country
| Year | Finnish background (Children / woman) | Foreign background (Children / woman) |
|---|---|---|
| 1990 | 1.77 | 2.61 |
| 1991 | 1.79 | 2.46 |
| 1992 | 1.84 | 2.47 |
| 1993 | 1.80 | 2.54 |
| 1994 | 1.83 | 2.63 |
| 1995 | 1.79 | 2.50 |
| 1996 | 1.75 | 2.53 |
| 1997 | 1.73 | 2.52 |
| 1998 | 1.68 | 2.46 |
| 1999 | 1.72 | 2.39 |
| 2000 | 1.71 | 2.26 |
| 2001 | 1.71 | 2.29 |
| 2002 | 1.70 | 2.19 |
| 2003 | 1.74 | 2.14 |
| 2004 | 1.79 | 2.13 |
| 2005 | 1.79 | 2.17 |
| 2006 | 1.82 | 2.20 |
| 2007 | 1.81 | 2.10 |
| 2008 | 1.83 | 2.05 |
| 2009 | 1.85 | 2.05 |
| 2010 | 1.85 | 2.10 |
| 2011 | 1.81 | 2.03 |
| 2012 | 1.78 | 2.04 |
| 2013 | 1.73 | 1.96 |
| 2014 | 1.68 | 2.01 |
| 2015 | 1.62 | 1.95 |
| 2016 | 1.53 | 1.94 |
| 2017 | 1.45 | 1.85 |
| 2018 | 1.36 | 1.81 |
| 2019 | 1.30 | 1.74 |
| 2020 | 1.33 | 1.71 |
| 2021 | 1.43 | 1.66 |
| 2022 | 1.29 | 1.51 |
| 2023 | 1.23 | 1.41 |
| 2024 | 1.23 | 1.39 |
The figures are a single year's snapshot. How each background country's rate has moved since 1990 is in the total fertility rate chart on the Charts page.
| Group | Children / woman |
|---|---|
| Syria | 2.52 |
| Pakistan | 2.48 |
| Iraq | 2.34 |
| Bangladesh | 2.31 |
| Somalia | 2.21 |
| Afghanistan | 2.16 |
| Former Yugoslavia | 2.15 |
| Turkey | 1.43 |
| All foreign backgrounds | 1.41 |
| Iran | 1.29 |
| India | 1.27 |
| Finland | 1.23 |
| Ukraine | 1.22 |
| Estonia | 1.13 |
| Vietnam | 0.98 |
| Former Soviet Union | 0.98 |
| Philippines | 0.88 |
| China | 0.69 |
The share of newborns with a foreign-background mother has grown many times over since 1990. Over the same period total births have fallen steeply, and markedly fewer children are now born to Finnish-background mothers than at the start of the 1990s. The share of births is larger than the foreign-background share of the population mainly because a larger part of foreign-background women are of childbearing age. A second reason is slightly higher fertility: in 2024 the total fertility rate was 1.39 for the foreign background and 1.23 for the Finnish background.
| Year | Share of births to foreign-background mothers (%) |
|---|---|
| 1990 | 1.3 |
| 1991 | 1.6 |
| 1992 | 2.0 |
| 1993 | 2.4 |
| 1994 | 2.8 |
| 1995 | 3.0 |
| 1996 | 3.3 |
| 1997 | 3.6 |
| 1998 | 4.0 |
| 1999 | 4.1 |
| 2000 | 4.2 |
| 2001 | 4.7 |
| 2002 | 4.9 |
| 2003 | 5.0 |
| 2004 | 5.1 |
| 2005 | 5.6 |
| 2006 | 6.0 |
| 2007 | 6.3 |
| 2008 | 6.6 |
| 2009 | 7.1 |
| 2010 | 7.8 |
| 2011 | 8.3 |
| 2012 | 9.1 |
| 2013 | 9.7 |
| 2014 | 10.9 |
| 2015 | 11.5 |
| 2016 | 12.7 |
| 2017 | 13.4 |
| 2018 | 14.4 |
| 2019 | 14.9 |
| 2020 | 15.0 |
| 2021 | 14.4 |
| 2022 | 15.3 |
| 2023 | 16.6 |
| 2024 | 17.9 |
| Group | births |
|---|---|
| Former Soviet Union | 779 |
| Somalia | 526 |
| Iraq | 477 |
| Estonia | 398 |
| Afghanistan | 298 |
| Former Yugoslavia | 279 |
| India | 276 |
| Bangladesh | 259 |
| Ukraine | 255 |
| Philippines | 255 |
| Vietnam | 228 |
| Syria | 207 |
Pick a background country from the menu. The line is live births by the mother's background country, year by year.
| Year | All foreign background countries (births) |
|---|---|
| 1990 | 879 |
| 1991 | 1,020 |
| 1992 | 1,313 |
| 1993 | 1,587 |
| 1994 | 1,825 |
| 1995 | 1,881 |
| 1996 | 1,989 |
| 1997 | 2,133 |
| 1998 | 2,267 |
| 1999 | 2,382 |
| 2000 | 2,381 |
| 2001 | 2,633 |
| 2002 | 2,696 |
| 2003 | 2,825 |
| 2004 | 2,959 |
| 2005 | 3,220 |
| 2006 | 3,516 |
| 2007 | 3,690 |
| 2008 | 3,923 |
| 2009 | 4,290 |
| 2010 | 4,760 |
| 2011 | 4,969 |
| 2012 | 5,415 |
| 2013 | 5,625 |
| 2014 | 6,219 |
| 2015 | 6,363 |
| 2016 | 6,700 |
| 2017 | 6,725 |
| 2018 | 6,833 |
| 2019 | 6,815 |
| 2020 | 6,962 |
| 2021 | 7,130 |
| 2022 | 6,884 |
| 2023 | 7,209 |
| 2024 | 7,831 |
According to ETLA's review, the total fertility rate was down to 1.25 in 2024, the lowest in measurement history, against a replacement level of 2.07. Replacement was last exceeded in 1968. The population stood at 5,656,900 at the start of 2026 (0.34% growth on the year), and 623,949 people, 11% of permanent residents, had a foreign background at the start of 2025. Life expectancy in 2024 was 79.6 years for men and 84.8 for women, there were 1.3 million single-person households (28% of the population), and 22,000 marriages were solemnised against 33,000 in 2008. ETLA stresses that migration decides the direction of population change and that migration is the most volatile part of any such projection.
A piece in HS's Visio section on the Belgian demographer Ron Lesthaeghe, who estimates that the number of people of Finnish background, those with a Finnish mother or father, will fall below half of the present figure by 2100. He describes a "double storm" facing Finland: a care crisis followed by a severe labour shortage. Lesthaeghe endorses the calculation by Heikki Bergholm published in HS on 25 March 2024 on how the number of people of Finnish origin and their descendants would develop at a total fertility rate of 1.25.
VisQuill draws a population pyramid, the age distribution of mortality and the age profile of fertility for every country from the UN World Population Prospects 2024, covering 1953–2023, and countries can be compared side by side.
Open the service: visquill.com
According to Statistics Norway (SSB), Norway's total fertility rate rose to 1.48 in 2025. The rate for immigrant women fell to 1.44 and was below the national rate for the first time. In 2011 the rate was 2.12 for immigrant women and 1.88 for the whole country. In 2025 the rate was 1.40 for the Norwegian-born daughters of immigrants and 1.51 for the rest of the population.
| Year | Rest of the population (Children / woman) | Immigrants (Children / woman) | Norwegian-born daughters of immigrants (Children / woman) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 1.85 | 2.12 | 1.60 |
| 2012 | 1.83 | 2.05 | 1.66 |
| 2013 | 1.76 | 1.98 | 1.54 |
| 2014 | 1.73 | 1.95 | 1.61 |
| 2015 | 1.70 | 1.94 | 1.52 |
| 2016 | 1.67 | 1.92 | 1.62 |
| 2017 | 1.56 | 1.93 | 1.54 |
| 2018 | 1.50 | 1.87 | 1.48 |
| 2019 | 1.48 | 1.77 | 1.53 |
| 2020 | 1.44 | 1.68 | 1.42 |
| 2021 | 1.54 | 1.67 | 1.46 |
| 2022 | 1.40 | 1.50 | 1.31 |
| 2023 | 1.40 | 1.46 | 1.37 |
| 2024 | 1.45 | 1.47 | 1.40 |
| 2025 | 1.51 | 1.44 | 1.40 |
The combined rate of 1.44 for immigrant women hides wide differences between countries of birth. According to SSB, the rate was 2.81 for women born in Eritrea, 2.34 for women born in Syria and 0.88 for women born in Ukraine. Among the continents, the rate was highest for women born in Africa, at 2.04.
| Group | Children / woman |
|---|---|
| Eritrea | 2.81 |
| Syria | 2.34 |
| Africa | 2.04 |
| Asia | 1.65 |
| Other women | 1.51 |
| Whole country | 1.48 |
| All immigrants | 1.44 |
| 2nd generation | 1.40 |
| Other Europe | 1.23 |
| EU and EFTA | 1.17 |
| Ukraine | 0.88 |
According to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the total fertility rate of women with German citizenship fell to 1.20 in 2025. The rate for women with foreign citizenship was 1.78, against 1.84 in 2024. The rate for foreign citizens has fallen every year since 2017 except 2021. The rate for the whole country was 1.32.
| Year | German citizens (Children / woman) | Foreign citizens (Children / woman) |
|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 1.356 | 1.801 |
| 2013 | 1.367 | 1.825 |
| 2014 | 1.417 | 1.909 |
| 2015 | 1.427 | 2.023 |
| 2016 | 1.465 | 2.383 |
| 2017 | 1.454 | 2.271 |
| 2018 | 1.450 | 2.261 |
| 2019 | 1.431 | 2.219 |
| 2020 | 1.432 | 2.176 |
| 2021 | 1.494 | 2.206 |
| 2022 | 1.367 | 2.058 |
| 2023 | 1.266 | 1.885 |
| 2024 | 1.231 | 1.838 |
| 2025 | 1.197 | 1.778 |
Immigration is offered as the answer to ageing, but the dependency ratio does not get fixed at present figures. Counted by heads, migration does improve the figure. In Statistics Finland's projection the old-age dependency ratio is 40.1 in 2045 with migration and 49.4 without it, so migration buys about two decades. The real, or economic, ratio, however, divides the dependants by the people in work rather than by the people of working age, and in it a working-age person out of work is a dependant like a child or a pensioner.
In the site's calculation net migration is Statistics Finland's assumption of 40,000 a year, and the foreign-born arrivals' employment rate is taken as 56 per cent. In 2060 there are 151.4 dependants per hundred workers with the arrivals and 157.2 without them. The arrivals' effect is at most +0.6 dependants per hundred employed until 2044 and −5.8 in 2060. Both results depend on the assumptions. The ratio rises both with the arrivals and without them. The arrivals ease the ratio only once their employment rate passes about 56 per cent in 2045 and 52 per cent in 2060.
Refugee-origin employment stays below those thresholds and work-permit employment clears them: as an employment rate the figure is 39 per cent for the four largest refugee origins, about 71 per cent for work-permit arrivals and 74.5 per cent for the Finland-born. What eases the economic ratio is therefore migration of a particular kind rather than migration as such. The reason for entry decides it more precisely than the country of origin, and employment by background country is in the employment chart on the Charts page.
In the calculation the arrivals' children born here find work almost as the native population does, at an employment rate of 70 per cent. In education the second generation narrows the gap but does not close it, as the education section sets out. Net migration and the employment rate can be adjusted in the dependency calculator.
First the real dependency ratio: dependants per hundred workers. The menu switches to another scenario or to the head-count ratio. Each line is the dependency ratio's path under one net-migration assumption. Per employed, the gap between the site's model and the path without the net migration of the foreign-born is what the foreign-born arrivals do, because the net emigration of the Finland-born is in both. The third line is Statistics Finland's self-sufficiency projection, in which nobody moves to or from Finland.
Migration at the projection's assumption, but the divisor is the employed only. The head-count ratio improves with migration. The economic ratio counts only the employed as providers, so an arrival moves it only as far as their employment goes. It counts the heads of the employed, not their earnings, and the earnings-weighted result is under the chart's Details.
| Year | The site's model, per employed (dependants per 100 employed) | Without net migration of the foreign-born (dependants per 100 employed) | Without net migration, per employed (dependants per 100 employed) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 132.5 | 132.3 | 132.2 |
| 2026 | 133.0 | 132.7 | 132.4 |
| 2027 | 133.4 | 133.0 | 132.7 |
| 2028 | 133.6 | 133.2 | 132.8 |
| 2029 | 133.8 | 133.4 | 132.9 |
| 2030 | 134.0 | 133.5 | 132.9 |
| 2031 | 134.1 | 133.6 | 132.9 |
| 2032 | 134.1 | 133.6 | 132.8 |
| 2033 | 134.1 | 133.6 | 132.7 |
| 2034 | 134.0 | 133.4 | 132.5 |
| 2035 | 133.9 | 133.3 | 132.3 |
| 2036 | 133.8 | 133.2 | 132.1 |
| 2037 | 133.8 | 133.2 | 132.0 |
| 2038 | 133.9 | 133.2 | 131.9 |
| 2039 | 134.0 | 133.3 | 132.0 |
| 2040 | 134.3 | 133.7 | 132.2 |
| 2041 | 134.7 | 134.2 | 132.7 |
| 2042 | 135.3 | 134.9 | 133.2 |
| 2043 | 135.9 | 135.7 | 133.9 |
| 2044 | 136.7 | 136.5 | 134.7 |
| 2045 | 137.4 | 137.5 | 135.5 |
| 2046 | 138.2 | 138.5 | 136.5 |
| 2047 | 139.1 | 139.7 | 137.5 |
| 2048 | 140.0 | 140.9 | 138.7 |
| 2049 | 140.9 | 142.2 | 139.8 |
| 2050 | 141.8 | 143.4 | 140.9 |
| 2051 | 142.6 | 144.7 | 142.0 |
| 2052 | 143.5 | 145.9 | 143.1 |
| 2053 | 144.4 | 147.3 | 144.3 |
| 2054 | 145.3 | 148.7 | 145.5 |
| 2055 | 146.3 | 150.1 | 146.8 |
| 2056 | 147.3 | 151.6 | 148.1 |
| 2057 | 148.3 | 153.1 | 149.4 |
| 2058 | 149.4 | 154.5 | 150.7 |
| 2059 | 150.4 | 155.9 | 151.9 |
| 2060 | 151.4 | 157.2 | 153.1 |
Each row changes one assumption and keeps the rest as in the calculation above. A bar to the left means the foreign-born arrivals lighten the ratio, to the right that they add to it. In 2045 the effect across the rows is −3.8…3.7 dependants per hundred employed, and −0.1 in the published calculation. Its sign changes on the rows Arrivals 51%, All in work 70%, Retirement +2 yrs, Retirement +3 yrs and Earnings-weighted. The level of the ratio moves far more than the arrivals' effect on it.
| Group | In 2045 | In 2060 |
|---|---|---|
| Published (56%) | -0.1 | -5.8 |
| Arrivals 51% | 3.7 | 0.8 |
| Arrivals 61% | -3.8 | -12.2 |
| Leavers left out | -1.8 | -8.6 |
| Second gen. 56% | -0.1 | -4.5 |
| Second gen. 74.5% | -0.1 | -6.3 |
| All in work 66% | -1.5 | -8.8 |
| All in work 70% | 1.1 | -3.6 |
| Retirement +2 yrs | 0.8 | -3.6 |
| Retirement +3 yrs | 1.2 | -2.4 |
| Fertility 1.33 | -0.4 | -6.2 |
| Earnings-weighted | 3.0 | 0.3 |
| Migration 20,000/yr | -0.1 | -3.5 |
| Migration 60,000/yr | -0.1 | -7.6 |
Tikanmäki et al., Finnish Centre for Pensions reports 7/2026. Net migration of 24,000 a year in the baseline, 15,000 and 33,000 in the sensitivity runs
www.julkari.fi/items/a0693ad8-54ba-482f-8712-ece932f77c9eAlho, Kauppi, Lassila and Valkonen, Suomen väestö ja kansantalous uuden edessä (Finland's population and economy facing the new), Sitra memo, 21 May 2025. Sitra commissioned the memo from Etla. The FOG overlapping-generations model and the sustainability gap over a hundred years. Net migration of 24,000 a year on the base path, 15,000 and 40,000 in the alternatives, and 500 population paths from a stochastic population projection
www.sitra.fi/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/sitran_muistio_vaest…Ismo Risku, Finnish Centre for Pensions memo, 9 February 2023. Four scenarios: net migration of 25,000, 15,000, 5,000 and 0 a year. Migration structure, employment and earnings by group as observed in 2013–2017
www.etk.fi/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/nettomuutto-nolla-9-2-…Alho, Kangasharju, Lassila and Valkonen, ETLA Report 132, 3 February 2023. A general equilibrium model, net migration of 44,000 a year against Statistics Finland's 15,000
www.etla.fi/wp-content/uploads/ETLA-Raportit-Reports-132.pdfBringing the old-age dependency ratio back to its 2025 level by migration alone would take about 68,400 extra arrivals every year on top of the projection's own assumption of 40,000, about 108,400 arrivals a year in all, 2.7 times as many as the projection assumes. The number is this large because the arrivals age: in 2070 about 517,000 of them and of their children born here are themselves 65 or over, and the need goes on after 2070 too. The UN's 2000 replacement migration report came to the same conclusion. At that pace the foreign-background share of Finland's population would pass half in the site's population model in about 2054, against 2091 at the average net migration of 2021–2025. The ratio can also be eased by the retirement age, employment and productivity.
Immigrants arriving from Muslim-majority countries are among the largest and fastest-growing immigrant groups in Europe and in Finland. Several of those countries are sources of refugee-based migration in particular, which raises the Muslim population of the receiving countries.
Fertility among people from Muslim-majority countries is mostly above two, and well below that among Finnish-background women. The direction is steeply downward, though. Over ten years it has fallen in every one of them except Bangladesh, where it rose, and Iran, where it held steady, and in some it has dropped by nearly half. The figures by background country.
The Pew Research Center has estimated Finland's Muslim share and set out three alternative paths to 2050. They differ only in the volume of migration, which is zero in one, medium in another and high in the third.
A population share does not by itself say anything about consequences, but it can also be used to estimate the consequences for society. The site classifies by background country rather than religion, because people from a given country are often adherents of its majority religion. Pew builds its own estimates on the same assumption. Consequences are therefore examined by background country: employment and benefit use on the economic side, crime and the views of Europe's Muslims on the others.
Membership of registered religious communities is official register data (Statistics Finland, population structure, table 11rx: membership of religious communities). The total of about 140,000 residents of Muslim background in 2025 is an estimate by the scholar of religion Teemu Pauha (Mene & tiedä, 19 March 2025), not a register figure. Such estimates rest on the population's countries of origin, because Muslims who belong to no religious community are not recorded.
pxdata.stat.fi/PxWeb/pxweb/fi/StatFin/StatFin__vaerak/11rx.p…201 countries. Measured change over 2010–2020 from censuses, registers and surveys. A measurement, not a projection.
www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/06/09/religion-in-europe/A collection of estimates and news reports on the growth of the Muslim share of the population in various European countries. The figures are estimates and projections as given by their sources: some are official statistical calculations, some academic, some from news or opinion media. The results depend heavily on assumptions about fertility and migration.
SWI swissinfo.ch, drawing on Pew data: Switzerland's Muslim population was 6.1% (500,000) in 2016. With zero migration the share would rise to 8.2% (660,000) by 2050, to 10.3% (1,140,000) in the medium scenario, and to 12.9% (1,500,000) in the high scenario. Muslims are on average 13 years younger than other Europeans. Pew assumed a fertility rate of 2.1 for Muslims versus 1.5 for others.
A peer-reviewed article uses wavelet analysis to project a Muslim majority in 13 European countries between 2085 (Cyprus) and 2215 (Lithuania). Among others, it projects a majority in Sweden in 2125, France in 2135 and the UK in 2180. It assumes higher fertility (~1 more child per woman) and 2017-level migration (~706,000 asylum seekers/yr, 86% Muslim). The authors offer no uncertainty caveat about the time horizon: they call the mid-point scenario the “most likely” one and go on to describe concrete social consequences out to 2220. The method is signal processing rather than a demographic cohort model, and the rule used to grow the Muslim population is problematic: each five-year figure adds a share of the 0–4 age group to a share of the total population, although those children are already inside the total. The raised share is then fed into the next period, so the deviation compounds about 40 times by 2220. The model has no mortality, no age structure for the Muslim population and no fertility convergence. Compare this with Pew's cohort-component projections.
The article covers the Muslim community in Vaasa, which has grown partly through international students and prays in three rented spaces. The University of Vaasa's international student numbers have more than doubled in a year. The community would be interested in buying the Vetokannas church and converting it into a mosque. According to Edla Mäkelä, chief architect of the Church Administration, no church in Finland has previously been converted into a mosque. That church is not for sale.
Jerusalem Post: Registered Muslim membership in Norway grew from 72,000 (2006) to an estimated 197,000+ (2025), about +174%. Church of Norway membership, meanwhile, fell from 85% (1994) to 62% (2024).
The European Conservative reports Dutch demographer Jan Latten's estimate: Muslims would grow from about one million today (~6%) to 3–4 million by 2050 (~20% of a 20-million population). The estimate assumes migration continues at the current rate.
A report by the demographic observatory of San Pablo CEU University estimates Spain's Muslim population at 2.4–2.5 million at the start of 2025, about 5% of the population: roughly 3.6% first-generation immigrants and about 1.4% people born in Spain with at least one Muslim-background parent. About 11% of babies born in Spain in 2024 had at least one Muslim-background parent. The report attributes the gap to Muslim women's fertility being two to three times that of Spanish women. About 85% of first-generation Muslim immigrants come from Africa, and around 65% of the whole group is of Moroccan origin. Here too, this publication defines Muslim identity by country of origin and parental background rather than religious conviction.
A calculation by Germany's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) puts the number of Muslims living in Germany at 6.6–7.0 million in 2025, or 8.0–8.5% of the population. The share is up 1.6–1.8 percentage points on the 2019 estimate, mainly because of migration from crisis regions in the Middle East. The largest background group is Turkish (39.4%), followed by Arab (29.4%). The Turkish share has been falling since 2008. The figure is an extrapolation combining first results from the 2025 microcensus with the 2020 Muslim Life in Germany survey. Muslims are counted as immigrants with a background in Muslim-majority countries and their German-born descendants, rather than by religious self-identification, which is why the result is given as a range.
The immigration debate often holds that investing in integration in particular is what reduces the problems associated with immigration. Finland spends a great deal on integration, yet many of its measures show weak results, especially for certain immigrant groups. Integration can be measured from many angles: school outcomes, language skills, residential segregation and the effectiveness of integration measures. Whatever the measure, the differences between background groups are large and narrow slowly. Some groups need practically no integration measures at all, while others absorb considerable spending without particularly successful outcomes.
Education is a basic measure of integration, because it predicts later employment and income. Learning outcomes also say how well school evens out differences in starting points.
Pupils of immigrant background achieve worse learning outcomes in Finland than the native-background population. In PISA 2025 the native group was 66 points ahead of second-generation pupils in reading and 113 points ahead of the first generation. The gap narrows in the second generation but does not close. Socio-economic background alone narrows the reading gap by 18 points in the second generation and by 24 in the first. With home language and grade held constant as well, the reading gaps are 32 and 63 points, so about half of the gap remains. Finland's gaps are among the largest in the OECD. To the extent that the gap appears to narrow, part of the reason is a decline in native-background results.
Map view: S2 shares in schools by postal area
In PISA 2025 the gap between native and immigrant-background 15-year-olds was large in reading, mathematics and science. Only Mongolia, Brazil, the Philippines and Lebanon had wider second-generation gaps in science. Holding background factors constant roughly halves the gap but does not remove it. Even the smallest remainder, 25 points in mathematics in the second generation, is more than a school year.
Finland's overall result has fallen, but the fall does not come only from immigrant-background pupils. Between 2012 and 2025 mathematics scores fell by 45 points among native pupils and by 22 points in the second generation.
A bar to the left is points below the native population. The upper bar is the measured gap, the lower one the gap after background factors are held constant, and the difference between them is the part that background explains.
About 20 PISA points corresponds to one school year of learning on average.
| Group | As measured | Background held constant |
|---|---|---|
| Reading, first generation | -113 | -63 |
| Science, first generation | -100 | -48 |
| Science, second generation | -73 | -37 |
| Mathematics, first generation | -69 | -35 |
| Reading, second generation | -66 | -32 |
| Mathematics, second generation | -46 | -25 |
The share of foreign-background pupils in comprehensive-school grades 1–9 has risen from 8.1% to 13.1% in five years (2020–2025). Regional differences are large: the share in Uusimaa is several times that of the regions with the least immigration.
| Group | 2020 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Uusimaa | 15.4 | 23.1 |
| Åland | 15.2 | 21.9 |
| Varsinais-Suomi | 9.1 | 14.8 |
| Ostrobothnia | 7.9 | 13.2 |
| Kymenlaakso | 7.2 | 10.5 |
| Päijät-Häme | 6.8 | 10.4 |
| South Karelia | 6.7 | 10.2 |
| Kanta-Häme | 4.4 | 8.5 |
| Pirkanmaa | 5.3 | 8.5 |
| Etelä-Savo | 3.8 | 7.8 |
| Kainuu | 0.0 | 7.7 |
| North Karelia | 3.6 | 7.0 |
| Satakunta | 3.4 | 6.8 |
| Pohjois-Savo | 3.5 | 6.5 |
| Central Finland | 3.2 | 6.0 |
| Lapland | 3.0 | 5.2 |
| South Ostrobothnia | 2.3 | 5.0 |
| Central Ostrobothnia | 2.5 | 4.6 |
| North Ostrobothnia | 2.4 | 4.0 |
The claim that immigrant-background pupils do not lower a school's results can be examined with the PISA 2022 data, in which schools are grouped by the share of these pupils. The school average falls clearly as the share rises, because these pupils are part of the school's result. Native pupils' own average shows no fall, but some native families choose another school or move away.
Immigrant-background pupils' own results fall steeply as the share rises, and socio-economic background explains only a small part of it. The researchers see incomplete command of the language of instruction as the most likely cause.
The bar is the change in points when a school's share of immigrant-background pupils rises from under 5 per cent to at least 40. The upper bar is unadjusted, the lower one adjusted for socio-economic background.
About 20 PISA points corresponds to one school year of learning on average.
| Group | Unadjusted | Adjusted for socio-economic status |
|---|---|---|
| Native (reading) | 8 | 1 |
| Native (mathematics) | 7 | 1 |
| Immigrant background (mathematics) | -40 | -32 |
| Immigrant background (reading) | -44 | -38 |
S2, Finnish as a second language and literature, is the mother-tongue subject syllabus for pupils whose Finnish is not yet good enough for ordinary mother-tongue teaching. It has its own objectives and assessment and is not remedial teaching. Teachers assess the pupil's need, but the guardian decides whether the child studies S2 or the ordinary mother-tongue syllabus.
S2 is chosen on the basis of language skill, not origin. So the S2 share is not the same thing as the foreign-background share, and children born in Finland study S2 too. The S2 share shows more directly than origin how many pupils do not yet have full command of the language of instruction.
In the 2024–2025 school year at least 11.5% of first-graders in Finnish-language schools studied S2. In Vantaa the share was over a third, in Espoo, Turku and Helsinki about a quarter, and in Oulu under a tenth. Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa and Turku have a quarter of the country's first-graders but more than half of its S2 first-graders. The differences between schools are large as well. More than half of Finnish-language schools had no S2 first-grader at all, and half of all S2 first-graders attended fewer than a tenth of the schools. School-level shares are in the map view.
| Group | % of first-graders |
|---|---|
| Vantaa | 35.3 |
| Espoo | 26.1 |
| Turku | 25.9 |
| Helsinki | 23.1 |
| Tampere | 14.3 |
| Lahti | 13.6 |
| Whole country | 11.5 |
| Jyväskylä | 8.3 |
| Kuopio | 8.1 |
| Oulu | 6.1 |
Own-mother-tongue instruction supplements basic education, and it is voluntary both for the municipality and for the pupil. The state grant covers at most two weekly hours per notional group of four pupils. In autumn 2025 there were 24 827 participants, 63 languages and 85 providers.
| Year | Autumn (Pupils and students) | Spring (Pupils and students) |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 20,732 | 18,785 |
| 2019 | 21,215 | 20,380 |
| 2020 | 22,041 | 20,901 |
| 2021 | 22,914 | 21,174 |
| 2022 | 21,800 | 22,162 |
| 2023 | 24,137 | 22,010 |
| 2024 | 23,976 | 21,324 |
| 2025 | 24,827 | 23,580 |
In PISA 2022 pupils report clearly more safety risks in schools where at least a tenth of the pupils have an immigrant background than in other schools. The gap is larger in Finland than on the OECD average. Immigrant-background pupils themselves also report more safety risks and feel less safe at school than native pupils, most of all those born abroad.
The gap between big-city and rural schools is almost as large, and immigrant-background pupils are concentrated in cities, so part of the gap may come from location. In Finland, socio-economically disadvantaged schools do not report more safety risks than advantaged ones.
The rows compare schools where at least 10% of pupils have an immigrant background with those under 10%, big-city schools with rural ones, and socio-economically disadvantaged schools with advantaged ones. Each bar shows how much higher the safety-risk index is in the first group. The index has an OECD mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1, so 0.24 is about a quarter of a standard deviation. In Finland the index was 0.44 in schools where at least 10% of pupils have an immigrant background and 0.20 in other schools. In Norway the same gap was 0.14, and in Sweden 0.07, which is not statistically significant.
| Group | Finland | OECD average |
|---|---|---|
| Immigrant share | 0.24 | 0.11 |
| Location | 0.20 | 0.01 |
| Family background | 0.03 | 0.29 |
Where PISA measures what 15-year-olds know in a single test, completing a qualification shows how many finish the education they began. That is a different question, one that follows each group from its own starting line and so needs no age control.
The result depends on the level of education. Finland-born people of foreign background finish the higher education they start about as often as natives. In general upper secondary school they fall a little behind. In vocational education they graduate least often of the three groups, less often even than the foreign-born.
Early school leaving is markedly more common among foreign-born youth than among the native population. The gap is moderate by EU standards.
The teaching is voluntary in both directions, it runs to at most two hours a week, and its cost sits in the same EUR 22.5 million budget line as second-language teaching. A national evaluation exists, but it did not measure learning outcomes.
The main recruitment problems are that applicants lack teacher training, teaching experience or sufficient Finnish. A third of providers can and a third cannot give adequate support with current resources. Classes are often held in the evening, and only about half of the mother-tongue teachers worked with a preparatory-education teacher or a special-needs teacher. Teachers say quality would improve if classes were grouped by age and the syllabus were returned to the national core curriculum. The evaluation has effectiveness in its title, but the report defines it as the teaching's capacity and opportunities to support the intended changes, and the material is a survey. Learning outcomes were not measured, so whether the teaching affects language skills or school performance is not known in Finland.
The 2024 general grant was EUR 22 475 000 for foreign-language pupils and EUR 75 000 for Sami and Romani pupils. The same sum covers three things: Finnish or Swedish as a second language, other support for teaching, and own-mother-tongue instruction. The coefficients are public even though the split is not: the computed cost of a teaching hour is EUR 25, the grant covers at most 86 % of accepted computed costs, and own-mother-tongue instruction is funded for at most two weekly hours per notional group of four pupils. Two pupils form a group where four cannot be found.
In autumn 2025 the teaching reached 24 827 pupils and students, in 63 languages, from 85 providers. In autumn 2018 the figures were 20 732, 58 and 88, so participation has grown by about a fifth while the number of providers has stood still. The largest languages in autumn 2025 were Russian 5 931, Arabic 3 019, Somali 2 108, Ukrainian 1 746, English 1 361 and Albanian 1 206. Ukrainian grew from 105 pupils to 1 746 in three years.
A pupil whose Finnish is not sufficient for the Finnish language and literature syllabus can study the S2 syllabus. The teachers who teach the pupil assess the need together, and the guardian decides on the syllabus. A pupil can move to the Finnish language and literature syllabus once their language skills reach the S2 objectives.
S2 teaching has its own content, objectives and assessment criteria and is not remedial teaching. Some S2 pupils were born in Finland and have lived here for years, while others have just moved from preparatory teaching into mainstream classes. In grades 1–9, 42,906 pupils studied the S2 syllabus in the 2021–2022 school year, against 35,934 two years earlier (Vipunen).
Finland · PISA 2022: 58% of first-generation immigrant pupils fell below the baseline level in mathematics (native-background pupils: 22%). In reading, 61% were below the baseline. The gap is also visible in the second generation (43% / 39%).
In the second international survey of adult skills (PIAAC II, data 2022–2023) the native population in Finland averaged 307 points in literacy, the second generation of immigrants 292 and the first generation 201. The 106-point gap between natives and the first generation was the largest among the report's comparison countries. It was 52 points in Sweden, 54 in Norway and 39 on average across OECD countries. Those who had lived in Finland for at most five years averaged 176 and those here longer 211. About 70 per cent of the shorter-stay group and about half of the longer-stay group had inadequate skills. On the other hand, nearly a fifth of those here at most five years had at least good literacy, and the second generation did not differ significantly from natives, though it was observed only in small numbers. The tasks could be done only in Finnish or Swedish. Just over 3 per cent of the sample answered only a short doorstep interview because of their language skills, and the report says first-generation results are not fully comparable across countries.
According to the Commission's country report, underachievement among foreign-born pupils in Finland stands at 57%, one of the highest rates in the EU, and the gap remains significant even after accounting for socio-economic background and the language spoken at home. Early leaving from education is 13.0% among the foreign-born against 9.2% among the native-born. The share of disadvantaged pupils reaching a good level of basic skills has fallen by 8 percentage points since 2015: Finland remains more equitable than the EU average, but the trend is downwards.
The study compares siblings at the same school whose year groups had different shares of refugee pupils. In Norway the state assigns refugees a municipality to live in, which limits families' sorting into schools. A larger refugee share lowered native pupils' mathematics scores. A rise of five percentage points cut scores by the equivalent of 3 per cent of an expected year's progress on average, and the authors consider the effect important. There was no effect on Norwegian or English scores, and the share of other immigrants had no effect on any test. The negative effect came mainly from refugee children from Africa and the Middle East, whose own mathematics scores were the lowest of the groups. The effect of refugee children from Asia was positive but not statistically significant. The authors warn against generalising the results for one refugee group to others.
The study compares year groups at the same school, some of which received a newly arrived refugee child between two national tests and some of which did not. The effect is measured on all other pupils, including those of immigrant background who have lived in Denmark for longer. Refugee children went to schools whose results were weaker even before they arrived: the receiving year groups were about 6.7 per cent of a standard deviation behind in the Danish test. Once that selection was taken into account, the arrival of a refugee child did not affect other pupils' progress in Danish or mathematics. The authors call the effect statistically insignificant and substantively unimportant, and they describe the estimates as precise. The authors note that each year group received few refugee children and that Denmark takes in fewer refugees than Germany or Sweden. They cannot rule out a different result with a larger intake, and the study does not measure long-term effects.
A study by the University of Jyväskylä and the Ministry of Education and Culture using PISA 2022 data (241 schools, over 10,200 pupils, about 1,900 of them of immigrant background): 61% of first-generation immigrant pupils had weak reading skills and 58% weak mathematics skills. In the second generation the figures were 39% and 43%, against roughly 21% and 25% for all pupils. The researchers note that the gap between immigrant-background and native pupils has narrowed above all because the proficiency of majority-population pupils has declined.
An Yle report from two Helsinki schools where more than two thirds of pupils have an immigrant background and around 30 languages are spoken. Pupils call the language of the schoolyard "mamusuomi" (immigrant Finnish). Behind it is the same research finding as above: 61% of first-generation immigrant pupils read too poorly to take full part in society. The recommendation cited is that the immigrant-background share of a class should stay at 20–30% at most. At the Itäkeskus school, over 70% of pupils go on to upper secondary education. Education Minister Anders Adlercreutz promised more weekly hours of mother tongue and literature in primary school, a reform of learning support, and €50 million in equity funding for hiring staff. This is a good example of how immigration adds to public costs in education too.
A first-grade Finnish lesson at Itäkeskus comprehensive school in Helsinki cannot be called a mother-tongue lesson, because not one pupil has Finnish as a first language. The split groups of two first-grade classes were present, 17 pupils, all of them S2 pupils (Finnish as a second language). Ten different languages are spoken in one of the school's classes, and S2 pupils are numerous at other year levels too. Some 7-year-olds read more fluently than many native Finnish speakers, while others decode mechanically without fully understanding the text. Teachers say preparing materials at several levels adds work, and interpreters are needed often because no common language can be found. A particular challenge is that for some children Finnish is present only at school: the mother tongue is spoken at home, and the child may be the best Finnish speaker in the family.
At Kirsti school in Espoo, 92% of the roughly 450 pupils speak a foreign first language, and 55 different native languages are spoken (Albanian the most common, then English). Across Espoo about 32% of pupils speak something other than Finnish, Swedish or Sámi as their first language, and in eight Espoo schools the foreign-language share exceeds 50%. The principal says that once the share of foreign-language children passed 40–50%, Finnish-speaking parents began considering moving their child to another school.
A follow-up on the Kirsti school in Espoo (about 450 pupils, 92% of them foreign-language speakers): Espoo now has eight schools where foreign-language pupils are more than half. Politicians from the Greens, the National Coalition and the Social Democrats describe the trend as segregation that has gone "in a really difficult direction". The measures floated include mixing rental and owner-occupied housing, redrawing school catchment areas and expanding specialised teaching programmes. They disagree about where responsibility lies and which measures would work.
Helsinki is redrawing the catchment areas of comprehensive schools in its eastern districts: children from Puu-Myllypuro will move to Itäkeskus comprehensive school from 2027, and later so will children from the Karhunkaataja area. The official justification is evening out pupil numbers, but the change is also driven by concern over residential segregation. Itäkeskus has very few children who speak Finnish as their first language, and officials are now saying out loud that without the transfer, the risk is that its pupils will not learn Finnish. The school boards disagreed: Itäkeskus called the change excellent, Myllypuro opposed it.
Last year 65% of pupils at Itäkeskus comprehensive school studied Finnish as a second language. Among first-graders the share was 84%. Helsinki has decided to redraw its catchment areas so that more pupils transfer to Itäkeskus comprehensive school, particularly from areas with a Finnish-background population. Parents in Herttoniemi have appealed the decision to the administrative court. Their main concern is the longer journey to school. One parent interviewed also raises the number of second-language pupils, while saying they have heard a great deal of good about the school. According to Ville Raatikainen, the city's director of basic education, the sole reason is evening out pupil numbers, because Myllypuro is full and the Itäkeskus school is being extended, while Kaisa Eskola (Left Alliance), who chairs the committee division, also cites an aim to reduce segregation. Doctoral researcher Oskar Rönnberg's work puts the school argument in proportion: families with children are indeed keen to move away from more disadvantaged and ethnically diverse areas, but schools are not the reason. By far the most important reason was a perceived lack of safety in the area, problems of social order and visible substance use. Turku does not treat redrawing catchment areas as its primary tool. It invests instead in the schools of weaker areas, with smaller teaching groups, more learning materials, more assistants and special-needs teachers, and with specialisation classes.
Teachers interviewed by MTV describe everyday life with Finnish-as-a-second-language pupils: some pupils speak no Finnish at all when they start, and differentiating the teaching takes time away from the other pupils. In Helsinki, several schools have a majority of foreign-language pupils, while at Sammu school in Huittinen S2 pupils are about 7% and the teacher says the language catches on fast in a Finnish-speaking environment. The state funds language support at €50 million a year, rising to €75 million from 2027. The piece is based on teacher interviews and a survey answered by 31 of some 1,700 class teachers.
One of the most essential parts of integration is knowing the language. Without it, neither an understanding of the surrounding culture nor ties to it form as readily. There are two figures for language proficiency, and they measure different groups. A population survey covers everyone who has moved to Finland. The training statistics cover only those who finished a course, and only some are eligible for one. What the language is enough for at school is under education, and what the teaching costs under integration policy.
The first figure covers everyone who has moved to Finland, including those who never attended a course. The two that follow cover only those who completed integration training, that is the training's best possible result. The figures are not comparable with one another.
THL's MoniSuomi 2022 is the most recent survey-based language figure that also covers people who have attended no course at all: 63% reported speaking Finnish or Swedish at least at intermediate level, leaving 37% below it. The spread between background countries runs from 89% to 40%. These are self-assessments rather than test results, “intermediate” corresponds to no level of the Common European Framework, and self-assessment usually overstates.
From the 2014 survey on the work and well-being of people of foreign origin: three in four rated their Finnish or Swedish at least intermediate. The figure cannot be set beside MoniSuomi's 63% as a time series. The populations differ: UTH covered people of foreign origin aged 15–64, MoniSuomi foreign-born people aged 20–74. The question is not the same either. The gap mainly shows that two self-assessment surveys do not make a trend.
A THL population survey of 7,838 foreign-born respondents, collected between September 2022 and March 2023. The question was put to everyone regardless of whether they had attended any course, which makes it the most recent survey-based figure covering the whole population. Of all immigrants 63% reported speaking Finnish or Swedish at least at intermediate level: 68% of women and 57% of men aged 20–74. The spread between background countries is steep: 89% of women from Estonia, 80% of women from Russia or the Soviet Union against 60% of the men, while the figure is 44% for people from South-East Asia and 40% for those from the rest of Asia, the Americas and Oceania. The regional pattern runs against expectation: 70–71% in Kymenlaakso, Päijät-Häme and Central Uusimaa, 60% in Helsinki and 59% in Western Uusimaa.
Breaks the MoniSuomi distribution down further than the combined share: about a quarter rate themselves excellent, about a third beginners, and about one in ten report speaking neither national language at all. Proficiency was weakest among those who came for work or study, who may not need the language day to day and some of whom are in the country temporarily. The page notes that survey data is needed because register data cannot measure language skills.
The linguistic target of integration training is B1.1, and about a third of those who complete the training reach it. The figure covers only those who finished: people who dropped out or never started are not in it, so it is the training's best possible result rather than an average for immigrants. There is no sign of improvement: in 2013–2016 just under 35% of those finishing reached B1.
The linguistic target of integration training is B1.1, a functional basic proficiency. According to the review, a ministry survey of the ELY centres in summer 2024 found that in the training the centres purchased in 2022 and 2023, 32% of everyone who completed it reached at least B1.1, so 68% fell short of the target. Authors Risto Karinen, Taru Aihinen, Jenna Siltala and Olli Oosi. The cover is dated May 2024 although it cites a survey run that summer. The document was published in the government project portal in May 2025.
Integration training is reached through an integration plan, and the first plan must be drawn up within three years of the first residence permit or the registration of the right of residence. Under the law in force until the end of 2024, registered unemployed jobseekers and people receiving social assistance other than temporarily had a right to a plan. For others a plan could be drawn up if it was judged necessary. The training figures for 2022–2023 in this section's chart therefore mainly concern unemployed jobseekers, not employed work-based migrants, students or parents at home with children. The integration act that took effect at the start of 2025 widened the target group: the municipality must also assess the need for integration services of people granted international protection and their family members, and of those receiving child home care allowance. The three-year limit remained.
Under the 2025 integration act a plan is drawn up if the person is judged to need one. The employment authority draws it up for an unemployed jobseeker. The municipality draws it up for a person granted international protection or their family member, a person receiving social assistance other than temporarily, an unaccompanied minor and any other immigrant. The plan must be drawn up within three years of the first residence permit, residence card or registration of the right of residence. According to the page, the ground of residence should not by itself decide that no plan is made.
An immigrant has a right to an integration plan if they are unemployed and registered as a jobseeker, or if they receive social assistance other than temporarily. A plan may also be drawn up for another immigrant if the initial assessment finds they need one. The first plan must be drawn up within three years of the first residence permit or residence card, or of the registration of the right of residence.
Integration training is meant for immigrants who have completed compulsory education. It includes Finnish or Swedish language teaching, a work-placement period, recognition of earlier skills, and vocational planning and career guidance. At the end of the training the student takes a final language test. Integration training is provided mainly as labour market training, but it can also be taken as self-motivated study. Literacy training is provided separately by liberal adult education institutions and as part of basic education for adults.
Parts of the interpretation bill are known. The wellbeing services counties spent about EUR 35.3 million on interpretation and translation in 2024, about four million more than in 2023. The state bought translation and interpretation for EUR 16.5 million and the municipalities for EUR 5.8 million in 2022. The largest state buyers were the courts at 4.5 million, the Immigration Service at 3 million and the Prime Minister's Office at 2.6 million, and the Immigration Service's spending rose to 3.8 million in 2024. The figures come from different years and include translation, so they cannot be added up into the whole bill.
The profession's own background report on the lack of regulation: the law sets no competence requirement for an interpreter, so a single assignment may be handled by anyone. Only the title of court interpreter is protected, and the register the National Agency for Education has kept since 2016 exists, but no authority is obliged to use an interpreter from it. The report comes from an interest organisation and its proposed remedy is an interpreting act, but its description of the current absence of regulation can be checked against the law. Its figures on public purchasing in 2022 come from Tutkihankintoja.fi: the state bought translation and interpretation for EUR 16.5 million and the municipalities for EUR 5.8 million. The largest state buyers were the courts at 4.5 million, the Immigration Service at 3 million and the Prime Minister's Office at 2.6 million.
The wellbeing services counties spent about EUR 35.3 million on interpretation and translation in 2024, about four million more than in 2023. The Immigration Service's spending rose from EUR 2.9 million in 2023 to 3.8 million in 2024. Interpretation costs at Kela and the employment offices began rising fast well before the Ukrainian refugees arrived, and according to the Keha Centre part of the offices' growth is remote interpretation, which has increased use. Spending in the cities with the most foreign-language residents stayed almost the same in 2023 and 2024. In Finland the right to service in one's own language does not depend on time in the country. In Denmark someone who has lived there more than three years pays for health-care interpretation themselves if they still cannot manage in Danish.
The language level citizenship asks for is the same B1.1 that integration training aims at and that 32% of those completing it reach. Citizenship can also be obtained in Swedish, and some switch language for exactly that reason: Swedish is perceived as easier than Finnish because it is close to English and the other European languages. The route is small but growing: in 2022, 530 people took the intermediate test in Swedish against 6,869 in Finnish. The requirement can therefore also be met in a language that is the mother tongue of 285,360 people in Finland, about five per cent of the population, a third of them in Ostrobothnia.
Natalia Tolmacheva, a PhD in economics, studied Finnish for seven years without reaching the required level, switched to Swedish and passed the test at the first attempt after ten months of study. She speaks mainly English in Finland. In 2022, 530 people took the intermediate National Certificate in Swedish against 6,869 in Finnish, and demand for the Swedish test has grown by about a hundred takers a year. Lidiia Salo, who prepares candidates for the test, says Swedish is perceived as considerably easier than Finnish. Saara Kalajoki of the National Agency for Education offers another explanation: the choice usually follows from moving to a Swedish-speaking region or a Swedish-speaking spouse. One interviewee, Kia Lindberg of the Helsinki Adult Education Centre, raises the integration concern.
Citizenship requires satisfactory spoken and written Finnish or Swedish, normally demonstrated through the National Certificate of Language Proficiency. The bill adds knowledge of society to the conditions, to be shown through a new citizenship test from the beginning of 2027. The test would not be required of an applicant who has passed the Finnish- or Swedish-language matriculation examination in Finland or holds a Finnish- or Swedish-language higher-education degree. The bill estimates that about 2,000 people a year would be exempted this way.
There were 285,360 Swedish speakers at the end of 2024, about five per cent of the population, and the number is projected to fall to 281,789 by 2030 and 260,973 by 2050. The distribution is uneven: about a third live in Ostrobothnia, where Swedish speakers are a narrow majority, and although the capital region has the largest numbers (36,945 in Helsinki, 20,246 in Espoo), the share of each city's population is small. The compiler is an advocacy body for Swedish speakers, but the figures are Statistics Finland's.
The general language certificate that suffices for citizenship does not measure the language of the job, and professional language skill is not measured in Finland at all: the law requires a health or social care professional to have sufficient language skills without defining what sufficient means, and no test exists. In SuPer's member survey in September 2024, 53% had seen dangerous situations caused by a foreign-language colleague's lack of Finnish and 83% found it a burden on themselves. The figures come from a union survey and measure a perception rather than a recorded incident, and SuPer is campaigning for a compulsory professional language test. The absence of such a test, however, can be checked against the law and does not rest on the survey.
“In Finland nurses' professional language skills are not tested at all. No such test even exists.” The law requires a health or social care professional to have sufficient language skills without defining what sufficient means, and only general proficiency is tested. Both nursing unions, SuPer and Tehy, regard this as a clear patient-safety risk. In SuPer's survey one per cent of respondents judged the professional language skills of those recruited from abroad to be sufficient. The unions blame employers' unwillingness to pay for language teaching.
A member survey run 2–22 September 2024 among members in employment, 3,255 responses. On the question about dangerous situations (n = 2,157), 14% answered yes, often and 39% yes, sometimes. In all, 53% had seen dangerous situations caused by a foreign-language colleague's lack of Finnish. 23% had not and 24% could not say. Of the respondents 83% agreed partly or fully that a colleague's weak language skills are a burden on them. The open answers return to medication, record-keeping, understanding care instructions, and tasks shifting to the Finnish-speaking staff. The survey is the union's own, the respondents are self-selected and the question measures a perception rather than a recorded incident. According to the report, respondents felt strongly that professional competence and language skills should be tested and verified before starting work.
Integration can also be measured by whether immigrants live among the native population or concentrated with their own group. When the same groups concentrate in the same areas, segregation forms. A high foreign-background share can also make natives less willing to move to an area, because it often changes how the area is seen.
The foreign-background population is concentrated in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, and the differences between neighbourhoods are sharper than those between municipalities. At the end of 2025 people of foreign background were the majority in nine residential areas in eastern Helsinki, Vantaa and Espoo, and in Turku's Varissuo the share approaches half of the residents in places. Socioeconomic segregation is rising in all the largest cities, and foreign-language speakers have kept concentrating in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods. The dissimilarity index rose most in Helsinki but fell across the large-city average. It measures only how evenly a group is spread, not how large it is, so neighbourhood shares can grow even while the index falls.
Neighbourhood figures by origin are available from Suomen Perusta's lähiöluvut.fi. Some figures in this section concern people of foreign background and others foreign-language speakers, and each entry states which. How a neighbourhood is reflected in its schools is covered in Education. Changes in the make-up of the population and their causes are covered in Demographic change.
Map view: Foreign-background share (%) by postal code (2014 and 2024)
Pasi Saukkonen, City of Helsinki, Kaupunkitieto reviews, 13 October 2026. Statistics Finland population data for the end of 2025, by Helsinki's sub-districts, Espoo's small areas and Vantaa's districts
kaupunkitieto.hel.fi/fi/vaestorakenteeltaan-moninaistunut-ja…The study separates how moves within the region, moves from elsewhere in Finland, international migration, and births and deaths affected ethnic segregation. The dissimilarity index between the non-Western-origin and Finnish-origin populations stayed at 33–34 throughout. Moves within the region affected it most, and the two groups' moves pulled in opposite directions. Finnish-origin residents' moves increased segregation, and non-Western-origin residents' moves reduced it. In the areas with the highest non-Western-origin shares, the Finnish-origin population fell in 2011–2014 mainly through moves within the region. The authors find no sign of a general tendency among the non-Western-origin population to self-segregate. The average non-Western-origin share in the areas where non-Western-origin residents lived rose from about 5 per cent to 9 per cent. The rise came mainly from immigration and births, and it did not raise the dissimilarity index. The study measures moves, not the reasons for them. The authors suggest that besides an area's population make-up, its social problems, safety and reputation may also shape Finnish-origin residents' moves.
Peer-reviewed study covering Finland's 20 largest cities with register data from 2000–2018: the income-based segregation index rose from 0.32 to 0.39 even though income inequality (Gini) barely changed, and socioeconomic segregation increased in all 20 cities and at every scale of analysis. Ethnic segregation developed differently: it rose most in Helsinki, but the 20-city average slightly fell (0.29 to 0.28) and fell in 9 cities out of 20. The share of foreign-language speakers nevertheless rose steeply: Helsinki 5% to 14%, Espoo 4% to 16%, Vantaa 4% to 17%. The authors reconcile this themselves: a dissimilarity index can fall while the foreign-language share grows sharply, and foreign-language speakers remain overrepresented in the most socioeconomically disadvantaged areas: in the mid-rise suburbs built between the 1960s and 1990s their share is about twice the city average.
At the end of 2025 the foreign-background share was the highest of all mainland municipalities in Vantaa, at 30.5%, and Espoo, at 26.0%. In Helsinki it was 21.6%, or 150,074 people. Outside the capital region the highest share was in Närpes, at 23.8%. Nationally there were 660,800 people of foreign background, 11.7% of the population, and almost half of them lived in the capital region. The Helsinki figure is from Statistics Finland table 11rv.
The number of crowded households has grown especially among foreign-language speakers, and their number doubled over ten years. Nationally there were 227,000 crowded households holding 937,000 people, and about 56,000 households in the Helsinki region, 10.5 per cent of its residents. Statistics Finland counts a household as crowded when it has more than one person per room, the kitchen not counted as a room.
An Yle report marking Varissuo's 40th anniversary in Turku. The suburb has about 9,000 residents, 12,000 at its peak, and roughly 40% of them now speak a first language other than Finnish or Swedish. More than 40 nationalities live there and nearly 60 languages are spoken. The Varissuo school has under 200 pupils with 19 different mother tongues and 20 nationalities. Varissuo is Turku's second-largest suburb after Runosmäki.
There are four municipalities in Finland where Finnish is not even the second most spoken language. In Swedish-speaking Korsnäs (about 2,000 residents) the second-largest language group is Bosnian. Finland's foreign-language population grew by more than 25,000 in the previous year, the largest increase in 40 years.
An Yle report from Hervanta in Tampere: 48% of preschoolers at the Etelä-Hervanta school speak a language other than Finnish or Swedish, and 52% across all Hervanta preschools, against 9% for Tampere preschools as a whole. For comparison, the figure is 27% in Helsinki's municipal preschools and 20% in Turku. Besides Finnish and Swedish, Hervanta's preschoolers have 25 other mother tongues, the most common being Somali, Arabic, Dari, Albanian and Russian. The district's foreign-language population doubled from about 3,300 (2010) to 6,800 (2022), and roughly one in three Hervanta residents now speaks something other than Finnish or Swedish as a first language.
Lapland had nearly 7,000 foreign nationals in 2023, or 3.9% of its population, against 7.3% nationally. The number has doubled in a little over a decade, but growth is slower than in the rest of the country: around 2,000 people were added between 2022 and 2024. The Rovaniemi area has roughly 3,000 foreign nationals. These figures count foreign citizens, not people of foreign background, which is a considerably wider group.
HS on a report by Hypo bank and the regional research company MDI: foreign-language residents who have moved to Finland live in rented housing and on the outskirts of cities more often than the native population. Over 80% of those renting hope to move into owner-occupied housing, but doubt it will happen because of their employment situation and the uncertainty of residence permits. Hypo's managing director Antti Tolonen says immigration means cities need more large, family-sized flats. The report is published by a bank and a research company, which is worth keeping in mind when reading its housing-policy conclusions.
Yle took three Vantaa city councillors to Hakunila and asked them how to stop the city's areas drifting apart. Naima el Issaoui (SDP) would support the schools and pupils that need support, build owner-occupied and rental housing in the same areas and develop the suburbs. Otso Kivimäki (National Coalition) stresses residents' pride in their own area and would zone areas of detached houses that would draw company executives. In his view firms and jobs would follow them. He would build as little subsidised rental housing as possible. Loviisa Kaartokallio (Christian Democrats) would invest in education and children's hobbies and wants part-ownership homes and townhouse-style housing. All three would demolish Hakunila's shopping centre. In 2023 people moving to Vantaa paid 2.6 million euros less in tax than those moving away. The piece followed cross-country skier Vilma Nissinen calling Hakunila and the whole of Vantaa "Finland's Mogadishu".
An Iltalehti report from a daycare centre in an area where more than half of residents are of foreign background. The centre has only three Finnish-speaking children left. Some Finnish parents avoid daycare centres like it, though the matter is rarely discussed in public debate.
A Kosovo-background community has formed in Suvela, Espoo. Families fleeing the Yugoslav wars settled near their compatriots from the 1990s on. About 1,500 Albanian speakers live in the Suvela, Espoo Centre and Tuomarila areas, out of some 4,000 in Espoo as a whole. Finland has 19,695 Albanian speakers in total, 11,718 of them in the Helsinki metropolitan area.
More than 55% of residents in the Havukoski district are foreign-language speakers, an example of rapid demographic change in the Helsinki region.
The mall was Finland's largest when it opened in 1965. Today it is known as the country's most multicultural marketplace, with shops selling ethnic foods and spices, a small mosque, and community events such as Somalia's national day and the Puhos Loves People festival. About 20% of Helsinki residents speak a first language other than Finnish, Swedish or Sámi. Itäkeskus and several of the residential areas around it have a relatively high foreign-background share. The downsides mentioned are the drug trade and a sense of insecurity.
Vantaa is the only one of Finland's six largest cities where the number of residents whose mother tongue is Finnish, Swedish or Sami, the domestic languages, has fallen every year in the 2020s. According to Statistics Finland's population statistics there were 186,499 of them at the end of 2019 and 177,273 at the end of 2025. Foreign-language speakers numbered 75,683 at the end of 2025, or 29.9% of residents, against 11,884 at the end of 2005. Their number has therefore grown 6.4-fold in 20 years. According to the migration statistics in the Helsinki region's Aluesarjat database, 10,104 more domestic-language speakers moved from Vantaa to elsewhere in Finland in 2020–2025 than moved from elsewhere in Finland to Vantaa. According to Minna Mänty, a researcher at the City of Vantaa, preliminary data show that the number of domestic-language speakers fell by about 500 in January–July 2026 and the number of foreign-language speakers rose by about 1,100. City manager Pekka Timonen says about 40% of the foreign-language speakers moving to Vantaa come from elsewhere in Finland. The same migration statistics put the net migration of foreign-language speakers to Vantaa in 2025 at 2,983, of which 1,214, or 41%, came from elsewhere in Finland and 1,769 from abroad. According to Timonen, over 35% of the children in Vantaa's schools are of foreign background. According to the Aluesarjat database, 36% of Vantaa residents aged 7–15 were foreign-language speakers at the end of 2025. In the projection published in 2026 by the statistics units of Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa and the Helsinki-Uusimaa Regional Council (Uudenmaan maakunnan vieraskielisen väestön ennuste 2025–2045), the foreign-language share of Vantaa's population rises from 29% at the end of 2024 to 39% in 2034. When the projection's number of foreign-language speakers in 2040 is related to Vantaa's own population projection, as the report does for 2034, the share in 2040 is about 43%. Juho Keskinen, chief economist of the mortgage lender Hypo, estimates that the share will be close to 50% in 2040 if the current trend continues. That figure is his own estimate, not a result of the projection. Keskinen says housing sales in Vantaa are still 40% below their pre-COVID level, prices have fallen 27% from the peak, and rents have fallen more than in the rest of the capital region, Tampere or Turku.
Each year on 1 December, Denmark's housing minister publishes a list of parallel societies (parallelsamfund). They are social housing areas with at least 1,000 residents, more than half of whom are immigrants from non-Western countries or their descendants, that meet at least two of four criteria on work, crime, education and income. The list of 1 December 2025 had five areas, with 13,489 residents. In 2018, when the criteria took their current form, there were 29. In an area that has met the criteria for the past five years, the share of social family housing must be brought down to at most 40% by the start of 2030.
Danish Ministry of Social Affairs and Housing (Social- og Boligministeriet), 1 December 2025. The Social and Housing Agency (Social- og Boligstyrelsen) calculated the figures from Statistics Denmark's research data. Resident numbers are as of 1 January 2025.
Social- og Boligministeriet: Liste over parallelsamfund pr. 1. december 2025 (PDF)Danish Ministry of Social Affairs and Housing (Social- og Boligministeriet), 1 December 2025.
Social- og Boligministeriet: Liste over omdannelsesområder pr. 1. december 2025 (PDF)Danish Ministry of Social Affairs, Housing and Senior Citizens (Social-, Bolig- og Ældreministeriet), Redegørelse om parallelsamfund 2024, May 2024. The report is the ministry's annual review of the measures against parallel societies.
Social-, Bolig- og Ældreministeriet: Redegørelse om parallelsamfund 2024 (PDF)A child is placed outside the home when the support given at home is not enough. The reason may be the child's own symptoms or the conditions at home.
According to a register study covering 1991–2015, children of foreign background are clearly overrepresented among those placed. In the Finland-born second generation, 9.6–10.4% of children and young people had been placed outside the home at least once, against 3.6% in the majority population. Among children of refugee background the share is somewhat higher than among others of foreign background. The difference also shows in the kind of placement. Foreign-background placements more often begin as emergency placements, and the first placement is less often a foster family and more often an institution such as a children's home.
3.6% of the majority population had at least one placement, against 6.0–7.5% of the first generation and 9.6–10.4% of the Finland-born second generation. The register study links THL's child welfare register with personal data from the Population Register Centre. It covers 40,972 people of foreign background, born abroad in 1976–1999 or in Finland in 1986–1999, and 35,772 majority-population controls. About a third of foreign-background children's first placements were emergency placements (20% for the majority), and nearly one in four emergency-placed foreign-background children was emergency-placed twice. Family placements accounted for 5.8–9.4% of foreign-background placements and about 20% for the majority, so children's home placements dominated. Of placed second-generation children, 31.1–36.7% were under school age (14.7% in the majority population). The authors set out the literature's two most common explanations side by side: the group's above-average welfare risks and structural features of the service system. In their view the frequency of emergency placements may be explained by the basic and non-institutional services the families needed not having been available, not having been offered to them or not having been appropriate. They also consider it possible that the families' need for support was not recognised in time or that the parents refused support services. The prevalence of institutional placements may in their view reflect a shortage of suitable foster families and the fact that the foreign-born were more often placed at ages 13–17. The register data describes service use and official responses, not the need for services or their accessibility.
Statistics Finland records couples by both partners' origin and background country. The figures show how often a person of foreign background has a Finnish-background partner.
In couples of Somali, Syrian and Afghan background, both partners have the same background country in 72–78% of cases, and only 8–10% include a Finnish-background partner (2025).
In some groups relationships with the native population are also strongly gendered. Men of Iraqi, Afghan and Turkish background have a Finnish-background partner many times more often than women of the same background. Among people of Thai, Filipino and Chinese background the direction is reversed. When nine Muslim-majority background countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Turkey, Morocco, Pakistan, Somalia, Iran and Bangladesh) are taken together, women with a background in the chart's other countries are almost nine times as likely as women with a background in these countries to have a Finnish-background partner (2025). Among men the gap is small.
The share paired with a Finnish-background partner varies enormously by background country: a clear majority of couples with a Thai, Swedish or other Western background include a Finnish-background partner, whereas among refugee-origin groups (Syria, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq) the share stays below a quarter.
| Group | % |
|---|---|
| Thailand | 89.9 |
| Sweden | 86.8 |
| United States | 80.8 |
| Germany | 76.6 |
| Philippines | 38.6 |
| China | 37.2 |
| Estonia | 36.9 |
| Turkey | 36.8 |
| Former Soviet Union | 35.7 |
| Vietnam | 32.8 |
| Iraq | 21.6 |
| Iran | 18.8 |
| India | 11.8 |
| Afghanistan | 10.4 |
| Somalia | 8.7 |
| Syria | 8.4 |
The chart has one row for each background country. The left bar shows how many per thousand women aged 20–64 of that background are in a couple with a Finnish-background man. The right bar shows the same figure for the group's men. Both are divided by the group's own female and male population, because a raw count of couples would also reflect the sex ratio: protection-based migration is male-heavy. In the rows at the top of the list the right bar is the longer one, and in the rows at the bottom the left bar is.
The chart's Muslim-majority background countries are Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Turkey, Morocco, Pakistan, Somalia, Iran and Bangladesh. Taken together they give 24 per thousand for women and 83 for men. The chart's 28 other rows taken together, the unknown background country included, give 211 for women and 112 for men. On the women's side the gap is almost ninefold. On the men's side it is small, and the figure for men with a Muslim-majority background is the lower one.
| Group | women with a Finnish-background partner | men with a Finnish-background partner |
|---|---|---|
| Iraq | 15.2 | 95.5 |
| Afghanistan | 10.4 | 46.2 |
| Syria | 10.7 | 40.2 |
| Turkey | 54.3 | 198.3 |
| Morocco | 83.6 | 297.1 |
| Pakistan | 12.1 | 40.5 |
| Nigeria | 45.2 | 122.9 |
| Democratic Republic of the Congo | 21.1 | 53.7 |
| Somalia | 9.5 | 23.3 |
| Nepal | 15.6 | 29.6 |
| Former Yugoslavia | 54.1 | 95.2 |
| India | 31.9 | 51.9 |
| Iran | 54.3 | 86.1 |
| Bangladesh | 12.2 | 17.7 |
| Germany | 446.2 | 645.9 |
| Sri Lanka | 17.5 | 22.4 |
| Spain | 343.5 | 431.5 |
| United States | 517.0 | 618.4 |
| Ethiopia | 60.7 | 64.7 |
| Sweden | 601.4 | 633.3 |
| Romania | 126.3 | 112.1 |
| Kenya | 177.9 | 138.8 |
| Hungary | 282.4 | 215.1 |
| Brazil | 467.3 | 354.6 |
| Bulgaria | 157.3 | 112.9 |
| Unknown | 262.9 | 188.8 |
| Myanmar | 55.3 | 35.6 |
| Estonia | 182.4 | 95.2 |
| Poland | 332.1 | 158.6 |
| Latvia | 170.6 | 68.2 |
| Former Soviet Union | 217.6 | 78.5 |
| Vietnam | 168.7 | 58.1 |
| Ukraine | 66.1 | 22.0 |
| Russia | 187.3 | 52.2 |
| China | 212.8 | 41.5 |
| Philippines | 199.1 | 31.6 |
| Thailand | 644.2 | 102.3 |
A shrinking share of foreign-background people's couples are with a Finnish-background partner: down from 82% in 1992 to 44% in 2025. Couples in which both partners have a foreign background can also come from different countries. In 2022 the number of couples where both partners have a foreign background overtook mixed couples.
| Year | Mixed (Finnish + foreign background) (Couples) | Both foreign background (Couples) |
|---|---|---|
| 1992 | 21,202 | 4,702 |
| 1993 | 21,981 | 6,450 |
| 1994 | 22,472 | 7,359 |
| 1995 | 23,019 | 8,392 |
| 1996 | 23,595 | 9,154 |
| 1997 | 24,556 | 10,291 |
| 1998 | 25,566 | 11,299 |
| 1999 | 26,273 | 12,089 |
| 2000 | 27,407 | 12,844 |
| 2001 | 29,065 | 14,013 |
| 2002 | 30,569 | 14,818 |
| 2003 | 31,833 | 15,673 |
| 2004 | 33,469 | 16,632 |
| 2005 | 35,279 | 18,109 |
| 2006 | 37,371 | 19,714 |
| 2007 | 39,529 | 21,829 |
| 2008 | 41,729 | 24,226 |
| 2009 | 43,487 | 26,527 |
| 2010 | 45,531 | 28,667 |
| 2011 | 47,996 | 31,432 |
| 2012 | 50,371 | 34,793 |
| 2013 | 52,739 | 38,369 |
| 2014 | 54,967 | 41,836 |
| 2015 | 56,054 | 44,392 |
| 2016 | 58,060 | 47,239 |
| 2017 | 59,381 | 50,081 |
| 2018 | 61,337 | 52,992 |
| 2019 | 63,321 | 56,303 |
| 2020 | 65,692 | 59,934 |
| 2021 | 67,692 | 63,384 |
| 2022 | 69,580 | 70,242 |
| 2023 | 71,285 | 79,903 |
| 2024 | 73,145 | 88,939 |
| 2025 | 75,031 | 96,127 |
Of the marriages formed in 2024 by women permanently resident in Finland, 6.4% were between a Finnish-background woman and a foreign-background man. Marriages between Finnish-background men resident in Finland and foreign-background women made up 6.6% of all marriages formed. For women the share stood at 4–5% in 1990–2010. The men's share has grown slowly since the 1990s, with larger swings from year to year than the women's. The most common background countries of women's foreign-background spouses were the former Soviet Union, Iraq and the United Kingdom, and of men's the former Soviet Union, Estonia and Thailand. Of marriages formed by resident women 7.8%, and of those formed by resident men 11.5%, were between two foreign-background spouses.
Finland spends hundreds of millions of euros a year on immigrant integration, mostly as state compensation to municipalities and wellbeing services counties and as integration training. The key question is how much of that spending helps.
Integration outcomes, employment and language skills, remain weak in international comparison. According to the National Audit Office, only about a third of those who completed integration training in 2013–2016 reached the B1 target level.
There are two credible causal studies of how effective integration is. In the randomised Koto-SIB trial, the earnings of unemployed immigrants drawn into an outcome-paid employment service were 18 per cent higher than the control group's over three years. The 1999 integration-plan reform raised the ten-year earnings of participants who arrived in the 1990s by 47 per cent, although it did not raise their employment. Of those whose treatment the reform changed, more than half were born in the former Soviet Union and only 13 per cent were refugees. Against an annual spend in the hundreds of millions, that is little evidence.
Employment is low among people of foreign background and particularly among those from refugee-producing countries, and their share of welfare use is high, as the site's charts of employment rate by background country and sex and subsidy dependency by origin show. Women who moved from Muslim-majority countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Turkey have markedly lower employment rates than men.
Charts: Unemployment rate by nationality
Compensation paid to municipalities and wellbeing services counties is the largest single item of integration spending, and the sum rose by well over a hundred million in a year.
Compiled from the state budget (budjetti.vm.fi), the Centre of Expertise in Immigrant Integration / Ministry of Employment (TEM), VATT and the OECD (Settling In 2023, Economic Survey Finland 2025)
vatt.fi/-/vatt-analyysi-maahanmuuttajien-kotouttaminen-kanna…Pesola & Sarvimäki, Review of Economics and Statistics 2024 (IZA DP 15310). Same 1999 reform discontinuity, register data
docs.iza.org/dp15310.pdfKarinen, Koivula, Koivula, Oosi, Pesola, Sarvimäki & Virkola (2024), Koto-SIB -kokeilun vaikutukset ja käytännön toteutus, Publications of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment 2024:33 (English edition 2024:34). Randomised design, 3,662 unemployed jobseekers with an immigrant background (randomised 2017–2019), Statistics Finland register data
urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-327-604-8National Audit Office of Finland, audit report 15/2018 (follow-up 2022)
www.vtv.fi/julkaisut/kotoutumiskoulutus/OECD (2018), Working Together: Skills and Labour Market Integration of Immigrants and their Children in Finland, OECD Publishing
www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2018/0…EU-harmonised integration-outcome indicators show the same picture across several domains: the foreign-born trail the native population in education, housing and material well-being. Self-reported health is the exception, and even that is largely explained by their younger age structure. "EU-harmonised" means every member state collects the figures using the same definitions and the same surveys (Eurostat's income and living conditions survey EU-SILC and the Labour Force Survey), so that countries can be compared with each other. Overcrowding and severe material deprivation, for instance, are defined identically across the EU rather than nationally.
| Year | Native-born (%) | Foreign-born (%) |
|---|---|---|
| 2004 | 10 | 18 |
| 2005 | 9 | 19 |
| 2006 | 9 | 18 |
| 2007 | 8 | 19 |
| 2008 | 9 | 15 |
| 2009 | 11 | 20 |
| 2010 | 10 | 19 |
| 2011 | 10 | 19 |
| 2012 | 10 | 16 |
| 2013 | 11 | 18 |
| 2014 | 11 | 18 |
| 2015 | 12 | 17 |
| 2016 | 11 | 18 |
| 2017 | 11 | 15 |
| 2018 | 10 | 14 |
| 2019 | 9 | 12 |
| 2020 | 10 | 14 |
| 2021 | 9 | 10 |
| 2022 | 9 | 11 |
| 2023 | 9 | 13 |
| 2024 | 10 | 14 |
| 2025 | 11 | 16 |
Immigration is often defended through labour supply and public-finance benefits. Labour migration can be economically positive, but register data and fiscal models show that the positive effects are not seen among immigrant groups of every migration reason or background country. Humanitarian and family migration in particular show up in the data as higher benefit use and less tax paid. On the other hand, residents on work grounds pay clearly more in taxes than they receive in transfers, and the whole foreign-background population paid slightly more in taxes than it received in transfers in 2023. The use of public services is not included in these comparisons.
Labour shortage is the usual justification for work-based immigration, but the domestic labour reserve is large. In June 2026 Finland had 297,000 unemployed. A further 357,000 or so people were studying at universities and polytechnics, on their way into the labour market.
The question is why labour is recruited from abroad while one in ten of the labour force is out of work. The counterargument is mismatch: open jobs, the skills of the unemployed and where people live do not always meet.
On the statistics, though, recruiting labour from abroad does not settle the matter by itself: what decides it is selection. In this section's own figures, taxes paid exceed the transfers received most clearly for work-based arrivals, about €8,100 per adult a year, and also for residents on EU grounds, about €3,800. Compared with Finnish-background people of the same age and sex, only work-based arrivals come out ahead of their comparison group, and the gap between the best and the weakest ground for entry is roughly €19,500 a year. These are a single-year (2023) cross-section, not net effects computed over a lifetime: the lifetime estimates on the background-country pages are a different quantity.
The figures by grounds describe a person, not a family: a work-permit holder's spouse and children are counted under family.
This section treats fiscal effects at a general level. Closer figures on what the integration system and the reception system cost are in this knowledge base, each in its own section.
Charts: Economic contribution by origin group
Each bar is the group's difference from Finnish-background residents with a similar age and sex distribution. When the bar points right, the group's taxes minus transfers come out better than the comparison group's, and when it points left they come out worse. The figure is an average per person per year.
Compared with Finnish-background residents of a similar age and sex distribution. Positive = the group pays more than its comparison group, negative = less. The figure is not the group’s own level but the gap to that comparison group. Work-based migration is the only group that clears its comparator.
| Group | Average € per year, aged 20+ |
|---|---|
| Work | 971 € |
| Born in Finland | -728 € |
| EU residence right | -3,593 € |
| Study | -3,623 € |
| Citizenship | -4,040 € |
| Permanent residence permit | -5,874 € |
| Other / unknown | -6,852 € |
| Family | -9,989 € |
| Protection (humanitarian) | -18,537 € |
The chart above counts direct taxes and transfers only. This one adds to the same comparison what VATT says it left out: indirect taxes, employer contributions, property tax and the production taxes the shared revenue credits by disposable income, at the group's own measured income. The figure is still the difference to a same-age Finnish-background resident per adult. The cost calculator's split by residence basis adds the same groups up to a total for the whole population. The calculation is still a work in progress, and its figures may change.
Positive = the group brings public finances more than a same-age Finnish-background resident, negative = less.
| Group | Average € per year per adult, difference to same-age residents |
|---|---|
| Work | 160 € |
| Born in Finland | -1,216 € |
| Citizenship | -6,571 € |
| EU residence right | -6,951 € |
| Study | -8,936 € |
| Permanent residence permit | -10,062 € |
| Other / unknown | -11,098 € |
| Family | -17,726 € |
| Protection (humanitarian) | -25,376 € |
A work-permit holder's spouse and children are counted under family. The chart adds a work-permit holder and one average family-ground adult together. The upper bar is the group's own level, taxes paid minus transfers received, the lower one the gap to same-age Finnish-background residents. A bar to the right is a plus for public finances, to the left a minus.
| Group | Own level | Gap to same-age Finnish-background residents |
|---|---|---|
| Work permit | 8,092 | 971 |
| Family ground | -4,910 | -9,989 |
| Together | 3,182 | -9,018 |
The bar is the group's average yearly net effect on public finances as a difference to Finland-born natives of the same age. Natives are zero, and a bar to the left means the group pays in less or receives more than natives.
Covers 20–62-year-olds who moved to Finland in 1992 or later. The figures include employer social contributions and collectively consumed public services. Age standardisation weights the native observations to each group's age structure. The Somali and Iraqi figures are split by whether the person arrived over the age of 15 or younger. The publisher, Suomen Perusta, is the Finns Party's think tank.
| Group | € per person per year, difference to natives |
|---|---|
| Somalia, arrived over 15 | -21,140 € |
| Iraq, arrived over 15 | -18,000 € |
| Thailand | -11,840 € |
| Turkey | -8,920 € |
| Former Yugoslavia | -8,850 € |
| Former Soviet Union | -7,220 € |
| All foreign-born | -7,040 € |
| Iraq, arrived under 16 | -6,820 € |
| Somalia, arrived under 16 | -6,390 € |
| China | -5,330 € |
| Sweden | -4,650 € |
| Estonia | -3,450 € |
| Finland (native-born) | 0 € |
| Germany | 820 € |
Commissioned by the Ministry of Finance, register data for 2023. Aged 20 and over, standardised against people of Finnish background with the same age and sex distribution. The euro figures by ground of residence permit are read off the report's chart, not its body text
www.doria.fi/handle/10024/194288Comparison: Salminen's calculation (Suomen Perusta) and Sarvimäki's alternative calculation in the VATT blog post “On the costs of immigration”, plus Pauli Vahtera's calculation (2019, 2016–2019 data)
vatt.fi/-/maahanmuuton-kustannuksistaLiterature review: Pesola et al. 2024a (Migri and Statistics Finland register data 2011–2021, ages 18–59) and the Swedish National Institute of Economic Research 2025a/b
www.etla.fi/wp-content/uploads/ETLA-Raportit-Reports-176.pdfA study commissioned by the Ministry of Finance, begun in February 2025
vatt.fi/-/selvitys-maahanmuuton-vaikutuksista-julkiseen-talo…A calculated estimate. The author is an authorised public accountant and columnist, not a research institute. 2016–2019 data, calculated in 2019.
www.iltalehti.fi/talous/a/200a4e99-a71a-4b7a-a6de-6369cca9e3…Municipality-level register data. The lifecycle figures are undiscounted differences to a Finland-born comparison person, and they are sensitive to the assumptions made about employment and return migration.
www.suomenperusta.fi/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Maahanmuutot…The Helsingin Sanomat guest column and article ask whether immigration endangers the long-term sustainability of the pension system.
An HS interview: Suvi-Anne Siimes, chief executive of Tela, the earnings-related pension providers’ interest group, argues that immigrants qualify for Kela pensions too easily and that tightening the conditions would encourage people to come to Finland to work at a younger age rather than arriving in old age to draw a pension. Entitlement to the guarantee and national pension arises after three years’ residence, and the full guarantee pension is about EUR 990 a month, the same amount for immigrants and the Finnish-born alike. This is the position of an interest group’s chief executive, not a research finding: the piece presents no calculation of immigrants’ pension contributions.
Helsingin Sanomat guest column: immigrants' lower employment rate and higher benefit use weaken the long-term funding base of the pension system.
The most expensive reception centre, in Helsinki's Punavuori, cost €130 per person per night in 2024. The cheapest (Salo, Halikko) cost €25. The national average has fallen to €35, from €66 at the 2015 peak. Food at Punavuori costs about €25 per person per day, or about €36,000 a year for a family of four. The unit costs €5 million a year in total: €1m rent, €1m food, €1m staff and about €1m in outsourced health and social services. The Finnish Immigration Service plans to move the unit by 2028 to improve cost efficiency.
AN OPINION COLUMN, not reporting and not research: the author, Simon Hankinson, is a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and the piece ran on the Telegraph's comment pages. It relays at second hand the same Suomen Perusta figures that this site's own chart uses directly, and the article itself discloses that Suomen Perusta is linked to the Finns Party. Its checkable factual claims hold: Finland receives about 50,000 new arrivals a year, and per the OECD about half of the 2024 arrivals came to join family members. It also cites Minnesota figures (81% of Somali-headed households use some federal welfare, against 21% of native-headed households). Those figures come from a different country and a different welfare system and are not comparable with the Finnish numbers. The article does not present Finland as Europe's clearest example. It says that Finland's findings echo those from Denmark and the Netherlands.
HS on a report by VATT, the Finnish government's economic research institute, comparing income taxes and transfers in 2023 with age and sex held constant. Working-age Finnish-background residents paid clearly more income tax and received less in transfers than a comparable foreign-background population, and foreign-background residents received clearly more unemployment benefits and social assistance. At the same time, working-age foreign-background residents paid more income tax on average than they received in transfers. Lead researcher Matti Sarvimäki says that, for direct transfers, the effect of all immigrants on public finances is currently roughly zero. The spread between groups is wide: people on work-based residence permits had better net transfer positions than comparable Finnish-background residents, while those who arrived on protection or family grounds were clearly the most negative. Note that the study covers direct transfers and income taxes, not public services and not the whole life cycle.
Ana Damas de Matos, International Migration Outlook 2021, chapter 4. The foreign-born in 22 European OECD countries and in Australia, Canada and the United States over 2006–2018, by one method. General government spending and revenue from the national accounts are divided between the foreign-born and the native-born with labour force surveys and income surveys (EU-SILC). Finland's figures are read from the chapter's tables 4.1, 4.3, 4.4 and 4.5 and from the data of figure 4.8
www.oecd.org/en/publications/international-migration-outlook…| Age | Danish origin (DKK 1,000 per person) | Western (DKK 1,000 per person) | MENAPT countries (DKK 1,000 per person) | Other non-Western (DKK 1,000 per person) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | -77 | -69 | -82 | -80 |
| 5 | -142 | -138 | -151 | -140 |
| 10 | -167 | -155 | -176 | -174 |
| 15 | -164 | -154 | -185 | -172 |
| 20 | -78 | -52 | -131 | -92 |
| 25 | -45 | -26 | -82 | -33 |
| 30 | 53 | 56 | -38 | 20 |
| 35 | 108 | 94 | -21 | 55 |
| 40 | 156 | 117 | -16 | 62 |
| 45 | 187 | 159 | -33 | 55 |
| 50 | 199 | 145 | -50 | 36 |
| 55 | 176 | 140 | -73 | 18 |
| 60 | 159 | 112 | -97 | -23 |
| 65 | 20 | 38 | -109 | -77 |
| 70 | -48 | -71 | -150 | -137 |
| 75 | -91 | -94 | -176 | -154 |
| 80 | -145 | -145 | -188 | -182 |
| 85 | -221 | -177 | -200 | -163 |
| 90 | -306 | -251 | -224 | -274 |
The upper bar is the actual net effect, the lower the same age-standardised, that is with the group's age structure set to that of people of Danish origin. A bar to the left is a cost.
Age-standardisation recomputes each group's net contribution as if it had the same age distribution as people of Danish origin. For Western descendants the negativity is an age effect (positive once standardised), whereas for MENAPT immigrants the figure is even lower after standardisation (−85 → −118), so the gap is not explained by age structure. Values read from the report's figure 2.8.
| Group | Actual | Age-standardised |
|---|---|---|
| Western immigrants | 38 | 2 |
| Western descendants | -72 | 8 |
| MENAPT immigrants | -85 | -118 |
| MENAPT descendants | -110 | -58 |
| Other non-Western immigrants | -4 | -60 |
| Other non-Western descendants | -108 | -33 |
A bar to the right is a net contributor, to the left a net recipient, in thousands of Danish kroner per person per year.
The group averages and the Danish-origin level come from table 2.1 of the same publication, so every country reads against its own group and against the native population. Western, MENAPT and other non-Western are the ministry's own grouping: Denmark counts EU countries as Western, so Poland, Romania and Bulgaria are Western while Russia and Ukraine are not.
| Group | DKK 1,000 per person per year |
|---|---|
| Somalia | -130.2 |
| Syria | -118.1 |
| Lebanon | -102.0 |
| Iraq | -90.0 |
| Afghanistan | -79.1 |
| MENAPT countries, average | -74.0 |
| Eritrea | -71.2 |
| Morocco | -46.2 |
| Former Yugoslavia | -45.4 |
| Pakistan | -34.4 |
| Turkey | -32.0 |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | -26.1 |
| Iran | -23.8 |
| All immigrants | 5.0 |
| Sri Lanka | 6.1 |
| Philippines | 9.5 |
| Vietnam | 12.2 |
| Bulgaria | 12.4 |
| Other non-Western, average | 14.0 |
| Hungary | 14.8 |
| Thailand | 15.0 |
| Latvia | 17.6 |
| Danish origin | 22.0 |
| Iceland | 24.2 |
| Romania | 31.0 |
| Russia | 33.6 |
| Norway | 34.3 |
| Poland | 37.6 |
| Germany | 42.1 |
| Lithuania | 45.5 |
| Ukraine | 47.9 |
| China | 50.7 |
| Western countries, average | 52.0 |
| Spain | 57.1 |
| Sweden | 69.3 |
| Italy | 70.4 |
| India | 93.5 |
| Netherlands | 109.5 |
| United States | 110.4 |
| France | 113.6 |
| United Kingdom | 114.0 |
Finansministeriet (the Danish Ministry of Finance), register data (Danmarks Statistik), 2018 levels
fm.dk/media/0qmmvey5/indvandreres-nettobidrag-til-de-offentl…The bar is the taxes a household paid in a year minus the transfers it received, in thousands of Norwegian kroner. The household is grouped by the country background of its highest earner.
Covers households whose highest earner is aged 25–61, excluding student households. Taxes are income and wealth taxes, and transfers include unemployment benefit, disability pension, child benefit, housing allowance and social assistance among others. NOK 1,000 is about 86 euros at the 2024 average rate.
| Group | NOK 1,000 per household per year |
|---|---|
| Syria | -206 |
| Ukraine | -158 |
| Somalia | -137 |
| Iraq | -115 |
| Afghanistan | -63 |
| Turkey | -46 |
| Thailand | -23 |
| Pakistan | -12 |
| Eritrea | -2 |
| Vietnam | 38 |
| Poland | 66 |
| Latvia | 77 |
| Lithuania | 85 |
| Romania | 90 |
| Rest of the population | 172 |
| Sweden | 198 |
| Germany | 203 |
| Denmark | 211 |
| India | 241 |
| United Kingdom | 284 |
The Economic Journal 124, University College London. The whole population over 1995–2011, in 2011 pounds.
www.cream-migration.org/publ_uploads/CDP_22_13.pdfThe bar is one immigrant's lifetime net effect on public finances including children, in thousands of euros. Left is a cost, right a gain.
The figure is the taxes and contributions an immigrant pays minus the public spending that falls on them, over the whole remaining life course from arrival. It also includes the life course of their children born in the Netherlands and the probability that the immigrant leaves again. The calculation covers the immigrants living in the country in 2016, with future years discounted to their 2016 value. The native Dutch reference is the authors' hypothetical immigrant with the schooling, labour-market position and health-care costs of the average native Dutch person. It is therefore not the native population's average. A native Dutch person born in the Netherlands has, according to the authors, a lifetime net contribution of roughly zero on average.
| Group | EUR 1,000 per immigrant, children included |
|---|---|
| Horn of Africa and Sudan | -606 |
| Morocco | -542 |
| Afghanistan, Iran, Syria and Iraq | -418 |
| Central Africa | -382 |
| West Africa | -348 |
| Turkey | -340 |
| Caribbean | -321 |
| North Africa (excl. Morocco) | -319 |
| Aruba and former Netherlands Antilles | -254 |
| Pakistan | -238 |
| Arabian Peninsula, Jordan and Lebanon | -224 |
| Suriname | -185 |
| Former Soviet Union (excl. Baltic states) | -177 |
| Former Yugoslavia and Albania | -161 |
| Thailand, Indochina and Myanmar | -159 |
| Central America and other South America | -118 |
| East Africa | -98 |
| Poland and the Baltic states | -71 |
| Bulgaria and Romania | -70 |
| Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and East Timor | -66 |
| China, Mongolia and North Korea | -47 |
| Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Chile | -34 |
| Indian subcontinent (excl. Pakistan) | -27 |
| Portugal | -27 |
| Indonesia | -24 |
| Greece and Cyprus | -13 |
| Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Croatia | -6 |
| South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore | 14 |
| Germany and Austria | 23 |
| Spain | 39 |
| Italy and Malta | 50 |
| Israel | 58 |
| Belgium and Luxembourg | 63 |
| Native Dutch reference | 95 |
| Southern Africa | 158 |
| France | 165 |
| Oceania | 166 |
| EFTA, microstates and crown dependencies | 182 |
| United Kingdom and Ireland | 191 |
| Japan | 194 |
| North America | 203 |
| Denmark, Sweden and Finland | 208 |
The figure in the chart above split in two: the immigrant's own life course and that of their children born in the Netherlands. Both are counted per immigrant, so together the two parts give the figure above.
| Group | The immigrant | Their children |
|---|---|---|
| Horn of Africa and Sudan | -315 | -291 |
| Morocco | -261 | -281 |
| Afghanistan, Iran, Syria and Iraq | -322 | -96 |
| Central Africa | -226 | -156 |
| West Africa | -150 | -198 |
| Turkey | -198 | -142 |
| Caribbean | -196 | -125 |
| North Africa (excl. Morocco) | -170 | -149 |
| Aruba and former Netherlands Antilles | -169 | -85 |
| Pakistan | -153 | -85 |
| Arabian Peninsula, Jordan and Lebanon | -149 | -75 |
| Suriname | -113 | -72 |
| Former Soviet Union (excl. Baltic states) | -129 | -48 |
| Former Yugoslavia and Albania | -102 | -59 |
| Thailand, Indochina and Myanmar | -121 | -37 |
| Central America and other South America | -68 | -50 |
| East Africa | -28 | -70 |
| Poland and the Baltic states | -50 | -20 |
| Bulgaria and Romania | -41 | -28 |
| Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and East Timor | -48 | -19 |
| China, Mongolia and North Korea | -52 | 5 |
| Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Chile | -6 | -28 |
| Indian subcontinent (excl. Pakistan) | 15 | -42 |
| Portugal | 1 | -27 |
| Indonesia | -15 | -9 |
| Greece and Cyprus | 14 | -26 |
| Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Croatia | 14 | -20 |
| South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore | 15 | -1 |
| Germany and Austria | 48 | -25 |
| Spain | 69 | -29 |
| Italy and Malta | 84 | -34 |
| Israel | 77 | -19 |
| Belgium and Luxembourg | 78 | -14 |
| Native Dutch reference | 98 | -3 |
| Southern Africa | 178 | -20 |
| France | 174 | -9 |
| Oceania | 183 | -17 |
| EFTA, microstates and crown dependencies | 178 | 4 |
| United Kingdom and Ireland | 201 | -10 |
| Japan | 180 | 14 |
| North America | 210 | -7 |
| Denmark, Sweden and Finland | 206 | 2 |
The bar is one first-generation immigrant's net contribution to public finances from arrival to death or departure, in thousands of euros. Children are not included.
| Group | Western background | Non-Western background |
|---|---|---|
| Work | 161 | 90 |
| Study | 9 | -74 |
| Other | -67 | -232 |
| Unknown | -26 | -188 |
| Family | -103 | -263 |
| Asylum | -251 | -433 |
Anonymous registry data for 17 million Dutch residents (1995–2019)
demo-demo.nl/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Borderless_Welfare_S…A panel of the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, a 508-page report. Lifetime calculations over a 75-year horizon, in 2012 dollars.
nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/23550/the-economic-and-fis…Employment differences between background countries are wide, and employment is the central measure of integration. The figures cover everyone with a foreign background, by background country. They do not separate work, family and protection arrivals, so the differences between countries largely reflect which countries people arrive from on which grounds. The split by ground is under grounds for arrival, and what employment means for earnings is under income level.
Charts: Employment by background country and sex
Statistics Finland's integration indicators break employment down by region of background. The gap to the native population has narrowed over thirty years without closing, and the differences between regions of origin are larger than the average gap to the native population.
| Year | Finnish background and Finland-born foreign background (% of 18 to 64-year-olds) | Foreign-born, foreign background, total (% of 18 to 64-year-olds) | Background in other EU27 countries (% of 18 to 64-year-olds) | Background in Asia (% of 18 to 64-year-olds) | Background in Africa (% of 18 to 64-year-olds) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | 60.1 | 33.3 | 43.8 | 31.0 | 22.1 |
| 1996 | 60.7 | 33.9 | 46.2 | 30.6 | 22.5 |
| 1997 | 63.0 | 36.1 | 49.5 | 31.4 | 25.9 |
| 1998 | 65.3 | 38.9 | 52.8 | 33.6 | 29.9 |
| 1999 | 66.3 | 40.8 | 54.8 | 35.2 | 32.1 |
| 2000 | 67.7 | 44.6 | 58.0 | 39.3 | 36.4 |
| 2001 | 67.8 | 45.2 | 58.6 | 38.7 | 35.8 |
| 2002 | 67.9 | 45.6 | 58.9 | 38.4 | 35.5 |
| 2003 | 68.0 | 45.6 | 59.1 | 37.9 | 33.4 |
| 2004 | 68.4 | 47.1 | 60.7 | 38.5 | 33.4 |
| 2005 | 68.9 | 48.7 | 61.8 | 39.5 | 35.2 |
| 2006 | 70.3 | 51.3 | 63.4 | 41.4 | 38.3 |
| 2007 | 71.5 | 54.1 | 65.0 | 44.3 | 42.4 |
| 2008 | 71.4 | 55.2 | 65.3 | 45.8 | 44.9 |
| 2009 | 68.7 | 51.6 | 62.2 | 42.5 | 41.3 |
| 2010 | 69.8 | 52.1 | 63.6 | 43.0 | 39.8 |
| 2011 | 70.9 | 53.4 | 65.5 | 43.7 | 40.8 |
| 2012 | 70.6 | 53.2 | 65.4 | 43.6 | 40.5 |
| 2013 | 69.8 | 51.6 | 63.5 | 42.2 | 38.7 |
| 2014 | 69.4 | 50.4 | 62.1 | 41.6 | 36.8 |
| 2015 | 69.2 | 49.9 | 61.8 | 41.9 | 36.5 |
| 2016 | 70.1 | 50.3 | 62.8 | 41.5 | 37.0 |
| 2017 | 72.0 | 52.8 | 65.4 | 43.8 | 39.9 |
| 2018 | 73.7 | 55.7 | 67.8 | 47.0 | 43.1 |
| 2019 | 73.6 | 57.1 | 67.9 | 49.4 | 45.9 |
| 2020 | 71.1 | 53.7 | 63.3 | 47.2 | 42.5 |
| 2021 | 74.0 | 58.1 | 66.7 | 52.4 | 48.2 |
| 2022 | 75.1 | 60.0 | 67.5 | 55.5 | 51.0 |
| 2023 | 74.6 | 57.8 | 64.9 | 54.7 | 50.6 |
| 2024 | 74.5 | 56.0 | 63.6 | 54.3 | 49.9 |
Occupation group says where in the wage distribution a group works. “Elementary occupations” is the lowest-paid major class in the classification: cleaning, kitchen assistance, refuse collection and labouring. Of the Finnish-background employed 5.2% work there, of the Philippine-background 37.5%.
Finnish background 5.2
| Group | % of the group's employed |
|---|---|
| Philippines | 37.5 |
| Thailand | 36.8 |
| Bangladesh | 33.1 |
| Nigeria | 32.6 |
| Ukraine | 20.1 |
| Morocco | 19.5 |
| Former Yugoslavia | 17.3 |
| Somalia | 15.6 |
| Iraq | 14.8 |
| Afghanistan | 14.7 |
| Estonia | 14.7 |
| Vietnam | 14.6 |
| Russia | 12.7 |
| Former Soviet Union | 12.7 |
| Syria | 12.3 |
| Pakistan | 12.1 |
| Turkey | 10.0 |
| India | 9.2 |
| Iran | 7.5 |
| China | 6.1 |
| Finland | 5.2 |
| Sweden | 5.2 |
The second bar compares a young person with Finnish-background peers whose parents have the same socio-economic position, and also holds age, sex and region of birth equal. The gap then turns to zero or positive in every group. A Finland-born young person of foreign background is thus in work as often as, or more often than, a Finnish-background peer whose parents are in the same position.
| Group | Gap as it stands | Parents' position held equal |
|---|---|---|
| All | -4.5 | 6.3 |
| Middle East | -11.4 | 5.6 |
| Europe | -6.6 | 0.2 |
| Africa | -4.5 | 9.1 |
| Soviet Union or Russia | -3.7 | 4.9 |
| Asia | -2.8 | 6.4 |
| Yugoslavia | 4.2 | 15.2 |
Publications of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment 2025:13. Register data on all Finland-born people of foreign background aged 18 to 29 over 2010–2023, compared with the Finland-born of Finnish background.
julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/handle/11111/8623Statistics Finland, Tieto&trendit 25 June 2025 (Raijas & Baumgartner). Employment statistics, 18 to 29-year-olds at the end of 2023.
stat.fi/tietotrendit/artikkelit/2025/Maahanmuuttajataustaise…In the 2021 census of England and Wales, 29.1 per cent of people aged 16 to 64 were not in work. Among Muslims the share was 48.6 per cent, and in the other groups it ranged from 27.0 to 35.8 per cent. The gap was largest among women: 60.4 per cent of Muslim women were not in work against 32.5 per cent of all women, and 37.1 per cent of Muslim men against 25.5 per cent of all men.
| Group | % of people aged 16 to 64 |
|---|---|
| Muslim | 48.6 |
| Other religion | 35.8 |
| Buddhist | 33.5 |
| Sikh | 30.0 |
| All people | 29.1 |
| Hindu | 27.5 |
| Jewish | 27.4 |
| No religion | 27.3 |
| Christian | 27.0 |
OECD and European Commission, Indicators of Immigrant Integration 2023: Settling In (15 June 2023), chapter 3, figures 3.1, 3.9 and 3.10 and annex tables B1 and B6. Labour force surveys, in the EU countries the EU Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS): people aged 15 to 64 not in education, education in 2020 and employment by education in 2020 and 2021.
www.oecd.org/en/publications/indicators-of-immigrant-integra…Institute for Employment Research (IAB) and the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), IAB Brain Drain Data. Censuses and registers of the destination countries: the foreign-born aged 25 and over by country of birth, sex and education in 20 OECD countries, 1980–2010.
iab.de/en/daten/iab-brain-drain/According to SSB's register-based statistics, 67.5% of immigrants aged 20 to 66 were in work in November 2025, against 79.5% of the rest of the population. Of immigrants born in Somalia 48.8% were in work, of those born in Syria 47.4%, of those born in Poland 73.0% and of those born in Eritrea 74.4%. Of immigrants in work, 74.4% worked full time, against 79.2% of the employed in the rest of the population.
| Group | % of people aged 20 to 66 |
|---|---|
| Non-immigrants | 79.5 |
| Lithuania | 75.6 |
| Eritrea | 74.4 |
| Latvia | 73.2 |
| Poland | 73.0 |
| Estonia | 72.2 |
| All immigrants | 67.5 |
| Russia | 66.1 |
| Iran | 64.2 |
| Afghanistan | 62.5 |
| Iraq | 52.9 |
| Somalia | 48.8 |
| Syria | 47.4 |
| Ukraine | 46.9 |
SSB's register-based employment statistics, all residents aged 20 to 66 registered in Norway, 4th quarter 2025 (the reference week in November). In work were 545,068 immigrants and 2,084,190 people in the rest of the population.
SSB, Hvor mye jobber innvandrere i Norge?, updated 30 April 2026The chart follows one group, people who sought protection in Germany in 2015, for nine years from their arrival. In the first year 6 per cent were in paid employment, and in the ninth year, 2024, 64 per cent were. The corresponding share for the whole population was 70 per cent in the last quarter of 2024. In the ninth year 76 per cent of the men and 35 per cent of the women were in paid employment, against 72 and 69 per cent in the whole population.
| Years since arrival | Men (% of people aged 18 to 64) | All (% of people aged 18 to 64) | Women (% of people aged 18 to 64) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 8 | 6 | 1 |
| 2 | 24 | 19 | 4 |
| 3 | 38 | 30 | 8 |
| 4 | 48 | 38 | 13 |
| 5 | 50 | 40 | 14 |
| 6 | 61 | 48 | 17 |
| 7 | 70 | 56 | 22 |
| 8 | 73 | 61 | 31 |
| 9 | 76 | 64 | 35 |
Statistik der Bundesagentur für Arbeit, Migrationsmonitor, Deutschland und Länder (Monatszahlen). Germany edition, reporting month September 2026, compiled on 1 October 2026: table 1.3 and the methodological notes. The employment figures are for July 2026. The BA replaces the file with a new one every month.
Statistik der Bundesagentur für Arbeit: Migrationsmonitor, Deutschland, September 2026 (Excel)Herbert Brücker, Philipp Jaschke and Yuliya Kosyakova: 10 Jahre Fluchtmigration 2015. Haben wir es geschafft? Eine Analyse aus Sicht des Arbeitsmarktes. IAB-Kurzbericht 17/2025, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (the Federal Employment Agency's research institute), 25 August 2025. Data: the IAB-BAMF-SOEP survey of refugees linked to the agency's registers.
IAB-Kurzbericht 17/2025: 10 Jahre Fluchtmigration 2015 (PDF)Statistics Austria publishes an annual statistical yearbook on migration and integration. Its employment figures come from the Labour Force Survey and break the population of migration background down by origin and sex. In Austrian statistics, people of migration background are those whose parents were both born abroad.
Statistics Austria and the Federal Chancellery's integration division: Statistisches Jahrbuch Migration & Integration 2026, presented on 11 September 2026. The employment figures come from Austria's Labour Force Survey (Mikrozensus-Arbeitskräfteerhebung): people aged 15 to 64 in private households, conscripts and civilian servants excluded, average for 2025.
Statistik Austria, Statistisches Jahrbuch Migration & Integration 2026 (PDF)Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reports on integration in its report Integratie en samenleven. The report's employment figures come from the Labour Force Survey and split the foreign-born and the second generation by the largest origin groups. Figures by country of birth are in the CBS database and are based on registers.
According to CBS's register-based statistics, 63% of the foreign-born aged 15 to 74 were in work in 2024. Of people born in the Netherlands whose parents were both born there 74% were in work, and of the whole population 72%. Of those born in Syria 42% were in work, of those born in Morocco 47%, of those born in Somalia 50% and of those born in Türkiye 53%. Of those born in Poland 80% were in work, and of those born in India 78%.
| Group | % of people aged 15 to 74 |
|---|---|
| Poland | 80 |
| India | 78 |
| Dutch background | 74 |
| China | 66 |
| Germany | 65 |
| Curaçao | 65 |
| Ukraine | 64 |
| All foreign-born | 63 |
| Eritrea | 62 |
| Suriname | 61 |
| Iran | 61 |
| Afghanistan | 57 |
| Türkiye | 53 |
| Iraq | 52 |
| Somalia | 50 |
| Morocco | 47 |
| Syria | 42 |
CBS, Rapportage Integratie en Samenleven 2024, published on 22 November 2024, section 4.2 Arbeid. The employment figures come from the Labour Force Survey (Enquête Beroepsbevolking): residents of the Netherlands aged 15 to 74, the institutional population excluded, year 2023 (provisional). More recent survey figures are in StatLine table 85456NED (updated 13 August 2026).
CBS, Rapportage Integratie en Samenleven 2024, section 4.2 (PDF)Statistics Denmark publishes an annual report on immigrants and their descendants. The report's employment figures come from the register-based labour force statistics and separate immigrants from Western countries, immigrants from non-Western countries and people of Danish origin.
According to Statistics Denmark, 70.8% of men and 60.7% of women aged 16 to 64 who immigrated from non-Western countries were in work at the end of November 2024. In 2015 the shares were 52.7 and 45.2%. Of men of Danish origin 81.1% were in work and of women 78.3%, against 76.6 and 73.4% in 2015. Between 2008 and 2015 the employment rate of immigrants from non-Western countries fell.
| Year | Danish-origin men (% of people aged 16 to 64) | Danish-origin women (% of people aged 16 to 64) | Immigrant men from non-Western countries (% of people aged 16 to 64) | Immigrant women from non-Western countries (% of people aged 16 to 64) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 80.0 | 75.8 | 61.0 | 51.5 |
| 2009 | 75.7 | 74.0 | 55.5 | 48.7 |
| 2010 | 75.4 | 73.2 | 54.1 | 47.2 |
| 2011 | 75.7 | 72.6 | 54.1 | 46.8 |
| 2012 | 75.2 | 72.3 | 53.4 | 45.9 |
| 2013 | 75.2 | 72.4 | 53.6 | 45.5 |
| 2014 | 75.8 | 72.8 | 53.4 | 45.6 |
| 2015 | 76.6 | 73.4 | 52.7 | 45.2 |
| 2016 | 77.4 | 74.1 | 55.2 | 45.8 |
| 2017 | 78.0 | 74.9 | 58.6 | 47.6 |
| 2018 | 78.8 | 75.8 | 61.9 | 49.8 |
| 2019 | 78.9 | 76.2 | 64.2 | 52.1 |
| 2020 | 78.2 | 75.7 | 63.9 | 52.6 |
| 2021 | 80.6 | 77.9 | 68.5 | 57.5 |
| 2022 | 81.2 | 78.6 | 69.1 | 58.2 |
| 2023 | 81.1 | 78.4 | 70.0 | 60.0 |
| 2024 | 81.1 | 78.3 | 70.8 | 60.7 |
Statistics Denmark limits the figures by country to people aged 30 to 64, so that young people studying in Denmark temporarily do not affect them. Of the thirty largest immigrant groups, the highest employment rate was among immigrants of Dutch origin, 82%, against 83% among people of Danish origin. The lowest rates were among immigrants of Lebanese origin, 45%, of Somali origin, 50%, and of Iraqi origin, 53%. Of men of Syrian origin 70% were in work, and of women of Syrian origin 41%.
| Group | % of people aged 30 to 64 |
|---|---|
| Danish origin | 83 |
| Netherlands | 82 |
| Lithuania | 81 |
| Philippines | 80 |
| Thailand | 80 |
| Poland | 79 |
| Sweden | 78 |
| Romania | 77 |
| India | 77 |
| Italy | 77 |
| United Kingdom | 76 |
| Norway | 76 |
| France | 76 |
| China | 75 |
| Bulgaria | 74 |
| Vietnam | 73 |
| Ukraine | 72 |
| Germany | 72 |
| United States | 71 |
| Russia | 70 |
| Sri Lanka | 67 |
| Pakistan | 65 |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | 64 |
| Iran | 63 |
| Afghanistan | 63 |
| Türkiye | 59 |
| Syria | 57 |
| Yugoslavia | 57 |
| Iraq | 53 |
| Somalia | 50 |
| Lebanon | 45 |
Statistics Denmark, Indvandrere i Danmark 2025, published on 15 December 2025, chapter 2 Arbejdsmarked, and the press release Beskæftigelsen stiger fortsat blandt indvandrere fra ikke-vestlige lande (15 December 2025). Data: the register-based labour force statistics (RAS), all residents of Denmark, status at the end of November 2024.
Statistics Denmark, Indvandrere i Danmark 2025, chapter 2 ArbejdsmarkedThe pay gap between foreign-background and Finnish-background employees is clear overall but small within the same occupation group.
The median hourly wage was EUR 16.75 for foreign-background employees and EUR 19.61 for Finnish-background employees in 2022, 14.6 per cent lower. Within an occupation group the difference is small and in places reversed: among managers the foreign-background earned 8.3 per cent more (EUR 47.07 against 43.46), among specialists 3.7 per cent more, and among professionals pay was about equal. Among service and sales workers the gap was 3.4 per cent in favour of the Finnish-background. The overall gap therefore comes mostly from which occupations the groups work in, not from pay for the same work.
In labour exploitation an employer takes advantage of a worker's weak position, for example by underpaying or by imposing excessively long working days. In Finland its victims are most often foreign workers. The statistics, however, describe both what happens and what the authorities detect. The number of recorded offences and inspection findings depends on how much the police and the labour inspectorate supervise, and according to researchers many cases stay hidden. The statistics do not give the background of the offenders, and in the research material the exploiters have been employers of both Finnish and foreign background.
According to a review by HEUNI, the European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control affiliated with the United Nations, vulnerable foreign-background workers who do not know their rights are exploited in Finland through underpayment, excessively long working days, threats and control. The review brings together earlier research and 40 court judgments on labour trafficking from 2004–2020. According to the authors trafficking is a hidden crime, and much of it probably never reaches the statistics. In their view Finland is in many ways better able than the other Nordic countries to tackle labour trafficking and support its victims, but pre-trial investigation and criminal liability still fall short. HEUNI's first study of the subject in Finland (Jokinen, Ollus & Viuhko 2011) found the most serious cases in the restaurant, construction and horticulture sectors. In its material the exploiters were both of Finnish origin and of foreign background.
In 2025 the labour inspectorate made 1,817 inspections of companies using foreign labour, most of them in accommodation and food service and in construction. In about one in ten inspections that checked the right to work, at least one foreign worker was found who had no right to do that work. Shortcomings in pay were found in about 40 per cent of the inspections that assessed it. The inspectorate made 188 reports to the police. Of these, 10 concerned labour exploitation offences, and the rest concerned unauthorised foreign labour, employer offences under the Aliens Act and employers' failure to give the required notifications. In trafficking cases the inspectorate gave 22 opinions to the police or statements to the prosecutor. Inspection is targeted at companies where shortcomings are likely, so according to the report the results do not describe the work of foreigners in Finland in general.
According to the assistance system's statistics, 141 people became victims of trafficking in Finland in 2025. Of the 149 trafficking events they were subjected to, 101 or 68 per cent were forced labour, most often in forestry and timber harvesting, catering, agriculture and horticulture, and construction. In 2024 there were 54 victims of forced labour in Finland. Of the people exploited in Finland, 42 per cent were Nepalese and 12 per cent Finnish citizens. Of them, 68 per cent were in the country lawfully, most often on a seasonal work permit. The figures cover the system's clients, not every victim. According to the system's review of 2024, the large criminal cases in the berry sector raised its application numbers in 2022 and 2023.
The authorities recorded 17 offences of extortionate work discrimination in 2015, 143 in 2023 and 93 in 2025. Trafficking and aggravated trafficking together were recorded 30 times in 2015, 152 times in 2023 and 115 times in 2025. Offences by employers under the Aliens Act were recorded 142–282 times a year over 2015–2025. The figures count offences rather than cases or victims, so one large investigation can raise a year's figure a great deal. The trafficking offences also cover sexual exploitation and forced marriage, and the table does not separate labour trafficking. The table does not give the background of the offender or of the victim. How many offences are recorded also depends on how actively the police and the labour inspectorate look for them.
In 2023 the number in work relative to the population aged 20–64 was 79% among people of Finnish background and 84% among people of Philippine background, against 46% for the Afghan, 42% for the Iraqi and 29% for the Syrian background. It is not an employment rate, because the employed include people of all ages. The figures are by background country and do not separate the grounds a person arrived on, so the same group holds both work-based and protection-based arrivals. The gap between the sexes is wide in many groups: among people of Afghan background the figure was 57% for men and 30% for women. The largest gaps concern women with a background in Muslim-majority countries, whereas women of Philippine or Thai background, for example, are employed at the same rate as men.
The figures in this section and its chart are employed persons relative to the population aged 20–64, by background country and sex (tables 115t and 11rs). They are not official employment rates, because the employed include people of all ages. Comparison across groups is still meaningful, as the same definition applies to every background country.
The employment figures sit in tension with the labour-shortage argument. Work-based and humanitarian migration are different things, and the difference shows up precisely in employment: people from the large refugee source countries are employed well below the native rate, while those who arrived on a work permit reach it and in the early years exceed it. At the same time Finland has about 297,000 unemployed. Immigration does not fix the problems of domestic education and sectoral workforce planning, and it can also mask them in a way that leaves them unfixed.
The study links the Finnish Immigration Service's residence-permit decisions for 2011–2021 to Statistics Finland's registers, so it can follow employment by the grounds on which a person arrived. That answers directly whether work-based migrants are employed as well as the native population. They are, and at first better: in the early years of residence, employment and earnings among work-permit holders are higher than among Finns of the same age and sex, though the difference disappears fairly soon. After ten years the employment rate is about 80% for work-permit holders and EU citizens, about 70% for those who came on family or study grounds, and about 60% for those granted international protection. The study counts as employed anyone with earnings during the year, so its figures run higher than the employment rate in the employment statistics: on the same measure the Finnish-background average is 83–84 per cent. Earnings diverge more than employment does: at the ten-year mark work-permit holders sit slightly below their native counterparts, EU citizens and former students reach a little over 80% of native earnings, while protection and family arrivals remain below half. Two numbers are worth reading separately. The first is the starting point: at the end of the first year of residence only one in ten of those who arrived on protection or family-reunification grounds was in work, and protection arrivals earned 3% of Finnish-background earnings in their first full year in the country. The second is the closing of the gap: after ten years the difference in employment between work-permit and protection arrivals is down to 20 percentage points, against more than 80 in the first year. The groups converge from both directions, because work-permit holders' employment also declines over the decade. The authors' own most surprising result is that people who arrived to study do not reach the income level of Finnish-background people of the same age, even though they study mostly at universities and live in the country's most prosperous regions. Emigration is dealt with in the study and does not explain the differences. Within ten years 24% of study-permit arrivals leave the country, 19% of work-permit arrivals, 12% of family-reunification arrivals and 8% of those granted protection. In other words, the groups with the best figures are the ones that shed the most people. The authors tested this by repeating the calculation on those who stayed for the whole period, and the results were very similar. What does belong with the figures is that the ground is the one a person first arrived on: a student may move to a work permit and a work-permit holder to permanent residence, so the groups are not the same people in the same positions a decade later. The data also misses 15% of permit holders who have no personal identity code in the registers, and the gap is largest precisely among study and work permits.
Work-based applications fell 25% and study-based applications 4% in 2025 from the year before, attributed to Finland's weak economy. The largest applicant countries were India, the Philippines, China, Vietnam and Thailand. About 180,000 applications were received in total, and 80% were approved.
According to an Etla report, the shrinking working-age population and public finances would require annual net migration of about 44,000, roughly a quarter more than the 2025 outcome of 34,852. The report names high taxation, negative attitudes and international competition for skilled workers as obstacles. The economic effects of work-based immigration arrive faster than those of humanitarian migration.
Three explanations are offered for the employment gap: discrimination, the level of benefits, and differences in skills. Discrimination has been measured. In a field experiment where identical CVs were sent to a thousand vacancies with only the applicant's name changed, a Somali name had to send 3.9 times and an Iraqi name 2.9 times as many applications as a Finnish one to win the same number of callbacks, and every applicant was presented as educated in Finland. It is not sufficient on its own, though: measured discrimination does not order countries the way employment gaps do. France records the sharpest hiring discrimination in Europe, yet the OECD puts its employment gap between the foreign-born and the native-born at 7 percentage points against 16 in the Netherlands. Moreover, name-based discrimination does not fall on women in particular, although the employment gap is widest precisely among women.
A meta-analysis of 97 field experiments and over 200,000 applications across nine countries. Discrimination was found everywhere, but its level varies: in France and Sweden a minority applicant has to send 70–94% more applications than a native one, in Germany and the United States 25–40% more. The ordering does not match the employment gaps: in the OECD's Settling In 2023 the gap between the foreign-born and the native-born is 7 percentage points in France and 16 in the Netherlands. The authors themselves note that the results contradict several established macro-level explanations.
A field experiment in which five equivalent applications were sent to each of a thousand vacancies, the only difference being the applicant's name. Winning the same number of callbacks as a Finnish name required 1.45 times as many applications for an English name, 1.71 for a Russian, 2.91 for an Iraqi and 3.94 for a Somali one. For men of Somali background the multiplier was 4.97. Every applicant was presented as educated in Finland, so language or the origin of the qualification does not explain the difference. The experiment measures the first step of hiring, not what happens after a job is obtained.
45 % of respondents had experienced racial discrimination within five years, against 39 % in the 2016 survey. The highest figures were in Germany (76 %), Austria (72 %) and Finland (63 %). Germany and Austria measure as low-discrimination countries in hiring experiments, so perceived discrimination and measured employer behaviour do not always put countries in the same order. In Finland they coincide, as a Finnish CV experiment also measured clear discrimination.
In early 2024, 57% of the people who had fled Ukraine were in work in Lithuania and about 27% in Germany, though they had fled the same war. When Denmark cut benefits for newly arrived refugees by about 40% in 2002, employment rose from 10% to 19% within a year. It came at a price: the effect faded in about five years, and poverty and subsistence crime rose alongside it.
IAB compared the employment of people who fled Ukraine across 26 European countries from late 2022 to early 2024. In the first quarter of 2024 the share of the working-age refugees in work was 57% in Lithuania, 53% in Denmark, 48% in Poland, about 27% in Germany, 18% in Finland and 7% in Romania. In the United Kingdom it was 56% in the latest figure, for the third quarter of 2023. According to the report the differences are associated both with who arrived, such as age and number of children, and with conditions in the destination country. The analysis is descriptive and does not establish cause. Employment was higher where there is plenty of low-skilled work, good access to childcare and healthcare, an existing Ukrainian community and good English in the population. It was lower where the labour market is tightly regulated or unemployment is rising. The link between benefit levels and employment was small and not statistically significant. Extensive language and integration courses lowered employment in the short run. Germany emphasises them, and IAB says the experience of earlier refugee groups suggests the approach raises employment in the longer run. Most arrivals are women with children.
In July 2002 Denmark cut social assistance for newly arrived refugees by about 40%, leaving earlier arrivals at the old level. The design separates the benefit level from everything else, because the country, the labour market and the employers were the same. Employment rose from 10% to 19% in the first year, but the effects on earnings and employment faded after about five years. Poverty rose at the same time, and subsistence crime, mainly shoplifting, increased over the first five years by 5 percentage points among adults and 12 among adolescents. The cut was repealed a decade later.
The employment shortfall of people who moved from outside the EU arises primarily from women. That bounds how much employer prejudice can explain. In the Finnish field experiment name-based discrimination hit men harder than women: a man with a Somali name had to send 4.97 times as many applications, against 3.94 for Somali names on average. Discrimination therefore does not explain why the gap is widest among women. The same pattern shows in this section's own figures for Finland, and one proposed explanation is incentive traps, whose figures cover the whole population.
An unemployment trap is defined as a participation tax rate above 80 %, and an income trap as an effective marginal tax rate above 70–80 %. The highest rates fall on single parents, on families with children where one or both parents are unemployed, and on people living alone. The effect comes from unemployment benefits, general housing allowance, daycare fees and the marginal tax rate acting together. The figures cover the whole population rather than immigrants separately. The mechanism reaches immigrant families more often than average because those families are larger and have lower incomes, not because the rules differ for them.
In the EU, people who moved from another EU country are employed more often than natives and people from outside the EU less often, but the gap arises primarily from women. In Poland, Czechia and Italy, non-EU immigrant men are employed more often than native men. The largest gaps are in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden and Belgium, countries with comprehensive benefits and a high wage floor.
Immigrants are entrepreneurs more often than the majority population. In 2024, 12.7 per cent of the foreign-born in work were entrepreneurs, against 9.8 per cent of the majority. The largest numbers come from Russia and Estonia, but entrepreneurship is most common among people from Turkey: 29 per cent of those in work were entrepreneurs in 2022. Among people from Nigeria and Iraq it was one in five.
Immigrants' firms are smaller than majority firms, though. In 2021 they made up a tenth of all entrepreneurs' firms but had 7 per cent of the staff and 5 per cent of the turnover. Together they employed about 27,000 people. Before the pandemic their micro and small firms created more new jobs relative to their size than majority firms of the same size. The firms are concentrated in sectors where growth and productivity are typically low. The most common are restaurants, construction, taxis and cleaning. One sector runs the other way: in 2021 nearly a third of the entrepreneurs in scientific research and development were immigrants.
The growth in entrepreneurship since 2018 has come from men, and much of it is platform work. 10 per cent of people of foreign background had done platform work in the past year, against 3 per cent of people of Finnish background. In postal and courier services, which include food delivery, 60 per cent of entrepreneurs' firms belonged to immigrants in 2021. One in five men from Africa in work was an entrepreneur in 2024, against under four per cent of women. A growing number of immigrant entrepreneurs earn no business income at all but a wage instead, which points to umbrella-company self-employment. Such an entrepreneur employs no one else, so part of the high entrepreneurship rate reflects the platform economy rather than business activity.
According to the 2022 labour force survey, 10 per cent of people of foreign background and 3 per cent of people of Finnish background had done platform work in the previous year. Courier services, and to a large extent taxi services, rely largely on workers of foreign background.
Register-based entrepreneurs as a share of the employed by origin, region of background and sex, 1995–2024. The majority here means people of Finnish background and people of foreign background born in Finland. In 2024, 21.0 per cent of men and 3.5 per cent of women from Africa in work were entrepreneurs.
A register study of immigrants' entrepreneurship and firms in 2010–2022. Immigrant means a person of foreign background born abroad, and the comparison group is the majority population. The firm figures cover firms with employees and exclude sole traders, jointly owned firms and primary production. A little over 70 per cent of immigrant entrepreneurs could be linked to a firm, so the figures are on the low side. The 2021 staff figure is not fully comparable with earlier years because the business register changed its method. The study was funded by the Federation of Finnish Enterprises, the Finnish Business School Graduates, the Academic Engineers and Architects, the Finnish Pension Alliance Tela and the Union of Professional Engineers.
Immigrants' employment is usually discussed as a single figure or by country of origin, but the grounds a person arrived on explain it better than almost any other single factor. After ten years the employment rate is about 80% for work-permit holders and EU citizens, about 70% for those who came on family or study grounds, and about 60% for those granted international protection. The figures come from a register study by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, summarised in Employment by background country.
At country level, the work-permit share of arrivals and the group's employment put the countries in nearly the same order. Of arrivals from the Philippines 53% came on a work permit, and the number in work relative to the Philippine-background population aged 20–64 is 84%. Of arrivals from Syria 1.7% came on a work permit, and the same figure for the Syrian background is 29%.
The permit ground by country does not explain the gap between the sexes, though: of arrivals from India 39% came on a work permit, yet the gap between men's and women's employment is 24 percentage points. The work permit typically goes to the man and the spouse comes on family grounds. Read from each person's own permit, the gap ten years on is 4 percentage points for work-permit holders and 21 for those granted protection. The policy of work-based immigration began with the 2003 government programme.
Charts: Immigration Service decisions
Permits granted on family grounds are often talked about as family reunification of refugees. Over 2015–2025, however, the family members of people granted international protection received 985–2,080 first residence permits a year. The family members of Finnish citizens received 2,292–3,308 a year. The family members of other foreign nationals living in Finland, such as workers and students, received 4,322 permits in 2015 and 16,225 in 2025. In 2025 they outnumbered the people granted a first permit on work grounds (8,384) or on study grounds (10,486).
| Year | Family of other foreign nationals (Positive decisions per year) | Family of Finnish citizens (Positive decisions per year) | Family of people granted protection (Positive decisions per year) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 4,322 | 2,732 | 985 |
| 2016 | 4,339 | 2,653 | 1,179 |
| 2017 | 4,442 | 2,567 | 2,080 |
| 2018 | 4,450 | 2,804 | 1,755 |
| 2019 | 5,567 | 3,153 | 1,531 |
| 2020 | 4,426 | 2,806 | 1,360 |
| 2021 | 6,315 | 2,292 | 1,214 |
| 2022 | 10,933 | 3,243 | 1,281 |
| 2023 | 15,239 | 3,308 | 1,731 |
| 2024 | 13,980 | 2,760 | 1,278 |
| 2025 | 16,225 | 2,396 | 1,239 |
Statistics Sweden (SCB) publishes register-based statistics on employment at ages 20–65 by the grounds on which a foreign-born person was granted a residence permit and by how long they have lived in Sweden.
Statistics Sweden (Statistiska centralbyrån, SCB), Integration – statistik och analys: the release Vanligaste yrkena för utrikes födda of 14 April 2026 and table TAB887 in the statistical database. Register-based total statistics for 2024. The definitions come from the release, the table's notes and SCB's quality declarations for the integration statistics and for the labour market status register (Befolkningens arbetsmarknadsstatus, BAS).
www.scb.se/hitta-statistik/statistik-efter-amne/befolkning-o…The Work and Wellbeing of Foreign-Origin Population survey is the only Finnish dataset that asked the same respondent both the reason for migrating and their country of origin. It has six groups. Family was the most common reason in almost every group. Estonians were the exception, where work outranked family. Two thirds of arrivals from Russia and the former Soviet Union moved for family reasons, and for those from the Middle East and North Africa the need for protection was almost as common a reason as family. The data is from 2014 and has not been repeated, so it does not describe migration after 2015.
Statistics Finland publishes the employment rate by reason for migration from the labour force survey, which is an interview survey. The article finds that after ten years of residence the employment rate is close to the Finnish-background level regardless of the reason for migrating, and that in 2023 people who came to look for work were slightly more often employed than those who had a job arranged. There is no country split. Statistics Finland has itself noted that the employment rate for foreign-background people is systematically higher in the interview survey than in the registers, so these figures cannot be set alongside the register-based country figures used elsewhere on this site.
According to the Finnish Immigration Service's review, the family members of people living in Finland on work grounds lodged 4,181 first residence-permit applications in 2019 and 8,957 in 2024. The family members of people living in Finland on study grounds lodged 491 applications in 2019 and 7,868 in 2024. In all, 23,701 first applications were lodged on family grounds in 2024. The figures are applications, not permits granted. According to government bill HE 161/2026 vp, the family members of students were granted 347 first residence permits in 2020 and 7,539 in 2025. According to the bill, in 2025 the family members of students received three times as many first permits as the family members of people with a work-based permit, when the comparison covers sponsors whose first permit was granted on work or study grounds. Permits granted to the family members of workers have not been published as a yearly series of their own.
The 2021 module of the EU Labour Force Survey mapped migrants' labour market position and their reason for migrating across all member states. The reason is crossed only with broad country-of-birth groups, however: 18.5% of those who moved from another EU country had found a job before migrating, fewer among those from outside the EU. No country-level combination of reason and employment is published. The module is repeated every eight years.
Debate about the economic effect usually turns on what immigration costs. The other half is the income level: what the foreign-background population earns.
Among the working-age population (18–64) the median equivalised disposable income in 2024 was €33,615 for Finnish-background and €24,060 for foreign-background residents. The gap is 28%, practically the same as in 1995, when it was 28.0%. Both groups' incomes have risen over thirty years. The distance between them has not narrowed.
Since 2021 the foreign-background median has fallen three years running (€26,265 → €24,060), considerably faster than the Finnish-background one. Composition explains much of it: new arrivals start lower, and from 2022 the group has taken in a large number of people who fled Ukraine. Behind the income level is employment, under employment by background country, and its other side under welfare use.
| Year | Finnish background (€ per year) | Foreign background (€ per year) | Foreign background, born abroad (€ per year) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | 21,764 | 15,678 | 15,385 |
| 1996 | 22,254 | 15,698 | 15,430 |
| 1997 | 23,143 | 15,973 | 15,678 |
| 1998 | 23,692 | 16,120 | 15,855 |
| 1999 | 24,362 | 16,684 | 16,415 |
| 2000 | 24,770 | 17,055 | 16,788 |
| 2001 | 25,568 | 17,681 | 17,410 |
| 2002 | 26,214 | 18,204 | 17,959 |
| 2003 | 26,935 | 18,676 | 18,441 |
| 2004 | 28,083 | 19,371 | 19,141 |
| 2005 | 28,666 | 19,803 | 19,601 |
| 2006 | 29,410 | 20,528 | 20,320 |
| 2007 | 30,432 | 21,342 | 21,174 |
| 2008 | 30,859 | 22,009 | 21,882 |
| 2009 | 31,351 | 22,081 | 21,949 |
| 2010 | 31,784 | 22,465 | 22,360 |
| 2011 | 31,869 | 22,694 | 22,621 |
| 2012 | 32,016 | 23,025 | 22,986 |
| 2013 | 31,725 | 22,911 | 22,889 |
| 2014 | 31,620 | 22,822 | 22,829 |
| 2015 | 31,854 | 23,161 | 23,193 |
| 2016 | 32,277 | 23,402 | 23,443 |
| 2017 | 32,746 | 23,837 | 23,889 |
| 2018 | 33,305 | 24,521 | 24,569 |
| 2019 | 33,887 | 25,328 | 25,377 |
| 2020 | 33,936 | 25,710 | 25,800 |
| 2021 | 34,418 | 26,265 | 26,342 |
| 2022 | 33,537 | 25,595 | 25,642 |
| 2023 | 32,906 | 24,429 | 24,439 |
| 2024 | 33,615 | 24,060 | 24,051 |
Statistics Finland, income distribution statistics 14ya, ages 18–64, year 2024
stat.fi/tilasto/tjtIn the immigration debate welfare use is usually treated as one question: do immigrants draw more in benefits than the native population. Kela's figures answer yes, and at the same time show the question is not well put. According to figures Kela released to Ilta-Sanomat, in 2024 basic social assistance went to 52.6 per cent of Arabic speakers and 8.4 per cent of Estonian speakers, against 4.5 per cent of Finnish or Swedish speakers. The gap between the highest and lowest foreign-language group is sixfold, while the gap between the lowest and the native population is twofold. Every language group is in the subsidy dependency chart on the Charts page.
Welfare use is the flip side of employment: it shows how much of a group depends on benefits for its livelihood. The foreign-language share has grown since the late 2010s, and the gap shows in the euros paid out, not only in the number of recipients. The two directions still part ways: the share of foreign-language adults receiving social assistance has fallen since 2017, yet as the group grows its share of the money paid has risen, to 41% of basic social assistance in 2025. Behind the use of benefits are employment by background country and earnings under income level.
Each row is one benefit in two years: the grey dot is 2017, the blue one 2025 and the line between them is the change. Both figures are printed at the end of the row. The dashed lines are the foreign-language share of the whole population in the same years, 6.8 and 11.4 percent, so a dot to the right of the line means overrepresentation. The button restates the figures as multiples, each year divided by its own year's population share: basic social assistance was 3.5 times the share in 2017 and 3.6 times in 2025, so the share of the money rose while the overrepresentation barely moved.
| Group | 2017 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Basic social assistance | 24.0 | 41.0 |
| Labour market subsidy | 0.0 | 33.0 |
| Guarantee pension | 0.0 | 33.0 |
| General housing allowance | 19.0 | 27.0 |
| Child care allowances | 15.0 | 20.0 |
| Parental allowances | 9.0 | 12.0 |
| Sickness allowance | 0.0 | 7.0 |
| National pension * | 0.0 | 4.0 |
| These benefits together | 15.0 | 20.0 |
| Foreign-language share of the population | 6.8 | 11.4 |
Charts: Subsidy dependency by origin
The same data the other way round. The chart above asks how much of a benefit's money goes to foreign-language speakers. This one asks how many foreign-language adults receive it. The blue dot now sits to the left of the grey one, meaning the share has fallen: it fell for six of the eight benefits and held steady for two. Their share of the money still rose, because the group nearly doubled over the same period.
| Group | 2017 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| General housing allowance | 26.0 | 18.0 |
| Basic social assistance | 23.0 | 18.0 |
| Labour market subsidy | 24.0 | 16.0 |
| Sickness allowance | 5.0 | 5.0 |
| Parental allowances | 5.6 | 4.9 |
| National pension * | 9.4 | 4.4 |
| Guarantee pension | 3.5 | 3.5 |
| Child care allowances | 5.5 | 2.8 |
The figure is the share of people under 65 of the same citizenship who receive basic income support for jobseekers (SGB II, Bürgergeld, now Grundsicherungsgeld). It includes children entitled to the benefit. In June 2026, 5.2 per cent of German citizens and 18.7 per cent of foreign citizens received it. Among Ukrainian citizens the share was 49.9 per cent, among Afghan citizens 46.5 per cent and among Syrian citizens 46.0 per cent. Among Turkish citizens it was 14.6 per cent and among citizens of EU countries 8.8 per cent.
| Group | % of people under 65 |
|---|---|
| Ukraine | 49.9 |
| Afghanistan | 46.5 |
| Syria | 46.0 |
| Somalia | 39.8 |
| Iraq | 33.3 |
| Eritrea | 27.1 |
| Bulgaria | 25.6 |
| Nigeria | 21.2 |
| Foreign citizens | 18.7 |
| Iran | 17.3 |
| Türkiye | 14.6 |
| Pakistan | 13.1 |
| Romania | 8.8 |
| EU citizens | 8.8 |
| Poland | 6.3 |
| German citizens | 5.2 |
Statistik der Bundesagentur für Arbeit, Migrationsmonitor, Deutschland und Länder (Monatszahlen). Germany edition, reporting month September 2026, compiled on 1 October 2026: table 1.3 and the methodological notes. The basic income support figures are for June 2026.
Statistik der Bundesagentur für Arbeit: Migrationsmonitor, Deutschland, September 2026 (Excel)Statistics Austria compiles an annual statistical yearbook on migration and integration. It divides the recipients of the minimum income benefit (Mindestsicherung) and social assistance (Sozialhilfe) by citizenship and residence status.
The figure is the average monthly number of recipients in 2024. An average of 205,781 people received support, 2.2 per cent of the population. Of them, 38 per cent were Austrian citizens and 44 per cent were people granted asylum or subsidiary protection. Citizens of EU and EEA countries and Switzerland made up 7 per cent. Citizens of other countries who held neither asylum nor subsidiary protection made up 10 per cent.
| Group | recipients a month |
|---|---|
| Austrian citizens | 77,828 |
| Granted asylum | 77,648 |
| Other third countries | 21,533 |
| EU, EEA and Swiss | 15,120 |
| Subsidiary protection | 13,652 |
Statistics Austria, Statistisches Jahrbuch Migration & Integration 2026, presented on 11 September 2026: chapter Soziales und Gesundheit and the federal states table. Also Statistics Austria's Mindestsicherungs- und Sozialhilfestatistik 2024, tables 2 (compiled on 2 September 2025) and 20 (compiled on 12 September 2025). The figures are averages of the monthly numbers of recipients in 2024.
Statistics Austria: Statistisches Jahrbuch Migration & Integration 2026 (PDF)Statistics Netherlands (CBS) publishes the share of the working-age population receiving social assistance (bijstand) by own and parents' country of birth. The figures cover both people born abroad and the Netherlands-born children of immigrants.
The figure is the share of people aged 15 to pension age in the group who received general social assistance (algemene bijstand) at the end of September. The rows are people born abroad by region of birth, plus comparison groups. The vertical line is the 2015 share, and both figures are printed at the end of the row. In September 2024, 3.3 per cent of the whole population, 1.7 per cent of people of Dutch origin and 9.1 per cent of people born abroad received it. Among people born in Morocco the share was 18.1 per cent and among people born in Türkiye 11.1 per cent. The share fell in every group from 2015.
| Group | 2015 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Morocco | 20.6 | 18.1 |
| Sub-Saharan Africa | 26.5 | 15.9 |
| Non-European | 16.2 | 13.4 |
| Türkiye | 13.5 | 11.1 |
| Dutch Caribbean | 16.2 | 10.6 |
| All born abroad | 12.4 | 9.1 |
| Suriname | 11.6 | 8.4 |
| Whole population | 3.9 | 3.3 |
| Indonesia | 4.1 | 2.7 |
| Rest of Europe | 4.1 | 1.8 |
| Dutch origin | 2.2 | 1.7 |
CBS, Kernindicatoren Integratie 2025, published on 24 June 2025: table Bijstand 2015–2024, position at the end of September of each year. Also CBS, Integratie en samenleven 2024, published on 22 November 2024: section 4.3 (table 4.3.6 and figures 4.3.7a–b, September 2023).
CBS: Kernindicatoren Integratie 2025The Swiss Federal Statistical Office (BFS) counts the recipients of general social assistance by citizenship. It compiles separate statistics on the social assistance paid to asylum seekers, refugees and people with temporary protection. Their shares are calculated on a different population base, so they cannot be compared directly with the figures for general social assistance.
The figure is the share of the permanent resident population of the same citizenship who received general social assistance (wirtschaftliche Sozialhilfe) at least once in 2024. Of Swiss citizens, 1.8 per cent received it, and of foreign citizens 5.5 per cent. The share was 2.3 per cent for citizens of EU and EFTA countries and 17.2 per cent for citizens of non-European countries. Of citizens of African countries, 29.8 per cent received it.
| Group | % of the group |
|---|---|
| Africa | 29.8 |
| Non-European | 17.2 |
| Asia | 14.5 |
| Latin America | 9.1 |
| Foreign citizens | 5.5 |
| Other Europe, Türkiye | 5.0 |
| Whole population | 2.9 |
| EU and EFTA | 2.3 |
| Swiss citizens | 1.8 |
| North America | 0.9 |
The figure is the share of the group who received social assistance in at least one month of 2024. Of asylum seekers and provisionally admitted persons who had been in the country for up to seven years, 88.3 per cent received it. Of refugees whose asylum application had been made up to five years earlier and provisionally admitted refugees who had been in the country for up to seven years, 79.2 per cent received it. Of people with temporary protection (S status), 82.9 per cent received it.
| Group | % of the group |
|---|---|
| Asylum seekers | 93.1 |
| Asylum area | 88.3 |
| F permit holders | 84.5 |
| Temporary protection | 82.9 |
| Refugees, B permit | 80.2 |
| Refugee area | 79.2 |
| Refugees, F permit | 65.7 |
Federal Statistical Office (BFS), Sozialhilfeempfängerstatistik 2024: press release of 15 December 2025, tables je-d-13.05.01.01.18, je-d-13.05.01.03.11, je-d-13.05.01.03.17, je-d-13.05.01.04.21 and je-d-13.05.01.04.26, and database table px-x-1304030000_121.
Federal Statistical Office: Sozialhilfebeziehende in der Schweiz im Jahr 2024 (press release, 15 December 2025)Sweden's National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen) compiles the statistics on social assistance (ekonomiskt bistånd). Statistics Sweden (SCB) publishes the recipients of long-term social assistance and the whole population with the same breakdown by country of birth, background and grounds for residence, so the share receiving it can be calculated for each group.
The figure is the share of 18 to 65-year-olds in the group who received social assistance in at least ten months of 2024. Of people of Swedish background, 0.64 per cent received it, and of people born abroad 2.92 per cent. The share was 3.64 per cent for people born outside the EU and the Nordic countries. Of people who obtained a residence permit as a refugee, 5.75 per cent received it, and of those who obtained one as a refugee's family member 8.99 per cent. Of people with a residence permit for work, the share was 0.12 per cent.
| Group | % aged 18–65 |
|---|---|
| Family of refugees | 8.99 |
| Refugees | 5.75 |
| Born outside the EU | 3.64 |
| Born abroad | 2.92 |
| Everyone | 1.28 |
| Family, not refugee | 1.26 |
| Second generation | 1.20 |
| Nordic | 0.84 |
| Swedish background | 0.64 |
| Other EU | 0.47 |
| Work-based | 0.12 |
| Students | 0.07 |
Socialstyrelsen, Statistik om ekonomiskt bistånd 2025, published on 11 June 2026 (art. no. 2026-6-10333), and its table annex: tables 8, 9 and 13. The source is Socialstyrelsen's register of social assistance.
Socialstyrelsen: Statistik om ekonomiskt bistånd 2025 (PDF)The site's calculation, October 2026. SCB table TAB6831 (updated on 30 June 2026, source the STATIV register), 18 to 65-year-olds in 2024, and table TAB6249 Hemmaboende barn och unga 0–21 år i familjer som fått ekonomiskt bistånd (updated on 24 March 2026), children aged 0 to 17 in 2014 and 2024. The share is the number who received support divided by the whole group from the same table. The figures for children cover households in which at least one adult was registered in Sweden at both the start and the end of the year.
Statistics Sweden: Personer med långvarigt ekonomiskt bistånd (TAB6831)Labour Force Survey table 15bm (ages 15–74): the unemployment rate among people of foreign background was 17.4% in 2024 against 7.3% among people of Finnish background, a 2.4-fold difference. Foreign-background unemployment was at its lowest in 2022, when it fell briefly to 12.1%. By 2025 the figures were 19.6% and 8.3%.
According to Kela's official statistics, foreign-language speakers made up 29.4% of recipients of basic social assistance in 2024 (2017: about 19%). They received about 37% of the money paid out: over EUR 300 million, against some EUR 825 million of basic social assistance paid in total. Kela reports foreign-language speakers as a single group and does not officially publish shares by language. The breakdown by language is based on a separate data delivery from Kela.
According to figures Ilta-Sanomat obtained from Kela, more than half of Arabic speakers, 22,918 people or 52.6%, received basic social assistance in 2024. Among Finnish or Swedish speakers the rate was just over 4.5%. Foreign-language speakers were 29.4% of recipients against about 11% of the population. Recipients include every member of the household, and 40% of Arabic-speaking recipients were under 18. Kela does not publish figures by language in its official statistics.
Kela's 2017–2025 statistics release shows two opposite directions: the share of foreign-language adults receiving basic social assistance fell from 23% to 18% and of labour market subsidy from 24% to 16%, while the group's share of paid social assistance rose from 24% (€172m) to 41% (€408m). Kela paid €9.2 billion in core income-security benefits in 2025, a fifth of it (about €1.8 billion) to foreign-language speakers. In 2017 the share was 15%. Both directions have the same explanation: the foreign-language population grew by over 70% (373,000 → 646,000), and per Kela the growth in recipients since 2023 is mostly Ukrainians. €597 million of labour market subsidy went to foreign-language speakers, a third of the total. Persons whose mother tongue is missing from the register are counted as foreign-language, and the euro amounts are nominal. The labour market subsidy ended on 1 May 2026, replaced by the new general allowance.
Last year Kela detected more than 1,000 suspected benefit misuses worth about €7 million. 471 investigation requests were filed with police. In Sweden Försäkringskassan prevented incorrect payments worth €877.5 million in 2024. Finland recovers about €110 million in incorrect payments. Minister Grahn-Laasonen says that 'what is possible in Sweden is possible in Finland' and that organised crime systematically exploits social security.
Public debate often asks whether immigration pushes wages down or takes jobs from Finns. The question is about the arrivals' effect on other people's wages and employment, not about their own taxes and transfers.
In other countries' studies the average effect is small, and the negative effects fall on low earners and on earlier immigrants who do the same work as new arrivals. The results also differ in direction. In Norwegian construction, wages grew more slowly in the trades that took in many foreign workers. In Denmark, the growing number of arrivals from refugee countries moved less educated Danes into less manual work, and their wages and employment rose.
Four studies of Finland have been published since 2015, and in three of them the earnings of low earners or of the workers most exposed to the competition fell. In construction, the earnings of the workers most exposed to the EU's eastern enlargement fell about nine per cent behind other workers', and the gap was still there ten years later. In the study of North Karelia, the position of the workers already in the region did not measurably weaken.
For the public finances the effect can go either way. In ETLA's 2023 model immigration slows wage growth, which reduces the wage costs of public services. If arrivals displace others from work, on the other hand, spending on unemployment benefits rises and tax revenue falls. The combined effect of these on the public finances has not been calculated for Finland. The site's cost calculation leaves them out of its total and prices them as an assumption at the end of its table.
Antti Kauhanen, ETLA Report 176, 23 March 2026. A review whose labour-market part rests on a report by Sweden's National Institute of Economic Research
www.etla.fi/julkaisut/raportit/maahanmuuton-taloudelliset-va…Ohto Kanninen, Hannu Karhunen, Sanni Kiviholma and Jeremias Nieminen, Labore working paper 365, 4 September 2026
labore.fi/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Tyopapereita-365.pdfThe site's calculation, October 2026. Statistics Finland tables 115d, 15ig, 15av and 115t for 2015–2024 and the tax rates of the site's lifetime calculator. Model repo_support/model_labour_sensitivity.js
Source for wages: Statistics Finland, structure of earningsBenjamin Sutton, Journal of the Finnish Economic Association 6(1), 2025. Register data 2001–2018, 36 travel-to-work areas
journal.fi/jfea/article/view/147370Isa Kuosmanen and Jaakko Meriläinen, Journal of Human Resources 60(2), 2025. Individual-level register data, construction
ideas.repec.org/a/uwp/jhriss/v60y2025i2p434-468.htmlJeremias Nieminen, Sanni Kiviholma, Ohto Kanninen and Hannu Karhunen, Labore working paper 352, 2025. Register data on the occupations and regions where labour market testing was lifted
labore.fi/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Tyopapereita-352.pdfBank of Finland Bulletin 5/2015, 18 December 2015. A review of Finnish and foreign research
publications.bof.fi/handle/11111/3582Matti Sarvimäki, Kansantaloudellinen aikakauskirja 3/2010. A review of international research
www.taloustieteellinenyhdistys.fi/images/stories/kak/kak3201…Simonetta Longhi, Peter Nijkamp and Jacques Poot, Journal of Economic Surveys 19(3), 2005. 18 studies and 348 estimates from them, for the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Norway, Austria, Israel and Australia. The figures are read from the open working-paper version (University of Waikato Population Studies Centre, Discussion Paper 47, 2004)
researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/handle/10289/824Mette Foged and Giovanni Peri, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 8(2), 2016. Register of Denmark's whole workforce, 1991–2008
giovanniperi.ucdavis.edu/immigrantsrsquo-effect-on-native-wo…Bernt Bratsberg and Oddbjørn Raaum, Economic Journal 122(565), 2012. Trades in Norwegian construction, individual panel data
ideas.repec.org/a/ecj/econjl/v122y2012i565p1177-1205.htmlChristian Dustmann, Uta Schönberg and Jan Stuhler, Quarterly Journal of Economics 132(1), 2017. The German-Czech border regions
discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1554497/Christian Dustmann, Tommaso Frattini and Ian Preston, Review of Economic Studies 80(1), 2013. Britain
sites.unimi.it/tommasofrattini/pubs/the-effect-of-immigratio…David Card, ILR Review 43(2), 1990. George J. Borjas, ILR Review 70(5), 2017 (NBER 21588) and NBER working paper 23504, 2017. Giovanni Peri and Vasil Yasenov, Journal of Human Resources 54(2), 2019. Michael Clemens and Jennifer Hunt, ILR Review 72(4), 2019. All use the Miami sample of the US Current Population Survey
www.nber.org/papers/w21588Part of the income earned in Finland does not stay in Finland. The balance of payments records part of it as remittances: transfers between households and compensation of employees paid abroad.
Remittances are a billion-scale outflow from Finland. According to World Bank balance-of-payments data, remittances paid from Finland have grown from about USD 16 million (1990) to USD 1.77 billion (2025), more than a hundredfold. Most of that growth belongs to the 1990s and 2000s. From 2010 to 2025 the series grew by about 25 per cent in dollars and by about 47 per cent in euros, because the dollar strengthened against the euro.
Unregistered hawala operators work outside the authorities' supervision. The Finnish Government assesses the risk of money laundering and terrorist financing associated with them as very high.
This is a different series from the cost calculation's €720m. Eurostat personal transfers, current transfers between resident and non-resident households, were €720m to the rest of the world in 2024 and €116m outside the EU. The consumption-tax ceiling of at most €0.03bn is computed from that extra-EU part, not from the World Bank figure. The World Bank series is wider because it also includes compensation of employees.
On 8 February 2024 the Finnish Government adopted a resolution partially updating the national risk assessment of money laundering and terrorist financing and its action plan. Unregistered hawala operators were included in the action plan for the first time. The risk of money laundering and terrorist financing associated with them was assessed as very high.
Remittances paid from Finland were USD 15.7 million in 1990 and USD 1,768 million in 2025, more than a hundredfold increase. Most of the growth happened before 2010, though: the figure was already USD 1,411 million in 2010. Since then the series has moved between USD 1,245 million (2016) and USD 1,768 million (2025). In 2024 it was USD 1,591 million. From 2010 to 2025 it grew by about 25 per cent in dollars and about 47 per cent in euros, because the dollar strengthened against the euro. In the World Bank's definition, remittances are transfers in cash or in kind between households and compensation of employees paid to non-resident workers.
Figures put on the cost of immigration to Finland run from under a billion to over ten billion euros a year. All of them are called calculations, but they measure different things by different methods, and the spread comes more from the method than from the data.
Finland has no single official total. The most precise figures are per-person net effects computed from register data, and they have not been summed to a national total. The annual billion-euro figures are either sums of budget lines or derived from other countries' results. Below the estimates are set side by side by what they rest on and what they leave out. The most precise figure is neither the largest nor the smallest.
This site's own calculation is included too. It combines VATT's register figures, Statistics Finland's age structure and unit costs of public services the way the Danish Ministry of Finance does. It is run for three different scopes, because the scope moves the figure more than any choice of method. The scope and the assumptions can be adjusted in the cost calculator. Last come two items other calculations claim are large: the justice system and dwelling prices.
The per-person figures are covered in more detail in the economic effects section.
Three annual figures, two of them in circulation and one this site's own. Vahtera's is the gross spending on one group and Virén's a ratio borrowed from another country. Between them sits a calculation whose every step is set out in the ledger below. The site's own calculation is still a work in progress, and its figures may change.
Seven figures that all answer the same question: what immigration costs public finances in a year. They differ more in method than in data, and the quality tag says which is which. The site's own calculations are still a work in progress, and their figures may change.
The same methods per person per year. These are not the rows of the table above divided by a population, but calculations of their own for groups of their own, which is why they cannot be added to the annual totals. The site's own calculations are still a work in progress, and their figures may change.
A whole lifetime as one figure. A lifetime figure is not an annual figure multiplied by a life span but a calculation of its own, which carries one year's age profile decades ahead, which is why it is not comparable with the annual figures above. The site's own calculations are still a work in progress, and their figures may change.
Open the same calculation in the ledger
The cost is the difference between two stacks of similar size. Spending is public services at same-age use, the small items row by row and a share of collective spending. Revenue is taxes minus transfers, employer contributions and a share of shared revenue such as corporate tax. The marginal cost counts only the collective spending that grows with the population, and the average cost adds the pure public goods such as defence. The same chain is computed for the protection background and for the non-Western background population, and every row opens onto its note and source. The calculator in the tools view compares by default with an equally large Finnish-background population of the same age, where the collective spending shared per resident and the shared revenue credited per adult cancel, and it counts the applicant phase. On that comparison the non-Western background falls short by €4.0…5.3bn a year and the protection background by €1.2…1.4bn. Without the applicant phase the figures are €3.8…5.0bn and €1.2…1.3bn. The calculation is still a work in progress, and its figures may change.
Marginal cost answers the question of how much public finances change because of the group, when the pure public goods such as defence are assumed to stay as they are. It counts the collective spending that grows with the population and the group's share of shared revenue. Average cost also shares the pure public goods, general public services and defence, evenly across the whole population, as the Danish Ministry of Finance does, though at the cheapest reading defence and the EU payment go by income. At the dearest reading it also credits the property income of the state and the municipalities. At the dear end both also include the effect on other people's wages and employment. Shared revenue, such as corporate tax, both share by Dustmann and Frattini's rules: mostly per adult, with production taxes by income. The whole foreign-background population is the sum of the non-Western and the Western chains: −€0.3…+1.5bn at marginal and €1.8…3.6bn at average cost.
The chart shows how much the yearly cost of the non-Western background population changes when one choice in the calculation goes from its most favourable reading to its dearest and the rest are held still. The bars add up to the width of the range, €1.5bn for the average cost and €1.2bn for the difference to same-age residents. The largest single choice is whether the earnings-related pension institutions' property income is shared over all adults or over the people aged 65 and over, who draw the pensions now. It has no effect on the difference to same-age residents, because Finnish-background residents of the same age would get it by the same key. Next come the effect on other people's wages and employment, the pricing of the countries outside VATT's table and the use of specialised care. On the difference to same-age residents the largest is whether defence and the EU payment are shared by income or per resident, because the group's income falls short of same-age Finnish-background residents'.
| Group | Average cost | Difference to same-age Finnish-background residents |
|---|---|---|
| Pension funds' returns | 362 | 0 |
| Labour market effect | 201 | 201 |
| Uncovered countries | 189 | 212 |
| Specialised care | 131 | 131 |
| Other service use | 130 | 130 |
| Defence and EU payment | 128 | 215 |
| Employer rate | 69 | 33 |
| Fees by use | 64 | 0 |
| Child protection | 50 | 57 |
| Property tax | 36 | 104 |
| Debt and public assets | 34 | 0 |
| Tuition fees | 34 | 34 |
| VAT | 30 | 35 |
| Immigration Service | 23 | 23 |
| ARA housing | 20 | 20 |
| Justice system | 16 | 7 |
| Kela's benefit handling | 7 | 7 |
| Grants to NGOs | 4 | 4 |
Many of the children born in Finland to foreign-born parents later leave Finland. At the moves of recent years, 88.0% of those living here at age 1 still live in Finland at 18 and 82.6% at 30. Of the Finnish background, 99.3% and 96.5% do. By the time they leave, the public finances have paid for their day care, schooling and health care, but the taxes of a working life are not collected.
| Age | Finnish background (% of those living in Finland at age 1) | Foreign background (% of those living in Finland at age 1) | Four refugee origins (% of those living in Finland at age 1) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| 2 | 100 | 99 | 100 |
| 3 | 100 | 98 | 100 |
| 4 | 100 | 97 | 99 |
| 5 | 100 | 96 | 99 |
| 6 | 100 | 95 | 98 |
| 7 | 100 | 94 | 98 |
| 8 | 100 | 93 | 97 |
| 9 | 100 | 92 | 97 |
| 10 | 100 | 92 | 96 |
| 11 | 100 | 91 | 95 |
| 12 | 100 | 90 | 94 |
| 13 | 100 | 90 | 94 |
| 14 | 99 | 89 | 93 |
| 15 | 99 | 89 | 93 |
| 16 | 99 | 89 | 92 |
| 17 | 99 | 88 | 92 |
| 18 | 99 | 88 | 92 |
| 19 | 99 | 88 | 92 |
| 20 | 99 | 87 | 92 |
| 21 | 99 | 87 | 91 |
| 22 | 98 | 87 | 91 |
| 23 | 98 | 86 | 90 |
| 24 | 98 | 86 | 90 |
| 25 | 98 | 85 | 89 |
| 26 | 97 | 84 | 89 |
| 27 | 97 | 84 | 88 |
| 28 | 97 | 83 | 88 |
| 29 | 97 | 83 | 88 |
| 30 | 97 | 83 | 87 |
| 31 | 96 | 82 | |
| 32 | 96 | 82 | |
| 33 | 96 | 82 | |
| 34 | 96 | 81 | |
| 35 | 96 | 81 |
The site's calculation, October 2026. The calculation is still a work in progress, and its figures may change. Three public sources crossed: the agencies' spending that arises from crime in 2023, suspects by origin in 2024 and population structure
Source for spending: Institute of Criminology and Legal Policy, Reviews 68/2025The site's calculation, September 2026. 786 postal areas that have at least eight dwelling sales as well as Yle's foreign-background figure and Paavo's economic data
Source for prices: Statistics Finland, prices of dwellings in housing companiesMauri Kotamäki, Is immigration nothing but a cost to the economy? Kansantaloudellinen aikakauskirja vol. 122, 1/2026. The author is chief economist at Finnvera and a senior researcher at the Population Research Institute of Väestöliitto
journal.fi/kak/article/view/179986Tarmo Valkonen, On researching the public finance effects of immigration. Kansantaloudellinen aikakauskirja vol. 122, 1/2026. The author is a Senior Fellow at the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy
journal.fi/kak/article/view/180003Vesa Kanniainen, Julkisen talouden vaje: pelastaako maahanmuutto? (BoD, October 2025). A literature review of register studies from seven European countries, no Finnish data of its own
kirjakauppa.bod.fi/julkisen-talouden-vaje-pelastaako-maahanm…Matti Virén, professor emeritus of economics. According to Suomen Uutiset a rough estimate mirroring the Dutch study's result onto Finland. The publisher is the Finns Party's party newspaper, and the figure was presented by the party's MP Jaana Strandman
www.suomenuutiset.fi/maahanmuuton-kustannukset-ovat-massiivi…Kaihovaara, Peltonen, Kari, Kotilainen, Mattila, Toikka and Seppä, Selvitys tulorajan asettamisen vaikutuksista työvoiman saatavuuteen ja julkistalouteen (a report on the effects of an income threshold on labour supply and public finances), Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment publications 2024:21, 6 June 2024. A lifecycle calculation from Statistics Finland's unit-level register data. The Ministry of Finance was responsible for the report's public-finance estimates
urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-327-977-3Samuli Salminen, Statistics Finland register data. The 2011 cross-section by age group stretched over the whole lifetime of someone arriving aged 20–24. The publisher is the Finns Party's think tank
www.suomenperusta.fi/julkaisu/maahanmuutot-ja-suomen-julkine…Pauli Vahtera, Iltalehti blog 5 Mar 2019, three parts. State final accounts 2016–2017 and the 2019 budget, about 69,000 adults and 31,000 children from the largest humanitarian countries of origin
web.archive.org/web/20191115063855/https://blogit.iltalehti.…Sweden's National Institute of Economic Research, Specialstudie 117, June 2025. Whole-population register data for 1983–2022 (Statistics Sweden). Refugees include refugees' relatives, and children born in Sweden are counted with the native-born
www.konj.se/media/kpgnt5iw/specialstudie-117-invandrades-net…Office for Budget Responsibility, Fiscal risks and sustainability, September 2024 (CP 1142, 12 September 2024), chapter 4, paragraphs 4.15 and 4.29–4.34 and chart 4.13, corrected on 14 November 2024. The method is set out in the OBR's supplementary release of 6 March 2025. The OBR is the UK's independent fiscal watchdog, which produces the official economic and fiscal forecasts
obr.uk/frs/fiscal-risks-and-sustainability-september-2024/Bernd Raffelhüschen, Stefan Seuffert and Florian Wimmesberger, Ehrbarer Staat? Fokus Migration. Zur fiskalischen Bilanz der Zuwanderung, Argumente zu Marktwirtschaft und Politik 173, January 2024 (the 2023 update of the generational accounts), and Lewe Christoph Bahnsen, Gerrit Manthei and Bernd Raffelhüschen, Ehrbarer Staat? Die Generationenbilanz. Zur fiskalischen Dividende der Zuwanderung, Argumente zu Marktwirtschaft und Politik 135, November 2016. The calculations were made at the University of Freiburg's Forschungszentrum Generationenverträge. The publisher, Stiftung Marktwirtschaft, is a German market-liberal foundation and think tank, and Raffelhüschen sits on its board
stiftung-marktwirtschaft.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Argum…Finansministeriet, Økonomisk Analyse May 2023, revised edition September 2023. Whole-population register data, all taxes and public spending including collective consumption, by origin and descent
fm.dk/media/5cnhiydz/indvandreres-nettobidrag-til-de-offentl…Norwegian Ministry of Finance, Meld. St. 14 (2020–2021) Perspektivmeldingen 2021, 12 February 2021, chapter 7, box 7.7 and table 7.3. The calculation is by Statistics Norway (SSB). The country groups are those of SSB's population projections: Western Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the eastern EU member states, and Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe outside the EU. The price level of 2017 kroner is given in the Ministry of Finance's answer to the Storting's written question 15:1660 (2023–2024)
www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/meld.-st.-14-20202021/id283…Van de Beek, Roodenburg, Hartog and Kreffer, Grenzeloze Verzorgingsstaat (2021). Statistics Netherlands microdata, generational accounting, children and remigration included. Commissioned by the institute of the Forum voor Democratie party
demo-demo.nl/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Borderless_Welfare_S…Crime is one of the side effects most often raised in the immigration debate. This section measures it primarily through suspicion records. Suspect statistics describe the earliest stage of the process and overstate the level, but the overrepresentation does not disappear in conviction statistics. At most it shrinks.
People of foreign background account for a clearly larger share of offences than their share of the population. In foreign citizens' offending as a whole, the age and sex distribution explains about three fifths of the gap in 2024 and about three quarters in 2025: in violent and sexual offences the gap remains clear after standardisation, while in property crime the standardised foreign-national level falls slightly below that of the native population. Differences between background countries are large.
Some figures concern foreign citizens and others people of foreign background, which includes Finnish citizens. Each entry states which, and the standardisation can be switched on in the crime chart of the Charts view. By offence type the subject continues under violent crime and property crime, and the Finland-born generation has its own section under the second generation.
The graph below shows overrepresentation in sexual and violent crime by country of origin. It computes the overrepresentation from the suspect statistics of Finland, Germany and Switzerland and shows their median as the bar. The conviction statistics of Denmark and of England and Wales appear as separate markers. On the 2024 figures the most overrepresented in sexual offences are Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia, and in violent crime Tunisia, Algeria and Somalia. Finland's definition of sexual offences is broader than the other countries', so Finland's own figures are higher than the others on many rows. The median evens out that difference.
The figure is over-representation: 1 means a share equal to the group's share of the population, 3 three times that. Each panel is one offence type, the bar is the median of Finland, Germany and Switzerland and the markers are the individual countries' figures for the same origin. The other countries count their figures differently, so they appear as markers only.
| Group | Median | Finland | Germany | Switzerland | Denmark | England and Wales | Norway | Netherlands |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sexual offences · Afghanistan | 6.8 | 10.0 | 6.8 | 3.2 | 2.1 | 11.3 | 6.9 | 1.7 |
| Sexual offences · Iraq | 6.3 | 12.8 | 6.3 | 3.7 | 2.3 | 6.7 | 4.3 | 10.0 |
| Sexual offences · Somalia | 6.1 | 6.1 | 6.4 | 2.8 | 2.4 | 20.9 | 4.2 | 9.2 |
| Sexual offences · Syria | 4.6 | 13.9 | 4.6 | 3.7 | 3.6 | 5.8 | 3.9 | 5.8 |
| Sexual offences · Eritrea | 4.3 | 9.9 | 4.3 | 2.1 | – | 20.6 | 3.9 | 10.0 |
| Sexual offences · Morocco | 3.6 | 6.5 | 3.6 | 3.6 | 0.5 | – | – | 5.3 |
| Sexual offences · Bulgaria | 3.5 | 9.2 | 3.5 | 1.9 | – | 0.9 | 1.1 | 1.3 |
| Sexual offences · Iran | 3.5 | 6.0 | 3.5 | 2.0 | 1.1 | 7.7 | 1.5 | 3.8 |
| Sexual offences · Tunisia | 3.5 | 1.9 | 6.1 | 3.5 | – | – | – | – |
| Sexual offences · Romania | 1.9 | 1.5 | 2.6 | 1.9 | 1.4 | 1.7 | 1.6 | 1.1 |
| Violent crime · Tunisia | 9.4 | 9.4 | 11.4 | 7.7 | 7.8 | – | – | 5.1 |
| Violent crime · Algeria | 9.3 | 1.8 | 25.7 | 9.3 | 3.6 | 4.3 | – | 7.3 |
| Violent crime · Somalia | 8.1 | 8.1 | 8.9 | 3.6 | 8.0 | 18.9 | 9.8 | 7.3 |
| Violent crime · Morocco | 7.4 | 4.5 | 7.6 | 7.4 | 4.0 | 2.6 | – | 5.7 |
| Violent crime · Iraq | 6.3 | 9.7 | 6.3 | 5.5 | 3.9 | 4.0 | 7.2 | 4.0 |
| Violent crime · Syria | 6.1 | 7.2 | 6.1 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 1.1 | 4.7 | 5.4 |
| Violent crime · Afghanistan | 4.9 | 4.9 | 6.8 | 3.3 | 2.0 | 2.3 | 6.0 | 2.5 |
| Violent crime · Iran | 3.8 | 3.2 | 5.3 | 3.8 | 2.3 | 2.9 | 3.2 | 2.2 |
| Violent crime · Eritrea | 3.2 | 3.2 | 4.5 | 3.1 | – | 5.7 | 3.0 | 4.3 |
| Violent crime · Bulgaria | 2.9 | 1.6 | 4.2 | 2.9 | 1.1 | 0.4 | 1.0 | 1.5 |
Charts: Criminality by nationality in Finland
The statistics name only nine foreign countries separately, and the citizens of other countries appear in the chart as region groups. In 2022–2024 foreign citizens received 376.2 penalties per 10,000 residents a year and Finnish citizens 267.1. The foreign level was 1.4 times the Finnish one. Among the region groups it was highest for citizens of the rest of Africa, 556.2, and lowest for citizens of the rest of Asia, 196.4. Traffic and public order offences accounted for 61% of the penalties imposed on Finnish citizens and 58% of those imposed on foreign citizens.
| Group | penalties per 10,000 residents |
|---|---|
| Iraq | 1,079.6 |
| Somalia | 883.9 |
| Afghanistan | 588.7 |
| Other Africa | 556.2 |
| Türkiye | 531.1 |
| Estonia | 509.8 |
| Sweden | 507.2 |
| Iran | 497.6 |
| Romania | 476.1 |
| All foreign | 376.2 |
| Russia | 318.2 |
| Other Europe | 306.7 |
| Finland | 267.1 |
| Americas | 220.7 |
| Other EU | 213.9 |
| Other Asia | 196.4 |
Italy's national statistics institute ISTAT publishes the crime suspects the police reported to the judicial authorities or arrested, by country of citizenship. In 2023–2024, per resident, Egyptian citizens were reported or arrested for robbery 28.9 times and for sexual violence 15.6 times as often as Italian citizens. The ratios vary widely by citizenship. For robbery the ratio was 64.4 for Tunisian citizens and 0.3 for Philippine citizens.
The site's calculation, October 2026. The crime tables 73_230_DF_DCCV_AUTVITTPS_2 and 73_230_DF_DCCV_AUTVITTPS_4 in ISTAT's database esploradati.istat.it for 2022–2024 and the population tables 29_317_DF_DCIS_POPSTRCIT1_1 and 22_289_DF_DCIS_POPRES1_1 (population on 1 January 2022 to 1 January 2025). The ratio is a citizenship group's reports per resident divided by Italian citizens' reports per resident. The estimate of people in Italy unlawfully: Fondazione ISMU, 31° Rapporto sulle migrazioni 2025, presented on 25 February 2026.
Source for the crime figures: ISTAT, foreign alleged offenders by country of citizenshipFrance's interior ministry statistical service SSMSI publishes the persons implicated (mis en cause) in offences solved by the police and the gendarmerie, by nationality group. In 2024–2025, per resident, nationals of the Maghreb countries, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, were implicated in robbery without a weapon 10.8 times and in homicide 2.6 times as often as French nationals. The ratios vary widely between groups. For Spanish, Italian and Portuguese nationals the ratio was 1.4 for robbery without a weapon and 0.9 for homicide.
The site's calculation, October 2026. SSMSI's bilan statistique for 2025 (published on 9 July 2026) and the sheet natio of its data file Mec_2016_2025, years 2024–2025. Population: Insee, Répartition des étrangers par groupe de nationalités and Population immigrée et étrangère en France (published on 4 June 2026). The ratio is a group's implications per resident divided by French nationals' implications per resident.
Source for the crime figures: SSMSI, Insécurité et délinquance en 2025: bilan statistiqueSpain's national statistics institute INE publishes the adults convicted by final judgment, and the offences they were convicted of, by nationality grouped by continent. In 2023–2024, per resident aged 18 or over, African nationals were convicted of robbery with violence 20.4 times and of sexual offences 5.1 times as often as Spanish nationals. Asian nationals were convicted as often as Spanish nationals overall. By INE's own calculation, foreign nationals were convicted 2.5 times as often as Spanish nationals per adult resident in 2025.
The site's calculation, October 2026. Tables 26014 and 25645 (Estadística de la Población Condenada Adulta) in INE's database for 2023–2024 and the population table 56938 (Estadística Continua de Población, residents aged 18 or over on 1 July 2023 and 1 July 2024). The ratio is a group's convictions per resident divided by Spanish nationals' convictions per resident. The totals for 2025 are from INE's press release of 14 July 2026.
Source for the crime figures: INE, convicted offences by nationality (table 26014)Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) publishes an annual situation report that separates out crime suspects who are asylum seekers, people granted protection, people whose deportation has been suspended and people in the country illegally. The BKA calls them Zuwanderer. In 2024 they made up 8.8 per cent of all suspects and 12.2 per cent of suspects of offences against life. At the end of 2024, 3.06 million refugees were living in Germany, about 3.7 per cent of the population.
The bar shows what share of all suspects in the offence group were asylum seekers, people granted protection, people whose deportation has been suspended or people in the country illegally. The vertical line is refugees' share of the population. The BKA treats the number of refugees as the best available approximation of the group's size.
Refugees' share of the population 3.7
| Group | % of suspects in the offence group |
|---|---|
| Fraud and forgery | 12.3 |
| Offences against life | 12.2 |
| Theft | 12.1 |
| Drug offences | 9.5 |
| Violence and threats | 9.2 |
| All offences | 8.8 |
| Sexual offences | 7.9 |
| Other offences | 6.3 |
Bundeskriminalamt, Bundeslagebild Kriminalität im Kontext von Zuwanderung 2024, Fokus: Fluchtmigration, published on 8 December 2025. Based on the police crime statistics (PKS) for 2024, solved offences excluding breaches of immigration law.
Bundeskriminalamt: Bundeslagebild Kriminalität im Kontext von Zuwanderung 2024 (PDF)The Austrian Interior Ministry's annual crime statistics report gives only the ten most common foreign citizenships among suspects, and only as a total across all offences. In 2025, 47.7 per cent of suspects were foreign citizens, while foreign citizens made up 20.3 per cent of the population. Per resident, Syrian citizens were suspected 5.5 times and Afghan citizens 4.9 times as often as Austrian citizens.
The figure is suspects of all offences per 1,000 residents of the same citizenship. Shown are the ten foreign citizenships with the most suspects, all foreign citizens and Austrian citizens. Austria's police statistics count the same person once for every offence they are suspected of.
| Group | suspects per 1,000 residents |
|---|---|
| Slovakia | 162.3 |
| Syria | 136.0 |
| Afghanistan | 120.4 |
| Romania | 119.3 |
| Serbia | 97.4 |
| Foreign citizens | 88.1 |
| Hungary | 86.7 |
| Türkiye | 72.6 |
| Germany | 61.3 |
| Ukraine | 56.3 |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | 55.8 |
| Austria | 24.6 |
The figure is sexual-offence suspects a year per 100,000 residents of the same citizenship. The years 2022 and 2023 are combined. Shown are the citizenships with at least 50 suspects over the two years, all foreign citizens and Austrian citizens. The figures come from the Interior Ministry's answer to a written question in the National Council, because the annual report does not break citizenships down by offence type.
| Group | suspects a year per 100,000 residents |
|---|---|
| Iraq | 442.6 |
| Afghanistan | 404.9 |
| Somalia | 371.2 |
| Nigeria | 352.5 |
| Syria | 249.5 |
| Iran | 158.6 |
| Romania | 145.5 |
| Bulgaria | 145.4 |
| Türkiye | 142.2 |
| Foreign citizens | 131.1 |
| Slovakia | 111.7 |
| Kosovo | 110.5 |
| Germany | 110.1 |
| Serbia | 109.1 |
| Russia | 89.9 |
| Italy | 87.7 |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | 85.3 |
| Hungary | 79.8 |
| Poland | 68.6 |
| Croatia | 68.5 |
| Austria | 65.3 |
| Ukraine | 45.1 |
The site's calculation, October 2026. Bundesministerium für Inneres, Bundeskriminalamt: Kriminalpolizeiliche Anzeigenstatistik – Kriminalitätsbericht 2025, figures 3 and 4. Sexual offences: the Interior Ministry's answer 17582/AB (17 May 2024) to written question 18148/J in the National Council, and its annex. Population: Statistik Austria, population at the start of the year by citizenship, 1 January 2023 to 1 January 2026. The ratio is a citizenship group's suspects per resident divided by Austrian citizens' suspects per resident.
Source for the crime figures: Austrian Interior Ministry, Kriminalpolizeiliche Anzeigenstatistik – Kriminalitätsbericht 2025 (PDF)Statistics Norway (SSB) produced tables, commissioned and paid for by the Progress Party's parliamentary group, that break down offences solved in 2020–2023 by the immigrant background of the person held responsible. Sexual offences were recorded against male immigrants aged 15–24 at 15.6 per thousand and against men of the same age in the rest of the population at 14.8. Among young men of Syrian and Afghan background the figure was about twice as high.
A charge is SSB's siktelse, a solved offence for which the police or prosecutor, in their final decision, held the person responsible. The figure is four years of charges per 1,000 men of the same age. The countries are those whose male immigrants aged 15–24 had at least 30 sexual-offence charges.
| Group | charges per 1,000 men, 2020–2023 combined |
|---|---|
| Syria | 29.0 |
| Afghanistan | 28.8 |
| Iraq | 23.7 |
| Somalia | 20.2 |
| All immigrants | 15.6 |
| Eritrea | 13.4 |
| Second generation | 9.9 |
| Poland | 7.4 |
| Rest of the population | 14.8 |
Statistics Norway (Fossanger, Dyrstad and Mohn), published on 9 December 2024, updated on 17 December 2024. Tables 1a, 1b, 2 and 3, commissioned and paid for by the Progress Party's parliamentary group, offences solved in 2020–2023. The rape ratios are this site's calculation from the charges in table 1a and the populations in table 2.
Statistics Norway: Siktelser og siktede personer etter innvandringsbakgrunn, tables attachedStatistics use four different concepts, and the source decides which one you get. They describe the same phenomenon with different boundaries, and their sizes differ substantially (2025). There were 432,654 foreign citizens (7.7% of the population) and 660,800 people of foreign background by parents' birth country (11.7%). Foreign-language speakers numbered 646,392, or 11.4%, and the foreign-born 614,401, or 10.9%. The rule followed on this site: when computing overrepresentation, the numerator and the denominator must use the same concept. Prison statistics, for example, are based on citizenship, so they must be compared with the 7.7% figure for foreign citizens, not the 11.7% for foreign background. Kela's statistics are based on native language, so they are compared with the share of foreign-language speakers. A ratio computed across two concepts is not a real quantity, and the error can run in either direction. This is why every figure states which concept it uses.
At the end of 2025 there were 432,654 foreign citizens living in Finland, 7.7% of the population. People of foreign background numbered 660,800, or 11.7%. The difference between the two figures is the group that holds Finnish citizenship but has foreign origins.
The number of second-generation people of foreign background passed 100,000. This group was born in Finland and is often Finnish by citizenship, so it is included in the foreign-background figure but not in the foreign-citizen one. This is a concrete illustration of why the two concepts are not interchangeable.
Age and sex standardisation narrows foreign residents' over-representation in crime but does not remove it. The overall rate against the native population falls from about ×1.5 to ×1.2 in 2024 and from about ×1.4 to ×1.1 in 2025, so age and sex explain about three fifths and three quarters of the gap (Statistics Finland 13yy and 11rg, permanent residents). In 2024 the standardised level was ×0.9 for property crime, ×1.6 for violence and ×1.8 for sexual offences. In 2025 it was ×0.9, ×1.5 and ×1.3. For the main refugee-origin countries it is many times higher: for Iraqi citizens ×6.4 in 2024 and ×7.0 in 2025 for violence, and ×8.9 and ×5.2 for sexual offences. The standardisation can be switched on in the Charts view's crime chart.
The standardised figure compares people of the same age and sex. The total number of offences is still raised by the fact that many arrivals are young men. The figures are suspects, not convictions, but the over-representation does not disappear with convictions: Denmark's conviction-based ratios are still many times the native level. The standardisation uses permanent residents only. In 2015 more than half of crime suspicions against foreign nationals concerned people staying in Finland temporarily, so unstandardised figures such as prison statistics are upper bounds.
The source table from which the age and sex standardisation is calculated: suspects by nationality × age × sex, combined with population table 11rg. Direct standardisation to the age and sex structure of the country as a whole.
Statistics Denmark publishes an annual crime index that standardises convictions for socio-economic factors as well as age. The index covers all guilty verdicts for people aged 15 to 79 in 2024, traffic offences included, with all men = 100. For Denmark-born descendants of immigrants from non-Western countries, the men's index was 316 unadjusted and 245 standardised for age. Adding the person's own labour-market status to age gave 242, adding family income gave 219 and adding family education gave 203. For men who immigrated from non-Western countries the same figures were 149, 137, 124, 119 and 123. Men of Danish origin had an index of 89 unadjusted and 92 standardised for age. Standardisation narrows the gap, but the second-generation men's level stays about twice that of all men, and the second generation is more overrepresented than the immigrants themselves. For penal-code offences the age-standardised index was 264 for second-generation men and 151 for immigrant men, and for violent offences it was 278 and 152. The figures are convictions rather than suspicions, and the groups are defined by origin rather than citizenship.
The UK Ministry of Justice does not publish convictions in England and Wales by individual nationality. The figures are available only through Freedom of Information requests, and the same data have produced very different overrepresentation figures depending on the population the convictions are divided by. The England and Wales markers in the chart above are computed from the ministry's 2021 FOI table and the census nationality counts of the same year, in the same way as the Migration Observatory computed them. On that basis the sexual-offence conviction rate of Afghan citizens in 2021 was 11.3 times that of British citizens, a figure that rests on 20 convictions. The Centre for Migration Control's method gave about 22 times for 2021–2023, and Sky News's calculation based on country of birth about three times.
The Centre for Migration Control (CMC) obtained from the Ministry of Justice under the Freedom of Information Act the convictions recorded on the police register in 2021–2023 by offence group and nationality. Of the 833,522 convictions with a known nationality, 104,000 were of foreign nationals, and nationality was missing for 38,966. CMC divided the convictions by the ONS survey-based population estimate for June 2021 and, for nationalities missing from it, by UN figures for the foreign-born. On that basis foreign nationals were convicted at a rate 39% higher than British nationals for all offences, 71% higher for sexual offences, 69% higher for drug offences and 25% higher for theft. For sexual offences CMC ranked Afghan, Eritrean, Namibian, Chadian and Moldovan nationals highest. CMC's own calculation for ages 16–64 gave a 32% gap for sexual offences. In August 2025 Sky News's data unit checked CMC's figure that Afghans are 22 times more likely than Britons to be convicted of a sexual offence. In 2021–2023 there were 77 sexual-offence convictions of Afghan nationals and 14,270 of British nationals. Divided by the survey's 13,000 Afghans the rate was 59.2 convictions per 10,000, against 2.7 for Britons. Divided by the census count of 85,687 people born in Afghanistan it was 9.0, against 2.9 for the UK-born, about three times. The ONS told Sky News that CMC's figure rests on an estimate of the Afghan population that is too small, and the Home Office said the same. CMC replied that the conviction data are classified by nationality, so a population by country of birth does not fit the comparison.
CMC campaigns to reduce immigration and describes itself as a think tank. The calculation is its own and is not an official statistic.
A Freedom of Information request made in June 2025 asked for convictions in England and Wales in 2018–2024 by nationality, in seven offence groups and in each detailed offence within them, with counts below five suppressed. According to Brussels Signal the request came from the Centre for Migration Control. The Ministry of Justice refused, saying the figures could be combined with earlier releases to identify individual offenders. According to the ministry, almost anything can be entered in the nationality field of the police register, so the data hold many very small groups. During the investigation the ministry also argued that compiling the figures would exceed the cost limit. On 22 June 2026 the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK regulator for information rights, ruled that the ministry had not shown the cost limit would be exceeded and that the risk of identification applies only to counts below five. It ordered the ministry to release the information within 30 days. The ministry appealed the decision to the First-tier Tribunal in July 2026. According to Brussels Signal, Justice Secretary Alex Norris, who took office on 20 July 2026, had kept the appeal in place as of August 2026. A ministry spokesman said the ministry does not comment on live legal proceedings.
The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford bases its briefing on Ministry of Justice FOI responses that break down the cautions and convictions on the police register by year, nationality and offence type. In 2024 foreign nationals received 43,250 cautions or convictions in England and Wales, 13.1% of the total. By the Observatory's own estimate about 13.5% of the adult population were foreign nationals in 2025, so by its reckoning the overall rate was roughly the same as for British citizens. Foreign nationals received 9.2% of the cautions and convictions for violent offences, 15.4% of those for sexual offences and 15.6% of those for drug offences. They made up 12.1% of prisoners in June 2025 and 18.7% of people entering prison in 2025, because they are granted bail while awaiting trial less often than British citizens. The briefing compares nationalities on 2021 figures, the year in which the census gives the most reliable population counts. There were 57.9 convictions per 10,000 residents aged 16 or over among British citizens and 66.0 among all foreign nationals. The rate was 766.1 for Albanian citizens, 375.2 for Iraqi, 240.8 for Afghan and 229.9 for Iranian citizens, while Indian, Pakistani, French and Chinese citizens were underrepresented. According to the briefing the figures for some nationalities may be too high because the census does not reach everyone in the country illegally, and there is some evidence of this for Albania. Of Albanian citizens' convictions 61% were for drug offences, and the briefing says the high figure may partly reflect criminal networks whose members do not live in the country permanently.
The Finnish Security and Intelligence Service assesses the terrorist threat in Finland, and the crime and court statistics show how often terrorist offences are recorded and how often they lead to convictions. The statistics do not break terrorist offences down by the offender's origin or citizenship, so they say nothing about overrepresentation. The Turku stabbing is the only attack carried out in Finland that has led to a conviction for a terrorist offence, and it is described on the timeline.
In a year-long study the Criminal Sanctions Agency identified 84 prisoners showing signs of violent extremist thinking or radicalisation. At the time of the report 45 were still in prison and 39 had been released or deported. According to Juha Eriksson, the agency's security manager for southern Finland, most cases were religiously motivated and mainly involved prisoners of foreign background. The report describes assaults by prisoners of Muslim background that were suspected of being religiously motivated. Some prisoners celebrated Islamist terror attacks. According to Eriksson, inmates cheered and clapped on a ward after the Turku stabbing. The report recommends staff training, better data gathering and more secure placement of prisoners, because there is no evidence that rehabilitation methods work against radicalisation. Eriksson says the phenomenon is still fairly minor in Finland.
According to the Criminal Sanctions Agency, Finnish prisons hold radicalised people with the ability and the will to commit terrorist acts. A project in the southern Finland sanctions region identified 112 people linked to violent extremism or radicalisation between August 2016 and January 2018. Of them, 76 were linked to radical Islamism. Radicalisation usually happened through another prisoner or a prison gang, and bitterness was the clearest risk factor. At the time Finland had no rehabilitation programmes tailored to extremist prisoners.
In September 2025 Päijät-Häme District Court sentenced Simon Ekpa, a Finnish citizen living in Lahti, to six years in prison. Ekpa was convicted of public incitement to an offence with terrorist intent and participation in the activity of a terrorist group, and also of aggravated tax fraud and a breach of the Advocates Act. According to the court, he used social media to lead a separatist movement that seeks independence for Biafra in south-eastern Nigeria. Armed groups were set up under the movement, and the court considered them terrorist groups. The offences were committed in Lahti but were directed abroad. According to Deputy Prosecutor General Jukka Rappe, terrorist offences are rare in Finland. The judgment was not final when the news was published.
The authorities recorded the following numbers of terrorist offences under chapter 34 a of the Criminal Code in 2014–2025: 7, 20, 6, 23, 2, 1, 0, 1, 3, 9, 6 and 3. Of the 2015 figure, 12 were murders with terrorist intent recorded by the National Bureau of Investigation. The 2017 figure includes two murders and nine attempted murders with terrorist intent, and these include the acts of the Turku attack. At first instance, a terrorist offence was the principal offence of the sentence for five people in 2015–2024. One of them was sentenced in 2018 and four in 2023. The 2018 sentence was life imprisonment, for two murders and eight attempted murders with terrorist intent. In 2023 the courts found four aggravated firearms offences with terrorist intent and six counts of training for a terrorist offence proven. Over the same years the courts dismissed 13 terrorist-offence charges. Six of the dismissed charges date from 2017, five from 2018 and two from 2024. The statistics do not record the origin or citizenship of suspects or convicts.
The Finnish Security and Intelligence Service has assessed the terrorist threat in Finland as elevated since June 2017. Until 2024 the threat was at level two of a four-step scale, elevated. In its 2025 assessment the service moved to a five-step scale, on which the threat is at level three, elevated. According to the 2026 assessment, the most likely threat of an attack comes from lone individuals and small groups who support radical Islamist or far-right ideology, and a large-scale attack in Finland is unlikely. According to the service, radical Islamist terrorism remains the principal threat in Europe. The service does not publish a breakdown of its targets by ideology. There were about 390 counter-terrorism targets at the end of 2019 and about 350 according to the assessments published in March 2023 and March 2024. According to the service, the number nearly doubled in the 2010s, as recruitment networks linked to the conflict in Syria and Iraq became active and foreign fighters left Finland. The service states that the number of targets does not directly indicate the threat level. According to the 2025 assessment, about 50 people who had left Finland were still in the conflict zone in Syria and Iraq, most of them probably dead. According to the service's 2024 assessment, Helsinki District Court handed down the first conviction for training for a terrorist offence in April 2023. The convicted person was a Spanish citizen who had lived in Finland, and he was deported in August 2023.
The National Research Institute of Legal Policy report studies immigrants both as offenders and as victims, using register and survey data. The register part is based on assaults, thefts, robberies and rapes reported to the police in 2010–2011, compared with a sample from the population register. The survey part is based on two 2012 surveys, the Finnish Self-Report Delinquency Study (N = 8,914) and the National Crime Victim Survey (N = 7,746). In the register part, immigrants are the foreign-born and the Finland-born whose mother tongue is not Finnish, Swedish or Sami. Measured as an odds ratio, the assault rate of immigrants from the Middle East and Africa was five to six times that of Finland-born Finnish speakers. For assault, the rate of people born in East Asia, North America and Western Europe, Sweden excepted, was below the native level. Standardising for age, sex and income lowered the assault rate of immigrants from Africa by more than 45% and that of immigrants from the Middle East by 55%. The gap to the native population narrowed but remained statistically significant. For rape, nearly every immigrant group had a rate well above the native population, and population structure and income did not explain the gap. The differences between immigrant groups were larger than the gap between immigrants and natives, and age, sex and income did not explain them. A high offending rate went with a high risk of victimisation, because much of the violence happened within the same group. Immigrants' risk of becoming an assault victim was 2.5 times that of the native population. The register and survey data gave broadly the same results. By the authors' calculation there would have been 8% fewer assaults and 27% fewer rapes if immigrants' propensity to offend had been at the native level.
The data is the 2012 wave of the Finnish Self-Report Delinquency Study (N = 8,914). Because the offending is self-reported rather than drawn from police records, the result is not exposed to reporting-propensity or police-targeting bias, unlike suspicion statistics. Several forms of delinquency were more common among immigrant youth than among native youth. A report by the National Research Institute of Legal Policy on the same survey (Lehti et al. 2014, OPTL research report 265) finds the gap statistically significant in, for example, shoplifting, which 10% of immigrant youth and 7% of native youth had committed in the past year, and school bullying (26% and 19%). Among ninth-graders, immigrant youth had used cannabis (19% and 9%) and other drugs clearly more often than native youth. Binge drinking and most forms of vandalism showed no significant difference. The authors' central result is explanatory: the gap was tied to routine activities and parental control, and once a wide set of background variables was controlled for, the elevated risk among immigrant youth shrank but remained statistically significant. The same pattern as in the site's own standardisations: background explains part of the gap, not all of it.
In 2018, 297,600 crime suspects were identified, of whom 34,200 were foreign nationals. Age- and gender-standardised suspicion index: foreign nationals were suspected 1.2x more often than Finnish nationals. Iraqi men were suspected of sexual offences 12.8x more often than Finnish men (2017–2018 combined). Somali men were suspected of drug offences 3.4x more often. Swedish women of property crimes 3.1x more often. Iraqis overall 2.0x, Swedes 2.3x. Figures represent suspicions, not convictions.
The Rikollisuustilanne 2024 review standardises crime-suspect rates using Eurostat's European Standard Population (a different method from the site's own direct age/sex standardisation of StatFin tables). In 2024 the age-standardised non-traffic crime rate was 839 per 10,000 for the foreign-background population vs. 465 for the Finnish-background population, a ~1.8× gap that persists after standardisation. For assault the standardised rate was about 70% higher and for sexual offences more than 1.5× higher, but for theft it was lower for the foreign-background population, and the sexual-offence gap has narrowed because the Finnish-background rate has risen faster. The review links this to the 2023 consent-based law reform and a lowered threshold for reporting. As shares: in 2024 people with a foreign background made up 19% of non-traffic crime suspects and 17% of traffic offence suspects, highest by crime type in smuggling (32%), rape (32%) and tax offences (30%). Non-traffic crime committed by immigrants has grown roughly 70% since 2015, mostly explained by growth in the foreign-background population: the age-standardised rate rose about 7% for the foreign-background population and 12% for the Finnish-background one. Victims: between 2015 and 2024 police recorded over 77,000 crime victims with a foreign background, the annual count growing from 5,400 (2015) to 11,439 (2024), about 14% of all police-recorded victims. The victim share was highest in violence and threat offences: assault and unlawful threats averaged 15%, stalking 15%, robbery and rape 12%.
Four nationally representative self-report studies, N = 21,504 Swedish adolescents (mean age 15). Both first- and second-generation immigrants report committing more offences than natives. Because the data are self-reported rather than police-recorded, the result cannot be explained by reporting propensity or policing focus, and the gap appears in the second generation as well. The authors stress, however, that the association is weak and accounts for only a marginal amount of the variance in total offending. The link between delinquent friends and offending is stronger for both immigrant generations than for natives. The same authors note that overrepresentation is markedly larger in register data than in self-reports, and that the register gap is at least partly due to how likely a young person is to be recorded by the police in the first place.
The share of foreign suspects and offenders in serious narcotics cases investigated by the National Bureau of Investigation (KRP) was 53% in 2024 and 79% in 2025 up to early November, KRP intelligence chief Jaakko Christensen said in a Rikospaikka interview, so the 2025 figure is a part-year interview figure. The figures do not cover all drug offences, only the most serious cases KRP investigates, which are often linked to organised crime. By nationality, Swedes have risen to the top of KRP's drug cases and are the second-largest group across all serious drug crimes, after Estonians. KRP's priorities include organised crime, street gangs and Swedish organised crime. Youth violent crime has also been rising since 2015.
In Finland 20.4 per cent of violent-crime suspects were of foreign background in 2025, while their share of the population was 11.7 per cent. Per resident, people of foreign background were suspected about twice as often as people of Finnish background, 104 against 53 suspects per 10,000 residents (table 13z4). The usual response to the over-representation is age structure: arrivals include many young men, and young men commit more violence whatever their background. For violent crime that does not account for it. Per resident, foreign citizens were suspected 1.9 times as often as Finnish citizens in 2025, and standardising for age and sex narrows the gap to 1.5 times. In 2024 the figures were 2.0 and 1.6 (table 13yy).
Map view: violent crimes by municipality
The figure is the ratio to Finnish-background men of the same age: 1 is the same level, 2 twice it. The bar is a ten-year average.
| Group | Median |
|---|---|
| Violent crime · North Africa | 5.03 |
| Violent crime · Western Asia | 3.53 |
| Violent crime · Sub-Saharan Africa | 2.95 |
| Violent crime · Southern Europe | 1.65 |
| Violent crime · Northern Europe (excl. Finland) | 1.45 |
| Violent crime · Western Europe | 1.23 |
| Violent crime · Eastern Europe | 1.14 |
| Violent crime · Americas | 1.10 |
| Violent crime · Southeast Asia & Oceania | 0.55 |
The statistics name only nine foreign countries separately, and the citizens of other countries appear in the chart as region groups. For violent offences, foreign citizens received 19.3 penalties per 10,000 residents a year in 2022–2024 and Finnish citizens 11.5. The foreign level was 1.7 times the Finnish one. It was highest for citizens of Somalia and Iraq, 6.7 and 6.5 times the level of Finnish citizens. Among the region groups the level was highest for citizens of the rest of Africa, 37.3, and lowest for citizens of the rest of Asia, 8.4.
| Group | penalties per 10,000 residents |
|---|---|
| Somalia | 77.3 |
| Iraq | 74.2 |
| Other Africa | 37.3 |
| Iran | 37.1 |
| Afghanistan | 35.0 |
| Türkiye | 24.9 |
| Estonia | 23.0 |
| Sweden | 21.6 |
| All foreign | 19.3 |
| Romania | 17.5 |
| Russia | 14.9 |
| Finland | 11.5 |
| Americas | 10.0 |
| Other EU | 9.3 |
| Other Europe | 9.1 |
| Other Asia | 8.4 |
In Germany, well over two fifths of violent-crime suspects are foreign nationals, and the share held almost steady in 2025 at 42.9%, against 43.1% a year earlier (BKA crime statistics).
A review of Nordic homicide by Martti Lehti, researcher at the Institute of Criminology and Legal Policy (Krimo): in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, immigrants now account for 25–40% of homicide perpetrators. In Finland and Iceland the share is 10%. In all Nordic countries the immigrant homicide rate exceeds the native rate, but the gap is larger in Scandinavia than in Finland. Finland's peculiarity: its immigrant homicide rate is the highest in the Nordics, but the native Finns' rate is also among the highest.
The National Bureau of Investigation (KRP) report on youth violent crime highlights an increase in aggravated robberies and homicides committed by minors after 2015. Between 2015 and 2020, youths with a foreign background were suspected of violent crimes 2.8 times more often than those with a native background (7.0 vs. 2.5 suspects per 1,000 residents). For 15–17-year-olds, the suspect rate was 28.3 for the foreign-born, 21.1 for Finland-born youths with a foreign background, and 7.9 for native-background youths per 1,000 residents. The share of foreign-background suspects among all minors suspected of violent crimes rose from 18% in 2015 to 23% in 2020.
According to Statistics Finland's table, 20.4% of suspects of crimes against life and health were of foreign background in 2025, that is 6,884 of 33,711 suspects. In 2024 the share was 19.9% (5,941 of 29,870). Suspects are counted by case, and the denominator includes those whose origin is unknown. The same count gives 33.7% for suspects of rape or aggravated rape. People of foreign background made up 11.7% of the population.
According to the police crime statistics of Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), 192,239 people were suspected of violent crime in 2025. 82,565 of them, or 42.9%, were not German citizens. In 2024 the share was 43.1% (85,012 of 197,347). Violent crime (Gewaltkriminalität) covers homicide, rape, robbery and serious assault, among other offences. 212,335 cases were recorded, 2.3% fewer than a year earlier. The figures are suspects, not convictions.
Violent crimes committed by persons with a foreign background are common in Helsinki, with the group being clearly overrepresented in police statistics. In the 2000s, suspects with a foreign background accounted for over 40% of rapes and nearly a third of robberies and extortions reported to the Helsinki police. The article is from February 2008, so “the 2000s” covers 2000–2007. The figures are old, but they still give an indication of a phenomenon that more recent reviews show has persisted.
Statistics Finland reports that approximately one in five (20%) suspects in aggravated robberies under the age of 21 has a foreign background. According to the police, a subset of foreign-background youths in the Helsinki metropolitan area carry weapons and are quick to use them. Yle also discusses the criteria for reporting the ethnic background of suspects.
A National Police Board analysis (Polstat data 2007–2024): homicides and attempted homicides by under-21s have increased since 2019, driven mainly by attempted murders. In 2020–2023 the rate for Finnish-background youths was about 1.9 and for foreign-background youths about 5.3 homicides or attempts per 10,000 people, nearly triple. Over half of suspects were men aged 18–20, about 28% were minors, and nearly 80% had prior violent offences.
Sexual offending is among the most contested topics in the immigration debate. In Finland 33.7 per cent of those suspected of rape or aggravated rape in 2025 were of foreign background, against 11.7 per cent of the population. Per resident, people of foreign background were suspected about four times as often as people of Finnish background, 5.5 against 1.4 suspects per 10,000 residents. The same pattern recurs across Europe: a University of Lund study (2025) finds that a clear majority of those convicted of rape in Sweden have an immigrant background, and Eurostat data show police-recorded sexual offences, and rape in particular, rising steeply across the EU over the past decade.
The usual response is that the gap reflects age and sex structure: arrivals include many young men, and young men commit more crime whatever their background. For sexual offences that does not account for it. The age- and sex-standardised level is clearly above that of Finnish citizens for the foreign population as a whole, and several times higher for the major refugee-origin countries.
The charts in this section are unstandardised and mix suspects with convictions, see the standardisation note in the Criminality section.
The bars are police-recorded sexual violence offences and the line the rapes among them, in thousands a year from the same 26 EU countries.
| Year | Sexual violence | Rape |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 127.2 | 39.2 |
| 2015 | 126.6 | 39.2 |
| 2016 | 138.7 | 44.3 |
| 2017 | 143.8 | 48.9 |
| 2018 | 162.5 | 54.8 |
| 2019 | 173.2 | 60.6 |
| 2020 | 172.4 | 63.7 |
| 2021 | 202.5 | 77.1 |
| 2022 | 224.2 | 85.6 |
| 2023 | 237.5 | 91.9 |
| 2024 | 248.9 | 98.2 |
Charts: Sexual offences by nationality
The statistics name only nine foreign countries separately, and the citizens of other countries appear in the chart as region groups. For sexual offences, foreign citizens received 4.4 penalties per 10,000 residents a year in 2022–2024 and Finnish citizens 1.2. The foreign level was 3.7 times the Finnish one. It was highest for citizens of Iraq and Somalia, 19.1 and 12.8 times the level of Finnish citizens. Among the region groups it was highest for citizens of the rest of Africa, 10.5, and lowest for citizens of the other EU countries, 2.0.
| Group | penalties per 10,000 residents |
|---|---|
| Iraq | 22.9 |
| Somalia | 15.4 |
| Afghanistan | 15.3 |
| Other Africa | 10.5 |
| All foreign | 4.4 |
| Other Asia | 3.2 |
| Other EU | 2.0 |
| Estonia | 1.4 |
| Finland | 1.2 |
Eurostat statistics show a substantial rise in recorded sexual offences in several European countries: reported rapes in Spain rose 322% over a decade, and the EU-wide increase was about 150%. The number of recorded offences does not by itself say anything about perpetrators, however: over the same period several countries widened their legal definition of sexual offences (Spain in 2022, Sweden in 2018) and reporting propensity rose, both of which raise the figures without the number of acts changing. There is better evidence on perpetrator background than growth in totals: according to the Spanish Interior Ministry's own statistics, foreign nationals accounted for 37.3% of those arrested or investigated for sexual offences in 2023, while foreign nationals are about 13–14% of Spain's population. Note that Spain's tourist volume means some suspects do not live in the country and are not part of any population denominator.
The Spanish Interior Ministry's annual report breaks down people arrested and investigated for sexual offences by nationality. In 2023, foreign nationals accounted for 37.3% (5,136 of 13,767) and Spanish nationals for 62.7%. The most common countries of origin were Morocco (1,001, or 7.3% of the total), Colombia (600, 4.4%) and Romania (344, 2.5%). Foreign nationals are about 13–14% of Spain's population, so the share is well above the population share. This is direct perpetrator-background data, unlike growth in the total number of recorded offences.
Eurostat news release: rapes recorded by the police in the EU rose by 150%, or 58,983 cases, between 2014 and 2024, to 98,190 in 2024. The release gives no country figures. Spain's 322% rise can be computed from Eurostat's database: 1,239 recorded rapes in 2014 and 5,222 in 2024.
Eurostat statistical overview: reported sexual offences in the EU grew significantly during 2014–2024.
Remix News summarizes Eurostat reporting that sexual offences multiplied in several Western European countries, a trend linked here to immigration.
IS investigation of 2018 sexual offence convictions in Helsinki and Oulu: out of 82 convicted individuals, 43 (52.4%) were of foreign background. In Helsinki, 40 foreign-background and 31 native Finns were convicted. In Oulu, 3 foreign-background and 8 native Finns.
Suspected sexual offences by taxi drivers in Helsinki multiplied after taxi deregulation (from 2 reports in 2017 to nearly 50 in 2023–2024). According to Helsinki police, the suspected drivers have without exception been of foreign background.
Per Statistics Finland's crime and coercive measures statistics, 364 of 1,080 (33.7%) rape/aggravated rape suspects in 2025 were of foreign background, up from 281 of 893 (31.5%) in 2024. In 2025 the foreign-background share of the population was 11.7%. The overrepresentation among suspects is therefore roughly threefold, and the suspects' share has risen steadily throughout the 2000s.
The Finns Party's party newspaper compiled the gang rapes against women that reached publicity in 2015–2026, over ten cases, in every one of which the perpetrators were of foreign background. In the compilation's only case where one of the perpetrators was of Finnish background, the victim was a man. The cases were found in news reports and public court documents with the help of an AI search, and the paper itself states that Finland has no comprehensive statistics on the backgrounds of gang rape perpetrators. In the paper's own search the perpetrators were of foreign background in practically every case it found.
Peer-reviewed register study, Journal of Interpersonal Violence (DOI 10.1177/08862605241311611). Nationwide register data 2000–2020, case-control design. Open access: this source can be opened and checked directly.
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12662818/German police recorded 751 group rapes in 2025. Of the suspects, 53 per cent were foreign nationals, while foreign nationals made up about 15 per cent of the population. Relative to population, there were 7 suspects per million German citizens, 117 per million Syrian citizens, 142 per million Afghan and 181 per million Iraqi citizens, 16 to 25 times the German level. The figures come from the Federal Government's answer to a written question in the Bundestag, because group rape has had no offence category of its own in the police statistics since 2018.
Group-rape suspects recorded by the police relative to the population of the same citizenship. Shown are the five citizenships the Federal Government lists, and all foreign nationals together.
| Group | suspects per million residents |
|---|---|
| Iraq | 181 |
| Afghanistan | 142 |
| Syria | 118 |
| Foreign nationals | 41 |
| Türkiye | 29 |
| Germany | 7 |
Report KKF-Aktuell 4/2019 by the criminological research unit of the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) (Weber, Wührl & Spalding). Based on individual police-statistics records for 2017 under the group-rape categories 111200 and 111300.
www.bka.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Publikationen/Publikation…Property crime is the one offence category where age and sex standardisation turns the picture around: the standardised rate for the whole foreign population is about ×0.9, below the native-background level.
That whole-population average hides wide differences between groups, though. Taken separately by citizenship, seven groups of at least 5,000 people remain above the native level even after standardisation in 2025: Somalia ×3.7, Sweden ×3.2, Estonia ×2.0, Iraq ×1.9, Syria ×1.6, Iran ×1.4 and Romania ×1.2. For the citizens of the largest refugee countries of origin, Iraq, Somalia, Syria and Afghanistan, taken together the level is ×1.9. Standardisation therefore explains the overrepresentation at the level of the whole population, but not within every group.
Unstandardised, youths with a foreign background are significantly overrepresented among robbery suspects, with particularly high rates for sub-Saharan African and Western Asian backgrounds. The figures in the chart below are unstandardised and concern young men, so they answer a different question from the standardised total.
The figure is the ratio to Finnish-background men of the same age: 1 is the same level, 0.5 half of it. The bar is a ten-year average.
| Group | Median |
|---|---|
| Property crime · Sub-Saharan Africa | 1.64 |
| Property crime · North Africa | 1.51 |
| Property crime · Northern Europe (excl. Finland) | 1.35 |
| Property crime · Western Asia | 1.10 |
| Property crime · Eastern Europe | 0.77 |
| Property crime · Southern Europe | 0.48 |
| Property crime · Western Europe | 0.37 |
| Property crime · Southeast Asia & Oceania | 0.27 |
| Property crime · Americas | 0.24 |
| Property crime · East Asia | 0.07 |
Charts: Property crimes by nationality
Table 2 of the Rikollisuustilanne 2024 review breaks down the crime rate of men aged 18–29 by region of origin (2015–2024 average, suspects per 10,000 population). The lowest property- and violent-crime rates are found among those with East Asian backgrounds, the highest among those with North African backgrounds. For sexual offences, the lowest rates are among East Asian backgrounds and the highest among those representing Sub-Saharan Africa and Western Asia. Differences in traffic offences are generally small, except for men with Western Asian backgrounds, whose rate is clearly higher than that of other groups. The review cautions that background-country groups are internally heterogeneous and that figures for small groups can be swayed by individual cases.
Statistics Finland's offences and coercive measures statistics record 439 robberies in 2019 across the 0–14, 15–17 and 18–20 age groups, with foreign-background people making up 24.2% of suspects, against 16.4% in 2018. The total number of robberies fell over the same period (458 to 439), so the share rose while the count shrank. The share was highest in the youngest groups: 34.3% (0–14) and 34.0% (15–17). Of the robberies committed by foreign-background youth, Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 32% (0–14) and 36.4% (15–17), Western Asia for 16.0% and 24.0%. The numbers are small (24.2% of 439 is about a hundred cases), so year-to-year variation is large. Statistics Finland publishes figures only for suspects in cleared offences, and being a suspect implies neither prosecution nor conviction. A person counts as foreign-background if both parents were born abroad. Dual citizens holding Finnish citizenship are counted as Finnish.
The backgrounds of victim and offender are published together only for hate crimes and homicides. People of foreign background, for example, are victims of assault about twice as often as the native population relative to their numbers, but the offenders' background is not published. In hate crimes motivated by the victim's ethnic or national background, the victim almost always belonged to a minority in 2024 and the offender mostly to the majority, in 83 per cent of the cases where the offender was identified. Per head, though, minority offenders were overrepresented about 1.7 times and the foreign-born among suspects about 2.2 times, of the same order as in crime in general.
In homicides the offender usually comes from the victim's own circle: in 2010–2017, 95 per cent of the killers of native victims were natives. The homicide rate of foreign citizens living permanently in Finland was slightly lower than that of Finnish citizens, 1.4 and 1.5 offenders per 100,000 residents a year. The foreign-born were still overrepresented among offenders about 1.7 times, because they include foreign-born Finnish citizens.
Jenita Rauta, Police University College reviews 41, 2025. National police report data, 1,223 reports linked to ethnic or national background
www.theseus.fi/handle/10024/898199Martti Lehti, Katsauksia 34/2019, University of Helsinki, Institute of Criminology and Legal Policy. Homicide monitoring data 2010–2017, main suspects resident in Finland
hdl.handle.net/10138/301889According to the West Uusimaa police, nearly half of domestic-violence suspects in Espoo were born abroad, while foreign-language speakers make up over a quarter of the city's population. According to Statistics Finland, about 19 per cent of domestic-violence victims nationwide in 2025 were of foreign background, against 12 per cent of the population. The over-representation thus covers victims as well as suspects.
These are unstandardised shares of suspects and victims, not age- and sex-standardised offence rates. The Espoo figure was given by the police in an interview and is not a published statistic.
In 2025 the intimate-partner and domestic violence offences that came to the authorities' attention had 15,500 victims, 20.2% more than the year before. 75% of suspects were men. About 19% of victims were of foreign background, against 18% in 2024. People of foreign background make up 12% of Finland's population. The number of foreign-background victims grew by 27% and that of Finnish-background victims by 19%.
Published on the day of the Sello mall shooting in Espoo, with Martti Lehti of the National Research Institute of Legal Policy giving background on violence among immigrants. Lehti says family violence is the largest single category among homicides committed by immigrants, that jealousy is perhaps a more prominent motive in them and that the perpetrator is typically sober, with Russians the exception: their homicides resemble those committed by Finns. The article's headline generalises this to violent crime as a whole, although Lehti's assessment is specifically about homicide. He also says immigrants' overall crime rate is substantially higher than the native population's, though the absolute number of offences is small. From the victim's side: an immigrant woman's risk of being killed is nearly twice that of a native-born Finnish woman, with no difference for men, and in 2002–2007 4% of women killed in Finland were foreign-born.
According to Markku Heinikari, deputy police chief of the West Uusimaa police department, nearly half of domestic-violence suspects in Espoo were born abroad, whereas foreign-language speakers make up over 25 per cent of Espoo's population. He says about 40 per cent of violent offences in the area are linked to domestic violence. The figure was given in an interview and is not a published statistic.
Female genital mutilation originates in countries where the practice is common, and it came to Finland with migration. Honour-related violence is also discussed here in connection with immigration, but the survey evidence on it covers the whole population. Neither is recorded as an offence category of its own, so what is known rests on estimates and surveys.
FGM is a crime in Finland. THL estimates that more than 10,000 women and girls living in Finland have undergone genital mutilation, and that 650–3,000 girls are at risk of it. In Statistics Finland's 2021 survey, 8% of 16–74-year-olds had witnessed or experienced honour-related violence, about 325,000 people. The same survey also measured forced marriage and attitudes to mutilation: about 23,000 people living in Finland have been pressured or forced into marriage, and 3% of men consider the mutilation of girls acceptable in certain circumstances, rising to 10% among men under 25. Survey data on values is under views of Europe’s Muslims and the overall picture of violence under violent crime.
Nobody has measured what Muslims living in Finland think about mutilation. This is the closest measurement, and it separates respondents by origin: foreign background means both parents were born abroad. The shares among women are lower throughout, on average 2%.
The scale of the question follows from which countries people came from. About 42,000 people living in Finland have a background country where more than half of women have been cut. Of them 28,000 are of Somali background, and in Somalia the practice is close to universal. The largest background group on this list by headcount is nonetheless the Iraqi one, and Iraq's national figure is low.
| Group | % of women |
|---|---|
| Somalia | 99.5 |
| Guinea | 97.7 |
| Egypt | 92.6 |
| Eritrea | 88.4 |
| Sierra Leone | 88.1 |
| Sudan | 87.6 |
| Ethiopia | 76.9 |
| The Gambia | 74.8 |
| Yemen | 22.8 |
| Senegal | 20.1 |
| Nigeria | 18.0 |
| Kenya | 14.8 |
| Tanzania | 12.1 |
| Iraq | 9.3 |
The population survey and the assistance system measure different things. The survey says how many people living in Finland have at some point been married against their will. The assistance-system figure says how many came to the authorities' attention during one year as victims of human trafficking. The second is a fraction of the first, and the gap is a gap in what comes to light, not in what happens.
THL estimates that more than 10,000 women and girls living in Finland have undergone female genital mutilation. THL puts the number of girls at risk at 650–3,000. MAAMU study (THL Report 61/2012, ch. 8.2 · Koponen & Mölsä): about seven in ten women of Somali background (69%) and almost a third of those of Kurdish background (32%) said they had been circumcised. These are estimates, not population-adjusted offence rates.
A Statistics Finland report that measured, for the first time across the whole population, forced marriage, honour-related violence and attitudes to genital mutilation. About 1% of ever-married under-75s were married against their will, some 23,000 people. Honour-related violence has been witnessed or experienced by 8% of 16-74-year-olds, about 325,000 people, 80,000 of whom experienced it themselves. The mutilation of girls is considered acceptable in certain circumstances by 3% of men, rising to 10% among men under 25 and 8% among foreign-background men.
Nearly one in ten Finns aged 16–74 have witnessed or experienced honour-based violence. More than one in ten people under 35 know at least a victim or perpetrator or have experienced it themselves. About 1% have been married against their will. The figure covers the whole population and includes both witnessing and experiencing the violence, not victims alone. These are survey answers, not population-adjusted or age- and sex-standardised offence rates, so the figure is not comparable with the standardised ratios in the Criminality section.
Annual review 2024 of the assistance system for victims of human trafficking: forced marriage accounted for 32% of new clients and became the second most common form of trafficking after forced labour (45%). There were 66 victims, against 50 in 2023 and 72 in 2022. There is no clear upward trend, but the relative share has risen. A forced marriage may have taken place wholly or partly abroad even when the victim lives in Finland.
An Yle MOT investigation into the practice known as dhaqan celis. A young person is sent abroad to a disciplinary institution under the guise of a holiday. Reporter Wali Hashi posed as a father looking for a placement and documented facilities in Somalia and Kenya: residents in chains, an electrified barbed-wire perimeter, and fees of several hundred euros a month. A report by Kriisivalmiusjärjestö, funded by the Ministry of Justice, had already confirmed that young people have been sent from Finland to such institutions. How many are affected is not known.
Street-gang violence in Sweden has featured heavily in the immigration debate, and in Finland the question has been whether the same phenomenon has reached the other side of the Gulf of Bothnia. Finland does have street gangs: the police's national street-gang situation report (autumn 2023) identifies 10 street gangs in Finland and about 260 people linked to them, roughly half core members and half other associates. In autumn 2025 the police put the gangs' core at about 150 people.
According to the police, gang members are mainly men aged 18–30, and the majority are immigrants or people of foreign background born in Finland. By the autumn 2025 assessment a large share of them hold Finnish citizenship and the majority were born in Finland. No more precise official share has been published.
The phenomenon is rooted in the Helsinki region, with signs of street-gang crime also in Turku, Tampere and Oulu. The overall picture of violence is under violent crime, and what is known about those born in Finland under the second generation.
The police national street-gang situation report: in autumn 2023 the police identified 10 street gangs in Finland, with about 260 people linked to them, about half of them core members and half other associates, such as accomplices. People of foreign background are prominent in the groups, and those linked to the gangs are mainly men aged 18–30. The areas involved are socioeconomically disadvantaged with relatively large foreign-background populations.
According to the police, the street-gang situation did not change materially during 2025, and gang-related crime suspicions fell somewhat. By an assessment made in autumn 2025 the gangs have about 150 core members, and the circle of people linked to them is wider. Gang members are mainly men of foreign background aged 18–30, from several nationalities. A large share of them hold Finnish citizenship, and the majority were born in Finland.
In October 2022, Jonne Rinne, chair of the Finnish Police Federation, told Iltalehti that 11 street gangs with about 200 members operate in the Helsinki region and Turku. According to Rinne, over 90% of the members are adults and 95% are of foreign background judged by name and ethnicity. In the same interview he said: “We are on Sweden's path.”
The 95% foreign-background share is the police union chair's estimate based on the members' names and ethnicity. It is not an official police statistic or register data.
According to the police, about 10 street gangs with roughly 200 members operate in Finland. Around 20 gang-related criminal cases from 2021–2022 were under investigation, with 23 suspects aged 18–29. Charges include attempted murder, aggravated robberies, extortion, firearms offences and witness intimidation. Helsinki police set up a new 16-person investigation unit against the phenomenon.
The Finland-born second generation of foreign background is almost always Finnish by citizenship, so citizenship-based crime statistics cannot separate it at all. In those statistics it is part of the native population. Statistics Finland also records suspects by origin, and in that split the group appears on its own from 2010 onwards.
The overrepresentation of the foreign-born has many possible explanations that cannot apply to people born here: language, interrupted schooling, selection by the grounds for entry, time in the country and conditions in the country of origin. The Finland-born generation went to Finnish school and speaks the language, so those explanations do not hold for it. The citizenship-based overall picture is under criminality and the same generation at school under education.
The chart shows each group's suspect rate relative to the Finnish-background rate, which is the baseline of 100.
| Year | Finnish background, born in Finland (Index, Finnish background = 100) | Foreign background, born abroad (Index, Finnish background = 100) | Foreign background, born in Finland (Index, Finnish background = 100) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 100 | 99 | 99 |
| 2011 | 100 | 99 | 82 |
| 2012 | 100 | 101 | 85 |
| 2013 | 100 | 93 | 99 |
| 2014 | 100 | 98 | 116 |
| 2015 | 100 | 96 | 134 |
| 2016 | 100 | 98 | 137 |
| 2017 | 100 | 90 | 149 |
| 2018 | 100 | 96 | 151 |
| 2019 | 100 | 94 | 128 |
| 2020 | 100 | 98 | 139 |
| 2021 | 100 | 103 | 154 |
| 2022 | 100 | 97 | 152 |
| 2023 | 100 | 64 | 120 |
| 2024 | 100 | 97 | 177 |
| 2025 | 100 | 88 | 170 |
The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brottsförebyggande rådet), report 2021:9. Everyone aged 15 and over resident in Sweden at the end of 2014, suspects over 2015–2018.
bra.se/rapporter/arkiv/2021-08-25-misstankta-for-brott-bland…Statistics Norway (Statistisk sentralbyrå), Rapporter 2017/36 (Andersen, Holtsmark and Mohn). Everyone aged 15 and over resident in Norway on 1 January 2010, people charged with an offence committed in 2010–2013.
www.ssb.no/sosiale-forhold-og-kriminalitet/artikler-og-publi…The number of foreign prisoners has doubled in four years: an average of 434 a day in 2021 and 839 in 2025. In 2025 foreign citizens were 23.7 per cent of the prison population and 7.7 per cent of the whole population. Prison statistics record only citizenship, so people granted Finnish citizenship appear in them as Finnish, and the prison share must be compared with the foreign-citizen share of the population rather than the foreign-background share. Crime statistics also classify suspects by origin. Those figures are under the second generation and criminality.
In 2025 nearly half (46%) of foreign prisoners were on remand, and the largest citizenship groups were Estonians, Iraqis and Swedes.
| Year | Foreign prisoners, daily average (Prisoners, daily average) |
|---|---|
| 2014 | 483 |
| 2015 | 477 |
| 2016 | 537 |
| 2017 | 540 |
| 2018 | 482 |
| 2019 | 499 |
| 2020 | 475 |
| 2021 | 434 |
| 2022 | 480 |
| 2023 | 560 |
| 2024 | 687 |
| 2025 | 839 |
A foreign national can be deported from Finland on grounds of crime. The police or the Border Guard propose the deportation, and the Finnish Immigration Service decides it. A deportation decision does not yet mean that the person has been removed, because the police and the Border Guard carry out removals. A prisoner can also be transferred from Finland to another country. The removal of people staying in the country illegally is covered under illegal stay and returns.
According to Helsingin Sanomat, the Finnish Immigration Service made a record number of crime-based deportation decisions in 2025, more than 30 per cent more than a year earlier. According to Olli Koskipirtti, process owner for removals at the service, the reasons for the rise include stricter follow-up checks on residence permits and a law change in force from 2025 that lowered the threshold for deporting people granted international protection.
According to the Prison and Probation Service yearbook, 6,795 prisoners were released from prison in 2025. Of them, 43 were released because they were transferred to another country, so transfers made up less than one per cent of releases. All of those transferred were men. The yearbook does not show how many of the transfers were for serving the sentence in the prisoner's home country. Foreign prisoners numbered 839 a day on average in the same year.
Under section 149 of the Aliens Act, a foreign national who has stayed on a residence permit, or who has lost Finnish citizenship, can be deported if found guilty of an offence carrying a maximum penalty of at least one year in prison, or if found guilty of repeated offences. A refugee can be deported if he or she endangers national security, or is a danger to society because of a final conviction for a particularly serious crime. A refugee may not be deported to a country where he or she still needs international protection, and under section 147 no one may be deported to an area where he or she faces the death penalty, torture or persecution. Under section 168 an EU citizen can be deported if considered to endanger public order or public security. An EU citizen with permanent residence can be deported only on serious grounds, and one who has lived in Finland for ten years only on imperative grounds of public security. Under section 146 the decision must weigh the best interests of the child, the protection of family life, the length of stay and the person's ties to Finland and to the home country, and in a crime-based case also the seriousness of the offence. Since June 2026 a deportation decision in a matter other than international protection can be enforced 30 days after notification even if it has been appealed, unless an administrative court prohibits or suspends enforcement.
The Finnish Immigration Service decided to deport 92 people on grounds of crime in 2015, 146 in 2016, 99 in 2017, 92 in 2018, 122 in 2019, 119 in 2020, 101 in 2021, 83 in 2022, 135 in 2023, 126 in 2024 and 169 in 2025. In crime-based cases the service decided against deportation for 54 to 108 people a year over the same period, and for 58 people in 2025. Crime-based decisions are a small share of all deportation decisions. In 2025 the service decided to deport 2,774 people in all, and 2,605 of them on grounds of unauthorised stay. In January–August 2026 the service made 364 crime-based deportation decisions, and 254 of them were made in June–August. More than half of the June–August decisions concerned citizens of Estonia and Romania. The rise coincides with amendment 500/2026 to the Aliens Act, in force from 12 June 2026. Since the amendment the removal of an EU citizen who is in the country is always a deportation, whereas some of these removals used to be refusals of entry. The number of refusal-of-entry decisions made on other grounds fell at the same time. The 2026 figure therefore cannot be compared with earlier years. A deportation decision does not yet mean that the person has been removed from the country.
According to the Prison and Probation Service's yearbook, there were on average 839 foreign prisoners a day in 2025. That was a new record and about 150 more than a year earlier. It was 23.7% of all prisoners (3,545). 46% of foreign prisoners were on remand, and they held 78 different citizenships. The largest groups on 1 May 2025 were Estonia (112), Iraq (66), Sweden (58), Lithuania (42), Romania (42) and Albania (39). Of foreign prisoners serving a sentence, 49% had a drug offence as their principal offence and 21% a sexual offence. There were on average 20 foreign prisoners in 1990 and 477 in 2015, so the number has risen 76% in ten years. Foreign citizens are 7.7% of the population (432,654 people at the end of 2025, Statistics Finland), so the prison share is about 3.1 times the population share. Prison statistics are based on citizenship, not origin, so they say nothing about people of foreign background.
Yle, 17 September 2026: Finland's prisons hold about 3,900 prisoners, about 950 of them foreign citizens. The number of foreign prisoners has risen 76 per cent in ten years, and that rise accounts for about four fifths of the whole increase in the prison population. The most common principal offences are drug offences, sexual offences and homicides. The prison population is projected to reach 4,000 in 2028. For cost: a prison year costs an average of EUR 80,000 in Finland, while Sweden pays Estonia at least EUR 30.6 million a year for a minimum of 300 places, or EUR 102,000 per place.
Social cohesion should not be taken for granted. Several studies find a negative relationship between ethnic, and above all cultural, diversity and trust. According to a meta-analysis of the literature, the association is small on average. The values held in Europe's Muslim communities are an example of deep cultural differences. These differences are found above all between people from the main refugee-sending countries and the Finnish or European native population. Cohesion is also tested by whether society's obligations, such as military service, are shared evenly.
In public debate it is common to present diversity as strengthening a community in itself. The meta-analysis that draws the whole literature together (1,001 estimates from 87 studies) finds an association, but the other way: ethnic diversity goes with lower trust, most strongly for trust in neighbours and where diversity is measured at the level of the residential area.
The individual studies below, grouped by region and dating from 2007–2016, represent the part of the evidence that finds a negative association. The studies in the International group set limits on that association. The meta-analysis heads the list because it draws in the whole literature rather than only this selection. Survey data on values is under views of Europe’s Muslims and residential sorting under residential segregation.
The meta-analysis's 1,001 estimates from 87 studies point on average to a negative association, and Putnam's survey shows how large the gap is. In Putnam's data about 30 per cent of the people of Los Angeles and San Francisco say they trust their neighbours a lot, against 70 to 80 per cent in the ethnically homogeneous communities of North and South Dakota.
n=1,001 estimates from 87 studies, Annual Review of Political Science 23
doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-052918-020708European Social Survey 2002–2010 combined with immigration figures from the EU Labour Force Survey. The unit of analysis is regions within countries, not countries
academic.oup.com/sf/article-abstract/93/3/1211/2332107EDCAS telephone survey in 55 German cities and regions, October 2009 – May 2010, over 7,500 interviews (4,200 respondents in the analysis). A priming experiment embedded in a survey
doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2014.03.014Field experiment: 1,959 letters across 52 Berlin neighbourhoods, 17 January 2011. The sender's ethnicity and religion (German/Turkish, Christian/Islamic) were randomised experimentally.
doi.org/10.1111/pops.12037n=4,000 residents in 148 suburbs of Brisbane (147 in the analysis, those with complete register data), multilevel modelling. Australia serves here as a replication of Putnam's thesis outside the United States and Europe
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/juaf.12015n=13,236 person-year observations, British Household Panel Survey, England and Wales
academic.oup.com/esr/article/32/1/54/2404332The studies in this group qualify the negative association: where it shows, what explains it and what offsets it.
Danish respondents to the European Social Survey 2002–2011 linked to population registers, 6,543 respondents, American Sociological Review 80(3)
doi.org/10.1177/0003122415577989Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey 2000, the same US data Putnam used, American Journal of Sociology 121(3)
doi.org/10.1086/683144Literature review, 90 studies, Annual Review of Sociology 40
doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-071913-043309National survey in England, 868 White British and 798 ethnic minority respondents, Psychological Science 25(3)
doi.org/10.1177/0956797613508956Military service applies to all male Finnish citizens regardless of background. It is therefore one of the few directly measurable places where it can be seen whether society's obligations are shared evenly.
According to an officer who ran call-ups at the Uusimaa regional office, foreign-language men complete military service at significantly lower rates than Finnish-language men. Measures of integration are under language proficiency and education.
The figures are from call-ups in the Uusimaa regional office and rest on what Captain Lauri J. Mattila told Iltalehti. The Defence Forces deny that they break conscripts down by mother tongue, so there is no official statistic for these shares.
Ilta-Sanomat article on the avoidance of military service among foreign-language men in Finland. Foreign-language men miss call-ups or seek exemption more often than Finnish-speakers.
An officer who handled call-ups at the Uusimaa regional office says that people of foreign background do their conscript service considerably less often than the native population, and that the differences between ethnic groups are large.
According to Captain Lauri J. Mattila, 75% of Somali-speaking and 57% of Arabic-speaking conscripts failed to attend call-ups in the Uusimaa region. He also says 70% of Somali- and Arabic-speaking men in Uusimaa received exemptions on health grounds. The Defence Forces deny breaking down conscripts by mother tongue. The Conscripts' Union considers the underrepresentation worrying for both national defence capability and fairness.
Muslim minorities' values are a recurring topic in the immigration debate, argued over in Finland too. In European surveys, Muslim minorities' values differ markedly from the native population's, and the gaps have not narrowed so far. The data comes mostly from British-Pakistani, French-Maghrebi and Austrian-Turkish communities, while Finland's Muslim population is mainly of Somali and Iraqi background. The results do not transfer to Finland as such, but they can still give an indication of the views of Muslims living in Finland.
The values of Muslims living in Finland have not been measured with the same questions as elsewhere in Europe. This section's first box is a Statistics Finland population survey of attitudes to the genital mutilation of girls, and it separates respondents by origin rather than by religion. The Finnish League for Human Rights' survey of Muslims' family values from 2006–2007 is small and not representative. An interview study by e2 Research compared the values of five language groups in the Helsinki region in 2018–2019, and it did not ask respondents' religious denomination. The size and growth of the group are under Muslim population growth, and the research on diversity and trust under ethnic diversity and trust.
n=7,575 respondents, 1,423 of them men · sample of 25,000, response rate 30%
stat.fi/media/uploads/NAPE-GBV_2024/tiiviistitutkimuksesta_y…Ville Pitkänen, Pasi Saukkonen and Jussi Westinen, Samaa vai eri maata? Tutkimus viiden kieliryhmän arvoista ja asenteista Suomessa (Same or different? A study on the values and attitudes of five language groups in Finland), e2 Research, report 6, 2019. The study was funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the cities of Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa, the Ministry of Justice and e2. 1,527 people were interviewed, about 300 from each language group. They were adult residents of Helsinki, Espoo or Vantaa whose registered mother tongue is Russian, Estonian, English, Somali or Arabic. Taloustutkimus interviewed them face to face in their mother tongue or in Finnish from October 2018 to March 2019. For each language group 3,000 people were drawn at random from the population register among those who had had a municipality of residence in Finland for at least two years. Interviewees were chosen to age and sex quotas, and interviewers were allowed to fill the quotas from outside the sample too. Of English speakers only those whose background country is the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia or New Zealand were included. The survey groups respondents by mother tongue, and it did not ask their religious denomination. The native population was not interviewed, and the report's figures for it come from earlier surveys
www.e2.fi/media/julkaisut-ja-alustukset/identiteetti-tutkimu…Kristiina Kouros, Suomessa asuvien muslimien suhtautumisesta perhearvoihin ja perhelainsäädäntöön (Attitudes of Muslims living in Finland to family values and family law), Finnish League for Human Rights, 24 October 2007. The League is a human rights organisation, and the study was carried out by its secretary general. The questionnaire was handed out in selected groups in autumn and winter 2006–2007 in the Helsinki region, Turku, Tampere, Oulu, Kuopio, Joensuu, Vaasa and Rovaniemi. The League handed out 500 forms, and 75 came back, against a target of 300 responses. Of the respondents 67% were women, their average age was 31, and 13% said they do not practise their religion. Among those who gave their country of origin the largest groups were Iraq (17), Somalia (11) and Iran (9), and the respondents also included people born in Finland, Tatars and converts to Islam. The form had 87 questions in Finnish and English, and some groups used an interpreter. According to the author the respondents are probably not representative of Muslims living in Finland. Respondents were easiest to reach through Muslim organisations, whose activity in Finland is strongly religious, so practising Muslims are probably over-represented. According to the author the respondents were also probably better educated than Muslims living in Finland on average. Homosexuality was not asked about, because the respondents' view of it was expected to be so negative that the questions alone could have compromised a neutral attitude to the other questions
ihmisoikeusliitto.fi/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Suomessa_asu…n=1,000 British Muslims and a comparison sample of 2,013 from the whole population, both drawn from an online panel with quotas and weighted to their own population. Fieldwork 14 February to 12 March 2024 (whole population 4 to 6 March 2024), margin of error 3.1 percentage points for Muslims and 2.2 for the whole population
henryjacksonsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/HJS-Deck-…1,081 Muslims aged 18 and over, interviewed face to face from 25 April to 31 May 2015. The sample was drawn only from areas where at least 20% of residents are Muslim. ICM picked 138 such small areas (LSOAs) at random and interviewed to quotas in each. According to ICM, 51% of Britain's Muslims live in these areas. The data are weighted by age, gender, region and work status. The comparison sample is 1,008 adults from across Britain, interviewed by telephone from 5 to 7 June 2015. ICM ran the survey for Channel 4 and the production company Juniper for the documentary What British Muslims Really Think, and the results were published in April 2016. The figures come from ICM's report of data tables. Its original address no longer works, so the link goes to the Internet Archive's copy
web.archive.org/web/20160411143403/http://www.icmunlimited.c…3,040 Muslims aged 18 and over, interviewed face to face in their homes from 19 May to 23 July 2016. ICM did the fieldwork with the same method as in the Channel 4 survey: the sample was drawn only from areas where at least 20% of residents are Muslim, and respondents were chosen to quotas in 151 small areas picked at random. According to the report, 51% of Britain's Muslims live in these areas. The data are weighted by age, gender, work status, region and whether the respondent was born in Britain, and the margin of error is ±1.78 percentage points. The comparison sample is 2,047 adults from ICM's online panel, interviewed on 24 and 25 August 2016, and it was not asked every question
policyexchange.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/PEXJ5037_Mu…1,005 Muslims drawn from a nationally representative sample of 14,244 people (aged 15 and over, mainland France). Fieldwork 8 August – 2 September 2025
www.ifopgroup.com/en/article/current-state-of-muslims-relati…1,221 Viennese aged 14–24, from 10 different ethnic backgrounds. Fieldwork 17 September to 19 December 2024 in an online panel and as a tablet survey at four places in Vienna popular with young people, commissioned by the City of Vienna. A quota sample that the authors themselves do not consider representative. The percentages refer to the 515 Muslim youth in the sample
www.data.gv.at/datasets/38fed360-2d4d-44ba-ab07-aae8f076b7d5…All primary, middle, special, and polytechnic schools (excluding gymnasiums), Vienna
www.heute.at/s/494-der-kinder-an-wiens-mittelschulen-muslimi…Apprentices aged 16–19 with migrant backgrounds in the restaurant and hotel trade
www.jpost.com/diaspora/half-of-muslim-youth-in-austria-hold-…500 Muslims of Turkish and 500 of Bosnian background aged 16 and over, face-to-face interviews 23 March to 14 May 2012. Commissioned by the Austrian Interior Ministry (Bundesministerium für Inneres), fieldwork by IFES
www.bundeskanzleramt.gv.at/dam/jcr:a6de58be-8a9c-4946-a3c1-9…The MiD survey series 2021–2025, 21,899 respondents aged 18 and over. The Islamism and antisemitism figures cover Muslims under 40, the statements on the Quran and the form of state all Muslim respondents
www.motra.info/en/motra-monitor-2024-25/n=308 Muslim pupils (270–308 per question) from a 2022 school survey of year-9 pupils in Lower Saxony, which had 8,539 respondents and put the questions on Islamism to half of them. Kriminologisches Forschungsinstitut Niedersachsen, research report no. 169. According to the report the results are not representative of Muslim pupils in Lower Saxony, because the data are weighted by school type but not by religion. The measure was new and had not been tested in this form before
kfn.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/FB_169.pdf1,201 people of Turkish origin aged 16 and over living in Germany, telephone interviews in German or Turkish from November 2015 to February 2016. Fieldwork by TNS Emnid, commissioned by the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” at the University of Münster (Pollack, Müller, Rosta and Dieler), which describes the survey as representative. The sample is people of Turkish origin, not all Muslims, and the percentages are shares of all respondents
www.uni-muenster.de/imperia/md/content/religion_und_politik/…A BKA study found that 45.1% of Muslims under 40 in Germany harbour latent or open sympathy for Islamism (Sharia over the constitution). 11.5% hold manifestly Islamist attitudes. Antisemitic attitudes among young Muslims rose sharply from 11.3% (2021) to 29.1% (2025).
702 telephone interviews from 14 to 29 August 2015. The respondents are people aged 18 and over who said themselves that they are Muslims. They were drawn at random from telephone databases on the basis of their names and could be interviewed in their mother tongue or in Danish. They include immigrants and their descendants from Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Somalia, Syria and Afghanistan, among others, and converts. Wilke describes the sample as representative, with a maximum margin of error of ±3.7 percentage points. The comparison is a survey of 680 people carried out by Rambøll for Jyllands-Posten in 2006
jyllands-posten.dk/indland/ECE8145237/Muslimske-stemmer-Alle…Statistics Norway, Rapporter 2018/20. 1,049 Norwegian-born people aged 16 to 39 whose parents came from Turkey, Pakistan, Sri Lanka or Vietnam, interviewed in 2016.
www.ssb.no/sosiale-forhold-og-kriminalitet/artikler-og-publi…The Pew Research Center asked Muslims in 39 countries whether they favour making sharia, Islamic law, the official law of their country. The chart picks out surveyed countries from which Muslims have moved to Finland. In Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Morocco and Bangladesh more than four in five Muslims favour it. In Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo at most one in five do.
| Group | % of the country's Muslims |
|---|---|
| Afghanistan | 99 |
| Iraq | 91 |
| Pakistan | 84 |
| Morocco | 83 |
| Bangladesh | 82 |
| Egypt | 74 |
| Tunisia | 56 |
| Russia* | 42 |
| Kosovo | 20 |
| Bosnia | 15 |
| Turkey | 12 |
Pew Research Center, The World's Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society, 30 April 2013, chapter 1 (Beliefs About Sharia). Face-to-face interviews with more than 38,000 Muslims in 39 countries from 2008 to 2012. In the eleven countries in this box the fieldwork was done between October 2011 and February 2012, with 1,007 to 1,918 Muslim respondents per country. The figures on stoning, the punishment for leaving Islam and the position of non-Muslims are calculated only among those who favour making sharia the official law of their country
www.pewresearch.org/religion/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-r…Cousin marriage is not an incidental habit but an old family institution. Across parts of the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, marrying within the extended family keeps property, alliances and the choice of spouse inside the kin group. Where the practice is the norm, that choice belongs to the family more than to the individual. That is what makes it relevant to integration: the custom does not disappear on changing country, it changes over generations.
In Bradford, 62% of mothers of Pakistani heritage were related to their baby's father in the 2007–2010 cohort and 46% in the 2016–2019 one. Among mothers born in the UK the share fell from 60% to 36%. In the researchers' words a long-established practice dropped substantially in just nine years, yet nearly half of the mothers of Pakistani heritage were still related to their baby's father. In Pakistan about 64% of married women were related to their husband in 2017–18.
The health effect is a second, separate reason to follow the phenomenon. In Bradford, parental consanguinity doubled the risk of a congenital anomaly, and 31% of the anomalies among children of Pakistani origin were attributable to it. Norway and Sweden have banned cousin marriage, while Finland's Marriage Act does not prohibit it. The research findings and the details of that legislation are in the source boxes below.
The map compiles country-level research estimates, a risk map, not a population register and not an estimate about individuals.
The same three inner-city wards of Bradford in two cohorts: 2,494 mothers in 2007–2010 and 2,564 in 2016–2019. 65% and 62% of them were of Pakistani heritage
wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/9-222Sheridan et al., The Lancet 2013, 382(9901), 1350–9. The Born in Bradford birth cohort, recruited 2007–2011: 13,776 babies, of whom questionnaire data are available for 11,396. Of these, 386 (3%) had a congenital anomaly: 305.74 per 10,000 live births against a national level of 165.90
www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(13)6…National surveys and peer-reviewed compilations. The Consang.net compilation behind the map is partly older
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2765422/Published studies compiled by country and region
consang.net/Consanguinity_Tables.htmNotice from the Danish immigration authorities (SIRI and the Danish Immigration Service), 26 February 2026, updated 3 March 2026
www.nyidanmark.dk/en-GB/News-Front-Page/2026/02/Lovforslag-f…Marriage Act 234/1929, sections 7 and 9, consolidated text
www.finlex.fi/fi/lainsaadanto/1929/234Norway's Marriage Act (ekteskapsloven), section 3, as amended by the Act of 25 June 2024 no. 57
lovdata.no/dokument/NL/lov/1991-07-04-47The asylum system is justified as protecting the persecuted and helping the world's poorest and most vulnerable. Most applicants, however, do not meet the criteria for international protection, the system does not reach the world's poorest, and brain drain leaves source countries worse off than before. In Finland about half of first-instance decisions have been positive in recent years, with international protection granted in a little under half of all decisions. Population growth in Africa and the Middle East is explosive. Even if Europe took in only a small share of those countries' people in need, climate migrants or those living in miserable conditions, it would place considerably greater strain on the receiving countries than it does now, while doing practically nothing for the countries they leave.
Some asylum seekers reach Europe from North Africa across the Mediterranean in people smugglers' boats. The journey is a paid service, and its price raises the question of who can afford to leave: for many the journey is an investment in getting to Europe.
The smuggling routes across the Mediterranean and the English Channel are run by organised criminal networks that use violence against both migrants and local residents. In Finland the authorities recorded 277 offences of arranging illegal entry, the people-smuggling offence, in 2016 and 177 in 2023. In the other years of 2017–2025 they recorded 54–103 a year.
The demand does not come from nowhere. Most asylum applications are rejected, but according to the Commission only a small share of return decisions in the EU is enforced. When arrival is in practice a permanent outcome regardless of how the application ends, paying for the journey is worth it, and permanent arrival is exactly what the smugglers sell. Countering smuggling is therefore as much a question of return policy as of border control.
Those in the greatest need have a route without a smuggler: the need for protection of quota refugees is examined before the journey. The route is narrow. In 2024 resettlement reached about 0.6 per cent of the world's refugees. Finland took in 810 quota refugees that year, against 2,275 first-time asylum applications.
The bar is the number of third-country nationals found to be illegally present in the EU during the year, according to Eurostat.
| Year | Value |
|---|---|
| 2008 | 513,415 |
| 2009 | 498,780 |
| 2010 | 455,150 |
| 2011 | 420,540 |
| 2012 | 394,060 |
| 2013 | 394,855 |
| 2014 | 606,850 |
| 2015 | 2,085,465 |
| 2016 | 924,035 |
| 2017 | 563,825 |
| 2018 | 572,415 |
| 2019 | 628,735 |
| 2020 | 557,760 |
| 2021 | 679,845 |
| 2022 | 1,121,625 |
| 2023 | 1,265,335 |
| 2024 | 918,525 |
| 2025 | 719,395 |
Quota refugees are selected in refugee camps on UNHCR's proposal, and their need for protection is examined before the journey. UNHCR reports that 188,759 people were resettled worldwide in 2024, a year with 31.0 million refugees and 8.4 million asylum seekers, so resettlement reached about 0.6 per cent of the refugees. Eurostat has EU countries resettling 13,790 people in 2024 and 10,220 in 2025. Finland's figures were 810 and 620. Finland received 2,275 first-time asylum applications in 2024 and 1,970 in 2025.
UNODC's Observatory on Smuggling of Migrants estimates the financial value of smuggling by sea on the Central Mediterranean route at US$290–370 million in 2023, and 254,000 people departed the North African coast, 79% more than in 2022, of whom an estimated 175,000–228,000 were smuggled. 151,000 reached Italy or Malta, North African coastguards intercepted 102,000, and 1,800 died or went missing.
The Commission's proposal for a new Return Regulation, 11 March 2025. Its reasoning states that successful returns of people staying illegally currently run at around 20 percent. The proposal would replace the 2008 Return Directive and make one member state's return decision recognised in the others.
According to UNODC's research brief, smuggling fees vary widely, between under US$20 and over $15,000. The price depends on the smuggled person's nationality or ethnicity and economic status, the route, the mode of smuggling (land, sea, air), demand and levels of enforcement, among other factors. Fees are most often paid in cash or through hawala-type systems that are hard to trace.
Parliament and Council reached political agreement on the Return Regulation on 1 June 2026. The Commission notes the return rate rose to 28% in 2025, but says the number of effective returns is still too low.
In public debate asylum seekers are often called refugees, as if the application itself showed a need for protection. The EU asylum system, however, rejects a majority of applications. The share of positive decisions is well under half at first instance and lower still after appeal, so an appeal rarely changes the outcome.
Differences between nationalities are stark: in the same year most applicants of one nationality are recognised and only a fraction of another. A recognition rate measures an administrative outcome: it says who met the standard of proof, not directly who was in need of protection.
Finland's own figures say the same. In 2016, 27.5% of decisions were positive. By 2018 the share was 43%. It also moves with the line taken: among Iraqi applicants aged 18–34, 85% received a positive decision in 2015 and 33% in 2017, after the service reassessed the security situation in Iraq.
No case is known of a person returned from Finland having been persecuted, and nobody follows returnees systematically. What happens after a rejection is under illegal stay and returns.
Charts: Finnish Immigration Service decisions
In 2025 the EU issued 832,360 first-instance asylum decisions, of which 325,765 (39%) were positive. At the appeal stage 170,175 decisions were issued, of which 35,565 (21%) were positive. Positive decisions at both stages together come to about 43% of the number of first-instance decisions. The figure is approximate, because appeal decisions partly concern applications from earlier years.
A full review of the asylum process from application to return, commissioned by the Ministry of the Interior. In 2015 there were 32,477 asylum applications. In 2016 the Immigration Service decided 28,208 international-protection cases, of which 7,745 or 27.5% were positive. In 2018 there were 4,548 applications and a 43% positive share. The administrative courts decided 8,854 appeals in 2017 and upheld 2,976 of them, and in 2018 upheld 2,370 of 6,821. The most common ground for a successful appeal was new evidence (1,639 cases in 2017) rather than an error by the service. A procedural error at the Immigration Service was recorded in 360 cases and an error of law in 17. The review also states that no statistics are available on interrupted removals or their reasons, and that legislative changes have created a new group of people staying in Finland unlawfully, because returns do not succeed to some of the main countries of origin.
A peer-reviewed study of asylum decisions in 20 European countries. It examines what explains the recognition rates of applicants from 65 origin countries over 2003–2017. The total first-instance recognition rate, the share of decisions granting any form of protection, rose from 11.9 per cent in 2003 to 38.5 per cent in 2018. The share granted refugee status under the Geneva Convention rose over the same years from 5.5 to 22.3 per cent. Except in the crisis years 2015 and 2016, fewer than half of first-instance decisions granted any form of protection. According to Hatton, counting successful appeals and reviews would raise the total rate by about 7 percentage points on average. Differences between origin countries are large: over 2008–2018, 94.7 per cent of Syrian applicants and 85.6 per cent of Eritrean applicants were granted protection, while for applicants from 13 origin countries the share was under 10 per cent. According to Hatton the rise came mainly from increased political violence and human rights abuse in the origin countries. The combined effect of the EU directives on recognition rates was positive but modest. Differences between destination countries remained large even after accounting for the applicants' origin countries and the implementation of the directives.
Eurostat's official statistics on EU asylum decisions, with figures for 2025. 39.1% of first-instance decisions were positive, and 20.9% of final decisions after appeal or review. Recognition rates vary sharply by nationality: among the ten citizenships with the most first-instance decisions, the highest were Venezuelans (92.1%), Ukrainians (73.3%) and Afghans (73.3%). In final decisions the highest was Syrians (67.3%). Differences between member states are also large: more than 90% of first-instance decisions were positive in Estonia, less than 10% in Croatia and Cyprus. In Finland 54.0% were positive in 2023, 53.7% in 2024 and 50.2% in 2025. Refugee status or subsidiary protection made up 48.9, 48.5 and 44.2% of decisions in the same years. The Finnish figures are calculated from Eurostat's database table migr_asydcfsta. The page is updated every year.
EU countries granted protection status to 361,325 applicants in 2025, 18% fewer than in 2024 (437,735). There were 832,360 first-instance decisions, meaning decisions by the authorities before any appeal, and 325,765 of them, or 39%, were positive. There were 170,175 final decisions taken after an appeal or review, and 35,565 of them, or 21%, were positive. The make-up of protection changed. Of the positive decisions, 51% granted refugee status, 25% humanitarian status and 24% subsidiary protection. Compared with 2024, subsidiary protection fell by 50%, humanitarian status rose by 11% and refugee status stayed almost unchanged (−0.5%). Grants are concentrated in a few countries: Germany, Spain and France together made 70% of all grants. Germany made 103,360 positive decisions (29%), Spain 76,210 (21%) and France 72,930 (20%). The largest groups of recipients were Afghans (27%), Venezuelans (16%), and Syrians and Ukrainians (5% each). Differences between nationalities are stark. At first instance the recognition rate was 92% for Venezuelans, 73% for Afghans and 13% for Turks. At the appeal stage it was 67% for Syrians, 36% for Afghans and 18% for Iraqis. The figures cover both international protection and protection granted on national humanitarian grounds.
MPI's interactive data visualisation of asylum recognition rates in EU and EFTA countries 2008–2017. Shows how sharply approval rates vary both by country and by nationality: the same applicant can receive a completely different decision in different EU countries. This inconsistency suggests decisions are not based solely on the applicant's objective protection need but also on the receiving country's political and administrative practices.
In 2016, 181,436 people arrived in Italy by sea (Italian Ministry of Interior statistics). Only 4,808 received formal refugee status under the Geneva Convention, just 2.65% of all arrivals. 123,600 people applied for asylum in Italy. Of the 91,102 decisions taken in 2016, 60% (54,254) were negative. About 57,800 did not apply for asylum in Italy at all but continued to other EU countries. The share compares Geneva-Convention refugee status with all arrivals, not only applicants. Broader measures that include subsidiary and humanitarian protection produce higher rates.
A fact-check of Luca Ricolfi's article in Il Sole 24 Ore, which argued that only a small share of arrivals receive protection. According to the article, only ten in a hundred asylum applications ended in refugee status, but positive decisions granting subsidiary or humanitarian protection were far more numerous: 61% in 2013, 60% in 2014 and 45% in the first two months of 2015. In 2014 about 170,000 people arrived by sea, of whom 65,000, about 38%, applied for asylum in Italy. The largest groups, Syrians and Eritreans, mostly sought protection in other EU countries. Drawing on UNHCR figures, the article estimates that about 59% of those crossing the Mediterranean would be entitled to some form of protection, and rates the claim that arrivals are mostly economic migrants as incorrect.
In 2016, 2.65% of sea arrivals received formal refugee status. Il Sole 24 Ore reported the figure from these statistics in April 2017. The daily cruscotto statistico contains sea arrival counts, asylum applications and decisions.
Refugee flows registered in UNHCR camps typically have a broadly balanced sex and age profile: families, women and children. Those crossing the Mediterranean to Europe show a clear male majority. The route itself selects young men regardless of motive, because crossing the Mediterranean and the Sahara is life-threatening and costs thousands of euros in smugglers' fees, while UNHCR camps sit next to the conflict and are within reach of families. Migration research also documents the household strategy in which a family sends the member most likely to earn, typically a young man, as a way of diversifying risk. The same distribution therefore arises from both economic and humanitarian motives.
The EU border agency Frontex's annual risk analysis. Reports that in 2014 about 74% of those crossing the Mediterranean were adult men, 11% women, and 15% children. During the 2015 crisis peak the composition shifted as the Syrian civil war brought more families, but adult men remained the majority afterwards. Frontex emphasises that mixed flows contain both people genuinely needing international protection and economic migrants.
A survey of about 22,000 people who arrived in Europe in 2015–2016 (IOM Flow Monitoring, Gallup World Poll). The study asks who leaves: whether those who go are better educated than the average in their home country or not. Refugees and women who arrived without permission are better educated than that average. Men who arrived without permission are not. What decides the direction is the situation at home: from war-torn countries education raises the likelihood of leaving, from peaceful ones it lowers it. This means there is no single answer to whether arrivals are refugees or people moving for economic reasons. The answer depends on the country of origin. Of those from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan and Syria, more than 90% gave conflict or persecution as their reason for leaving, while most of those from Morocco and Algeria gave economic conditions. Only 3% named a lack of basic services, food or shelter as their main reason.
UNHCR's official operational data portal for maritime arrivals in Europe, with counts by route and receiving country and the numbers dead or missing. Its monthly situation reports also break arrivals down by sex and age: in 2015, 58% of arrivals across the Mediterranean were adult men, 17% women and 25% children. In Q1 2016 the shares shifted to 47% adult men, 20% women and 34% children as the Syrian refugee flow grew.
Eurostat's official database of asylum applicants by age and sex (migr_asyappctza). In 2025, men aged 18–34 made up 36.2% of the EU's 672,350 first-time applicants, by far the largest single age-sex group. Men made up 64.9% of applicants in all. In the crisis year 2015 the corresponding shares were 41.9% and 72.5%. The database enables comparison by country and year.
A significant share of asylum seekers move within the EU beyond the first country of arrival. The Commission describes this as a search for the best conditions in which to apply. What those conditions consist of is where the sources disagree. A legal analysis puts the weight on labour markets and family networks. This so-called asylum shopping does not itself shift the burden onto border states. That burden already follows from the Dublin Regulation's first-country-of-entry rule. Shopping instead strains the system as a whole: when an applicant lodges claims in multiple countries, transfers back to the country of first entry often fail in practice.
A peer-reviewed study of how asylum applications and recognition rates affect each other in 29 European countries over 1987–2010. A higher recognition rate draws more applications to a country, and a rise in applications in turn lowers the recognition rate. The effects are statistically significant but small. They come mostly from differences between countries rather than from changes within one country over time, so according to the author they are of limited practical significance. Government positions favouring immigration and multiculturalism had no effect on application shares or recognition rates. Unemployment was only weakly related to recognition rates and not at all to application shares.
A peer-reviewed study of when generous benefits pull migrants in and when they do not. It compares two migration routes. Movement within the EU, Norway and Switzerland is free: the migrant picks the country and nobody screens them. Migration from outside is restricted: the destination decides who is let in. On the free-movement route the magnet effect is there: the more generous the welfare, the less educated the arrivals. On the restricted route the result reverses, the more generous the system the better educated the arrivals, because voters do not want to admit net recipients and permit policy selects accordingly. Asylum is neither of these. The applicant picks the country as under free movement, but entry is decided by the destination as under restricted migration, and that decision is a legal test of the need for protection rather than the fiscal selection the study describes. The study therefore does not measure asylum, and neither of its results carries over to it as such.
Politico's report on the Commission's proposals of April 2016. According to migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, a central aim of the reforms is to end asylum shopping, which occurs when refugees move among EU countries in search of the best conditions in which to apply for asylum. The article does not specify what those conditions consist of. The Dublin Regulation requires a claim to be processed in the first country of arrival, which in itself burdens the Mediterranean border states because of where they lie. In practice, however, the system does not work: applicants travel on and lodge claims in several countries, and transfers back to the country of first arrival often fail.
A peer-reviewed study of whether tightening asylum policy reduces the number of applicants or diverts them to other countries. The data are applications from 45 origin countries to nine Western European countries over 1985–2010, with the strictness of policy measured by an index. Tightening reduces applications to the country that tightens: when a country's index rises by ten per cent of its mean, its applications fall by almost 3 per cent. Some applicants are deflected to other countries: when the other countries' index rises by ten per cent, applications to the country rise by more than 4 per cent. When the whole group of countries tightens, the total number of applicants leaving the origin countries falls. The authors themselves consider that estimate too strong to be used directly as policy guidance, and one alternative estimation method gives a much smaller figure for it. The authors also note that people can flee conflict and persecution without registering as asylum seekers.
A peer-reviewed natural experiment on whether the level of benefits affects migration. In 2002 Denmark cut benefits for arrivals from outside the EU by about half, reversed the cut, and later reintroduced it. That is three turns of direction, and they can be compared with each other. According to the authors the cut reduced net immigration by about 5,000 people a year and the reversal restored the effect almost exactly. Asylum applications fell from about 10,000 to under 5,000 within a few years and rose again after the reversal. The elasticity of migration with respect to benefits was 1.3. This is the strongest single piece of evidence for benefits as a pull factor. Its size is disputed nonetheless. A replication published by the Institute for Replication (Adema 2026, I4R Discussion Paper 302) puts the elasticity at no more than 0.28 for arrivals and 0.14 for the number of migrants living in the country, against the original 1.3. The replication's elasticity for asylum applications is 0.77, but that estimate is highly uncertain.
A review of the research on how asylum seekers choose a destination country. There is a positive correlation between the generosity of welfare and the number of applications, but it is weak. The link between the networks formed by earlier applicants and application numbers is about five times the effect of social spending. The effect of a ban on working is about a quarter of the network link. According to the review, applicants typically do not even know the destination country’s rules that apply to them, and follow the footsteps of family and acquaintances instead.
A legal analysis of how the EU's Dublin system works. Secondary movements mean applicants moving on from the first country of arrival to other member states. They are a direct consequence of the Dublin Regulation's failure to create genuine solidarity between member states in sharing responsibility. According to the author, the movements are driven above all by labour-market prospects, family and community networks and reception conditions. Applicants know so little about asylum law, in the author's view, that detailed rules steer their choices only to a limited extent. The problem is structural and cannot be solved by enforcement alone.
The fate of those refused is not followed up, so claims of danger and claims of safety alike rest on individual cases. Between 2015 and 2017 the decision line shifted sharply: positive decisions for Iraqi applicants fell from 85% to 33%. The best-known individual case led to Finland being condemned by the European Court of Human Rights in 2019, but the Court annulled its judgment on 13 July 2021 after the death certificate turned out to be forged.
A pilot study comparing the Immigration Service's international-protection decisions from 2015 and 2017. Among Iraqi applicants aged 18–34 in the material, 85% received a positive decision in 2015 and 33% in 2017. The change showed most concretely in how the service assessed whether an applicant's stated fear of violence was well founded. The study does not show which year judged the situation correctly: the security situation in Iraq did change in between, and the administrative courts upheld the great majority of negative decisions. The finding still matters for reading recognition rates: the rate is partly a variable of policy and interpretation, not only a property of the applicant pool. The study led the Immigration Service to review the quality of its own decision-making.
The European Court of Human Rights found that Finland had breached the Convention in a case where an Iraqi man who received a negative decision in 2016 returned to Baghdad and was reported to have been killed weeks later. The Court annulled its judgment in its entirety on 13 July 2021, after the applicant was found to have presented a forged death certificate.
The National Bureau of Investigation opened a criminal inquiry on suspicion that the man reported killed in the ECtHR case was still alive. According to the Foreign Ministry the death was never confirmed and no compensation was paid. The case shows how difficult it is to verify what happens to those who are returned.
On 13 July 2021 the Court annulled in its entirety its 2019 judgment, which had found that Finland breached the Convention by returning an Iraqi man. According to the Court the applicant had knowingly deceived it with false evidence. In February 2021 the Helsinki District Court had convicted the applicant of aggravated fraud and aggravated forgery.
Age decides which law applies to a person. Someone under 18 falls under child protection and compulsory education, is given a representative, is treated more leniently in criminal law and is in a stronger position for family reunification. The authorities, however, do not observe age. They record it. Government bill 240/2009 listed the reasons age can remain unclear: the country of origin may have no civil register, documents may be lost or out of reach because of persecution, and not every applicant knows their own age. The same bill noted that some children state an age above their real one and some applicants state an age below it, and that smugglers advise in both directions.
This section is not about individual cases. Three series can be measured: the age unaccompanied minors state, the results of forensic age examinations, and the age structure of the route into school. None of them says how many people state a false age. Together they say how narrow the age range in question is, and how blunt the instruments for answering it are.
About two thirds of unaccompanied minor asylum seekers state that they are 16 or 17. Those are the last two years of childhood before the threshold of adulthood. The share under 14 stays small even though that band covers fourteen years of age. The same share holds across the EU and Finland does not stand apart from it, so this is not one country's phenomenon.
| Year | Finland (% of unaccompanied minors) | EU27 (% of unaccompanied minors) |
|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 51.5 | 66.8 |
| 2013 | 43.8 | 65.2 |
| 2014 | 66.7 | 65.2 |
| 2015 | 72.8 | 59.6 |
| 2016 | 48.6 | 69.4 |
| 2017 | 60.0 | 77.9 |
| 2018 | 57.1 | 75.0 |
| 2019 | 57.9 | 67.7 |
| 2020 | 51.7 | 67.2 |
| 2021 | 66.7 | 67.3 |
| 2022 | 65.3 | 69.5 |
| 2023 | 72.5 | 68.3 |
| 2024 | 60.5 | 69.4 |
| 2025 | 58.1 | 73.1 |
Status as an unaccompanied minor brings advantages: a lighter reception procedure, a guardian and better prospects of family reunification. Age is verified with a forensic examination (dental and wrist X-rays). In 2011–2015, 56–79% of those examined were assessed to be adults: of the 149 examined in 2015, 92 (62%), and of the record 630 examinations in 2016, about 65%. The shares cover those examined, not everyone who claimed to be a minor: an examination is ordered where there is reason to doubt the stated age, so the share for the whole group cannot be read from these figures. The method is accurate only to about ±2 years and has been criticised on medical grounds. The number of examinations collapsed after 2017, so the figures describe 2011–2016.
In 2015, age assessments were performed on 149 asylum seekers who had claimed to be minors. 90 of them, about 60%, were found to be adults.
In 2016 a forensic age assessment was performed on 630 asylum seekers who had claimed to be minors, a record number. About 65%, roughly 410 of those tested, turned out to be adults. The test is based on dental and hand/wrist X-rays.
The number of age assessments fell steeply in 2017 as the number of unaccompanied minor applicants declined after the 2015–2016 peak.
A review by forensic dentists: in 2011–2015, 56–79% of examined persons who had claimed to be under 18 were assessed to be over 18. In 2016, 642 examinations were performed (630 ordered by authorities). From the start of 2017, responsibility for the examinations moved from the University of Helsinki to THL.
The bill that added sections 6 a to 6 c on establishing age to the Aliens Act. An examination requires written consent from the applicant and their representative, and a person who refuses is treated as an adult unless there is an acceptable reason for the refusal. Refusal alone cannot be a ground for rejection. The bill records that only a few dozen examinations were carried out from the mid-1990s to the end of 2008, and that of 89 examinations between January and July 2009, 58 turned out to be adults. Unaccompanied minor applicants numbered 220 in 2005, 108 in 2006, 98 in 2007 and 706 in 2008. Of the 473 who had arrived by mid-November 2009, 417, about 90 per cent, said they were 15 or older. The bill reviews the limits of the methods and the practice of other European countries.
In 2015 there were 3,024 unaccompanied minor asylum applicants, against 196 in 2014. An age examination was carried out on 149 applicants in 2015, and 92 of them, 62 per cent, were assessed as adults. In 2014, 70 were examined and 39 of them, 56 per cent, were assessed as adults. The service says an examination is ordered only where there are obvious grounds to doubt the stated age, so the result for those examined does not show that most of all minor applicants were adults.
Table 14wv breaks preparatory-education pupils down by single years of age from 2022 onwards. It is the only basic-education statistic with age as a variable of its own: the basic-school pupil tables carry the year group but not the age, so a pupil's age relative to their year group cannot be computed from these statistics.
The statistics published by Sweden's National Board of Forensic Medicine covering every medical age assessment carried out. In 2017 it issued 9,617 statements, of which 8,007 pointed to an age of at least 18. In 2018 there were 1,252 statements of which 896 pointed to adulthood, and in 2019 the figures were 199 and 125. The number of examinations collapsed as requests from the Swedish Migration Agency fell away. It is the most comprehensive single body of evidence on age assessment results in Europe, because Sweden carried out an order of magnitude more examinations than anywhere else.
Annual statistics on unaccompanied minor applicants in three age bands: under 14, 14 to 15 and 16 to 17. The data covers EU countries from 2012 onwards. It is the only continuous series from which the distribution of stated ages can be read by country and year. The figures are ages stated at registration and are rounded to the nearest five.
The accommodation provided for asylum seekers has raised questions about how safe the centres are, both for the people working in them and for the residents themselves. The question is hard to answer, because up-to-date aggregate statistics are not published openly in Finland: what exists for Finland is mostly from 2016–2018, the years of the large asylum influx. The same system’s spending is under reception-system costs and the comparison with the native population under criminality.
A total of 2,057 suspicions were recorded. Two thirds of them are assault or petty theft, and the police say the assaults arose mainly from fights between applicants inside the centres.
| Group | suspicions |
|---|---|
| Assault | 596 |
| Petty theft | 330 |
| Petty assault | 149 |
| Unlawful threat | 133 |
| Arranging illegal entry | 95 |
| Sexual harassment | 38 |
| Sexual abuse of a child | 25 |
| Rape | 23 |
| Aggravated rape | 10 |
| Attempted rape | 9 |
| Attempted manslaughter | 7 |
| Manslaughter | 2 |
The Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security's research centre WODC publishes an annual report on incidents involving the residents of the centres run by the asylum reception agency COA and of temporary municipal reception locations, and on the offences they are suspected of. In 2025, 112,745 people stayed at these locations at some point in the year, and the police registered 3,270 of them, 3%, as crime suspects. Of the Algerian nationals among the residents 33% were registered as suspects, of the Moroccan nationals 31% and of the Tunisian nationals 25%.
The figure is the share of a nationality's residents whom the police registered as a suspect of at least one offence in 2025. The number of suspects is in brackets. Of all residents, 3% were suspects.
| Group | % of the nationality's residents |
|---|---|
| Algeria (620) | 33 |
| Morocco (330) | 31 |
| Tunisia (110) | 25 |
| Georgia (75) | 22 |
| Libya (85) | 12 |
| Egypt (40) | 4 |
| Unknown (115) | 4 |
| All (3,270) | 3 |
| Syria (970) | 2 |
| Eritrea (135) | 2 |
| Turkey (95) | 2 |
| Nigeria (75) | 2 |
| Sudan (40) | 2 |
| Somalia (55) | 1 |
| Iraq (50) | 1 |
| Yemen (50) | 1 |
Noyon, Barsegyan, Vink & Pluymaekers, WODC Cahier 2026-11, sent to the House of Representatives on 2 July 2026 (Kamerstuk 19637-3614). All 112,745 people who stayed at a COA centre or a temporary municipal reception location in 2025. COA, police, prosecution and court records are linked at the individual level.
WODC Cahier 2026-11 (PDF, officielebekendmakingen.nl)A safety survey of reception-centre staff carried out in May 2016 by the National Council for Crime Prevention and the Finnish Immigration Service: 876 respondents from 86 municipalities, response rate about 30%, so those with experience of the problem may be overrepresented. 43% had experienced violence or threats at work during the previous 12 months, the perpetrator most often a resident of the centre (77%, an outsider 9%, a colleague 4%). The most common acts were throwing objects and breaking things (24%), psychological violence such as verbal threats (22%), physical violence (7%), and threats with a blunt, edged or firearm weapon (3%), which is five times the municipal-sector average (0.6%). Fear of violence was more common (36%) than among employed Finns generally (16%, national crime victim survey 2015). Instructors were most exposed: 32% had had objects thrown at them. Idleness was seen as the main cause of disruptive behaviour, but 40% of respondents judged religion-related conflicts to have a large or very large effect and over 30% considered substance use a major cause. The centres were nonetheless experienced as safe: 96% considered working in the centre safe, only 3% saw bullying between residents as a big problem, and levels of violence matched social- and health-care work generally.
A compilation from the police crime-report system, published as an annex to the Ministry of Justice report: asylum seekers were suspects in 2,057 offence records between 1 January and 30 September 2016. The most common offence titles were assault (596), petty theft (330), petty assault (149), unlawful threat (133) and facilitation of illegal entry (95). Sexual-offence titles included sexual harassment (38), sexual abuse of a child (25), rape (23), aggravated rape (10) and attempted rape (9), homicide titles attempted manslaughter (7) and manslaughter (2). For the whole of the preceding year, 2015, 926 asylum seekers were recorded as crime suspects. Serious violence involving knives has also occurred inside the reception centres, and probably only part of the offences committed there comes to police attention. The figures are suspicions per offence title, not convictions and not individual persons. At the same time there were tens of thousands of asylum seekers in Finland: about 32,500 applications were lodged in 2015, and the reception system housed some 30,000 people at its early-2016 peak. That group was overwhelmingly men aged 18–34, the most crime-prone age-and-sex group in every population, so a meaningful comparison with the native population requires age-and-sex standardisation. The standardised comparison is in the Criminality section.
A Police University College study went through the reports the police recorded for 2016 that carried TUPA2, the code for cases involving asylum seekers. The police introduced the code in November 2015. After reports on obtaining documents and on asylum investigations were removed, 1,565 reports remained. Of them, 74 per cent were crime reports, 7 per cent miscellaneous reports and 19 per cent apprehensions under the Police Act. The crime reports contained 1,813 offence titles. Of these, 29 per cent were assault, 12 per cent petty assault and almost as many unlawful threats. More than half of the reports concerned incidents between asylum seekers, and a fifth concerned incidents between asylum seekers and Finns. The reports recorded 1,052 crime suspects. Of them, 95 per cent were men and just over half were 25 or younger. Iraqi citizens made up 62 per cent of the suspects and Afghan citizens 10 per cent. The reports recorded 1,066 victims. Just over two thirds of the victims were men, 49 per cent were Iraqi citizens and 24 per cent Finnish citizens. Suspected sexual offences were the subject of 161 reports. In 131 of them an asylum seeker was suspected of a sexual offence against a Finnish citizen or another person living in Finland who was not an asylum seeker. In the other 30 an asylum seeker was the suspected victim of a sexual offence. Of the victims of suspected sexual offences, 90 per cent were women, 46 per cent were under 18 and almost four in five were Finnish citizens. All the suspects of sexual offences were men. Of the investigations that had been closed, 36 per cent went to the prosecutor. The researchers did not identify individuals, so the same person can appear in the figures several times. The suspects also include Finnish citizens. According to the researchers, it is not certain that the code was used in every report involving asylum seekers, nor that every coded report involved asylum seekers. Reception centres are a supervised environment, so more offences may come to light there than elsewhere. The number of asylum seekers in accommodation was nearly 30,000 at the start of 2016 and just over 20,000 at its end.
According to Verkkouutiset, the police crime statistics recorded an asylum seeker as a crime suspect 2,690 times and as a complainant 1,866 times in 2017. The numbers were almost the same as a year earlier. Asylum seekers were recorded as suspects 26 times more and as complainants 23 times fewer than in 2016. The most common offence titles were assault, unlawful threat, theft, petty theft and petty assault. The figures count how many times an asylum seeker was recorded as a suspect or a complainant. They do not count individual people, and a suspicion is not a conviction.
According to Finnish Immigration Service data, in early 2018 reception centres recorded 10–15 reports per month of violence or threats against staff, and 20–60 reports per month of violence between residents. Many reports were also made of residents harming themselves or threatening to do so. The article does not say how many. The figures covered both verbal threats and physical assaults.
Yle compiled the figures from the police performance management system PolStat and from the National Bureau of Investigation (KRP). Since 2016 the police have recorded the cases in which a crime suspect or victim is seeking asylum in Finland. According to the KRP, an asylum seeker was a suspect for about 2,700 offence titles both in 2016 and in 2017. In January to June 2018, an asylum seeker was a suspect in 1,275 offences. The number of suspicions had hardly fallen, although the number of people seeking asylum or appealing their decision had dropped by thousands in two years. By the end of June 2018, an asylum seeker had been a suspect in 71 sexual offences, of which 32 concerned rape and 14 sexual abuse of a child. According to Detective Superintendent Sari Sarani of the KRP, the statistics give no overall picture of sexual offences, because only a very small share of them comes to police attention. The figures are suspicions, not convictions.
The National Bureau of Investigation (KRP) told Yle in January 2025 that the police had recorded about 50 crime reports in which an asylum seeker who had arrived over the eastern border since autumn 2023 was suspected of an offence in Finland. The suspicions concerned mainly offences against life and health and property offences. The police had also received individual suspicions of sexual, drug and traffic offences and of offences against the authorities. From August 2023, about 1,300 third-country nationals came to Finland over the eastern border. According to the KRP, about 35 per cent of them have been missing at some point. The police did not specify the cases, and the figures are suspicions, not convictions.
Keeping an asylum system running is not free. The state pays for applicants’ accommodation and subsistence while their applications are processed, and spending tracks applicant numbers, so it swings sharply from year to year.
Per applicant, the price depends above all on the type of accommodation: a place in a reception centre came to €43 a day in 2023 in the realised unit costs reported in the state budget proposals.
In the state's final accounts, purchased reception services and allowances paid to clients peaked in the years following the 2015 spike in applications and bottomed out in 2021. The level then rose again, mostly because of temporary protection for people who fled Ukraine. The scale of reception between 1997 and 2015 is on the timeline.
The cost of the reception system tracks applicant numbers with sharp swings. The annual cost depends heavily on the number of people received: at its highest, costs rose to as much as €607 million in 2016, while in 2021 the cost was about €100 million.
| Year | Total (€ million) | Reception services (26.40.21) (€ million) | Client allowances (26.40.63) (€ million) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 54 | 44 | 10 |
| 2015 | 153 | 125 | 28 |
| 2016 | 607 | 530 | 78 |
| 2017 | 269 | 210 | 59 |
| 2018 | 173 | 137 | 36 |
| 2019 | 153 | 128 | 25 |
| 2020 | 117 | 97 | 20 |
| 2021 | 100 | 84 | 16 |
| 2022 | 338 | 272 | 66 |
| 2023 | 354 | 254 | 99 |
| 2024 | 358 | 291 | 67 |
A night of reception accommodation cost EUR 45–61 on average in 2012–2016, but the price ranged by type of accommodation from EUR 18 in private accommodation to EUR 208 in a group home for unaccompanied minors. The report gives no total price tag and does not claim to: it says very little is known about the long-term net effect on public finances because the reason for immigration is not recorded in statistics, and that at the time the fiscal effects of refugee-background immigration had not been studied in Finland at all. On the scale, the ministry says that against an annual budget of over EUR 55 billion a phenomenon confined to hundreds of millions has a marginal effect, and that these arrival numbers are no answer to the sustainability gap even if everyone granted a permit found work. Other figures: processing an asylum application cost EUR 1,584, the calculated compensation paid to a municipality was EUR 6,845 a year for a child under 7 and EUR 2,300 for anyone older, and the employment rate of 20–64-year-olds with a refugee background was 39% in 2014 against 74% for people of Finnish background.
A place in a reception centre came to EUR 43 a day in 2023 and EUR 41 in 2024, about EUR 15,000 a year. An applicant in private accommodation cost EUR 10–12 a day, and an unaccompanied minor in a group home EUR 231. The average total cost per person across the reception system was EUR 30 a day in 2023 and EUR 34 in 2024, excluding VAT, about EUR 11,000 and EUR 12,400 a year. The unit price does not fall as the system shrinks: the 2026 budget puts a reception-centre place at EUR 72 a day as the client count is expected to drop from 28,571 to around 9,000. Standby capacity costs much the same whatever its occupancy.
According to an investigation by Yle's MOT programme, the reception services that the Finnish Immigration Service bought without competitive tendering cost more than €550 million in 2022–2023. The purchases were made as direct awards, citing an exceptional situation as the reception of people who fled Ukraine grew.
The two-year contract for a seven-place family group home is worth about €1.4 million, and the wider procurement of four such homes up to about €5.5 million a year excluding VAT. A family group home has operated since June 2024 in a villa of over 300 m² on the shore of Lake Pyhäjärvi in Tampere. The villa is the former home of footballer Ari Hjelm and was last listed at €1.2 million and sold in early 2024. It has places for seven unaccompanied minors holding a residence permit or temporary protection, and eight social- and health-care staff work there in round-the-clock shifts. The Pirkanmaa wellbeing services county buys the service from the private operator Solum, which rents the property. According to Yle's follow-up, the unit's two-year contract is worth about €1.4 million, and the wider procurement covering four comparable group homes is worth up to about €5.5 million a year (excluding VAT). These costs do not appear in this section's chart: a family group home is not a reception centre but aftercare for minors who already hold a permit, reimbursed to the wellbeing services county by the state separately under the Integration Act, from moment 32.50.30 (state compensation for promoting integration, €349.7 million in the 2026 proposal). The reimbursement follows actual costs. The moment's breakdown has a line of its own for unaccompanied minors, €65.2m in 2026, which is in the site's cost calculation. The line covers every form of their housing and support, so no national total for family group homes is published. Nor is the contract price the same as the realised cost per child, since the unit has been running below full occupancy.
When an asylum seeker receives a negative decision and has no other ground to stay, the right of residence ends and remaining in the country becomes illegal. Not everyone leaves. The Interior Ministry's own review of the asylum process states that returns fail to some countries of origin and that changes in the law have created a new group of people staying in Finland illegally. No statistic shows the size of the group, because nobody follows what happens to people whose application was refused.
In 2025 Finland ordered 5,070 people to leave and recorded 1,915 returns, about two returns for every five orders. The number of people found illegally present has fallen from 1,305 in 2018 to 660 in 2025, the lowest in the series. That figure, however, reflects what the authorities detected, not the size of the group.
Staying has also carried a financial incentive: until April 2019, when the permit requirement was written into the act on residence-based social security, a residence permit running out did not by itself end residence-based social security. How the group of people staying illegally came about is on the timeline from 2015 onwards, and the need for protection is covered under protection needs and recognition rates.
| Year | Found illegally present (people) |
|---|---|
| 2014 | 2,930 |
| 2015 | 14,285 |
| 2016 | 2,130 |
| 2017 | 930 |
| 2018 | 1,305 |
| 2019 | 1,220 |
| 2020 | 1,145 |
| 2021 | 1,090 |
| 2022 | 1,190 |
| 2023 | 1,100 |
| 2024 | 875 |
| 2025 | 660 |
An order to leave does not mean a person leaves. The chart sets side by side how many third-country nationals in Finland were ordered to leave and how many actually left following an order.
| Year | Ordered to leave (People per year) | Returned following an order (People per year) |
|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 1,775 | 910 |
| 2009 | 3,125 | 1,720 |
| 2010 | 3,835 | 1,930 |
| 2011 | 4,685 | 3,235 |
| 2012 | 4,300 | 3,070 |
| 2013 | 4,330 | 3,155 |
| 2014 | 3,360 | 3,195 |
| 2015 | 4,905 | 3,365 |
| 2016 | 17,975 | 6,005 |
| 2017 | 7,255 | 4,000 |
| 2018 | 5,435 | 3,340 |
| 2019 | 7,395 | 3,435 |
| 2020 | 5,425 | 3,080 |
| 2021 | 3,050 | 1,195 |
| 2022 | 3,200 | 1,170 |
| 2023 | 3,320 | 1,475 |
| 2024 | 3,865 | 1,340 |
| 2025 | 5,070 | 1,915 |
According to researchers at the University of Turku, depending on the definition, about 4,000–5,000 people were staying in Finland unlawfully in 2019. The figure is the researchers' estimate, not a statistic. According to the book the same researchers published in 2021, the estimate rests on their own fieldwork and on consulting the authorities, the police, NGOs and other researchers. The group is broader than the people refused asylum. Most came to Finland lawfully as asylum seekers in 2015 and were refused, but the group also includes people who entered without permission and people who stayed on after a residence permit on other grounds expired. Other estimates have ranged from 3,000 to 10,000, and the highest also include people who stayed on after a visa expired. The article's survey reached 100 people staying in the country unlawfully, so it describes the respondents rather than the whole group.
Eurostat's return statistics for Finland. Orders to leave numbered 3 050 in 2021, 3 200 in 2022, 3 320 in 2023, 3 865 in 2024 and 5 070 in 2025. Returns recorded in the same years were 1 195, 1 170, 1 475, 1 340 and 1 915, a share of 35 to 44 per cent in recent years. Across the EU in 2025 there were 486 705 orders and 156 000 returns, about 32 per cent. A return can follow a decision from an earlier year, so the share is an approximation.
660 third-country nationals were found to be illegally present in Finland in 2025. The figure has fallen every year since 2022, when it was 1 190. In 2015 it was 14 285 and in 2016 only 2 130, which follows the crisis year's arrivals moving into the asylum process. The statistic counts each person once per year per country.
Humanitarian migration is often justified as a way of helping the world's worst-off. It does not, however, reach the world's poorest, and structurally cannot: for nearly all arrivals getting to Europe costs thousands of euros, which people living in extreme poverty cannot afford.
Those who leave are often among the most educated in their countries of origin, so migration drains human capital from precisely the countries that need it most. Remittances home are a larger income flow for source countries than development aid, but they go mostly to the consumption of the households that receive them, and they do not replace the capable people that development needs.
The scale is clearest in births. According to the UN World Population Prospects and Eurostat, about 7.6 million children were born in Nigeria in 2024, more than in the EU (3.5 million) and Russia (1.3 million) combined. The EU's annual asylum applications amount to only a small part of Nigeria's annual births, so migration cannot level a difference of this magnitude in either direction. How many applications lead to protection is under recognition rates, and what the journey costs under people smuggling.
About 803,000 asylum applications were lodged in EU countries in 2025. That is about 0.1% of the world's roughly 838 million people living in extreme poverty. At the end of 2025 there were 117.8 million forcibly displaced people in the world, and European asylum channels reach only a fraction of them.
About 997,000 asylum applications were filed in the EU in 2024 (first-time ~912,000). Those two figures come from the Parliament's page. The comparisons come from elsewhere: about 838 million people live in extreme poverty worldwide (World Bank, figure for 2022) and 117.8 million are forcibly displaced (UNHCR Global Trends 2025). Set against those, the European asylum system reaches only a fraction of global need.
An overview of how extreme poverty has developed worldwide, by region and by country. The poverty line is 2.15 dollars a day at 2017 purchasing power parity. Extreme poverty is increasingly concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa. In 1990, 13% of the people living in extreme poverty lived there, and in 2022 an estimated 62%.
At the end of 2024 there were 123.2 million forcibly displaced people in the world. Most of them are not refugees. People displaced within their own country, internally displaced people, numbered 73.5 million. There were 31 million refugees under UNHCR's mandate, 8.4 million asylum seekers, 5.9 million Palestine refugees under UNRWA and 5.9 million other people in need of international protection. Of refugees and others in need of protection, 67% lived in a country neighbouring their own and 73% were hosted by low- and middle-income countries. The least developed countries hosted 23% of them. Relative to its population, Lebanon hosts the most refugees: 1 resident in 8 is a refugee. When Palestine refugees are counted, the share is 1 in 4 in Jordan and 1 in 5 in Lebanon. 3.1 million new individual asylum applications were lodged worldwide, most in the United States (729,100), followed by Egypt (433,900), Germany (229,800), Canada (174,000) and Spain (167,400). Note that relating one year's flow of applications to the whole stock of displaced people does not give a comparable ratio, and UNHCR does not present one. The scale does not change even if the flow is counted over a longer period. Ten years of 3.1 million applications a year would be 31 million, about a quarter of the stock of 123.2 million. Only some of these applications are lodged in Western countries.
In June 2025 the World Bank updated the international poverty line. The new extreme-poverty line is 3.00 dollars a day at 2021 purchasing power parity. It replaces the previous line of 2.15 dollars, which was based on 2017 purchasing power parity. On the new line about 838 million people lived in extreme poverty in 2022. The estimate is about 125 million higher than the previously reported 713 million.
According to the EU Asylum Agency's annual report, about 822,000 asylum applications were lodged in the EU countries, Norway and Switzerland (EU+) in 2025, 19% fewer than in 2024 and the lowest number since 2021. About 874,000 first-instance decisions were issued, with a sharp increase in rejections for nationals of countries whose recognition rate is below 20%. About 4.5 million people displaced from Ukraine were under temporary protection in the EU.
Immigration divides opinion. Although parties that have broadly supported and pursued immigration have won a substantial majority of votes in parliamentary elections, criticism of immigration is more common than immigration-critical parties themselves. An often-overlooked side of immigration is its political effects: voting behaviour among people of foreign background differs markedly from that of Finnish-background voters. Immigrants particularly favour parties that push for a more permissive immigration policy. The political effect is weakened by the fact that voter turnout among people of foreign background is markedly lower than among the native population.
Immigration policy is a political choice. Finnish attitudes toward immigration are divided: a majority wants stricter immigration policy and believes public debate avoids discussing the problems. At the same time, labour-based immigration is broadly supported. Who the people who have moved here vote for is under political effect.
Three figures from the EVA values and attitudes survey of 2023. They do not point the same way, and that is a result rather than a contradiction: a majority think Finland takes too many refugees and a majority feel the problems cannot be discussed openly, yet four in five support recruiting educated professionals. In the same survey 55 % would make it easier for foreigners to move to Finland, the highest reading in 25 years of the series.
Church Research Centre quadrennial report 'The Church in Times of Uncertainty 2020–2023'
yle.fi/a/74-20120120n=2,043 respondents, age 18–79, margin of error 2–3%
yle.fi/a/74-20028968More than 1,100 respondents aged 18–79 in mainland Finland. The survey was commissioned by the Foundation for Municipal Development (KAKS) and the interviews were carried out by Kantar TNS. The results were reported by Yle News on 10 March 2019.
yle.fi/a/3-10681914Immigration eventually affects election results too, because some of those who move here gain the right to vote. The more arrivals there are, and the more uniformly the group votes, the larger that effect is. Foreign-language voters far more often support parties that advocate a more permissive immigration policy. What the population thinks about immigration is under public opinion.
In a Taloustutkimus survey (2025) their most popular party was the Social Democrats (SDP) at nearly 50%, and Helsingin Sanomat's own Taloustutkimus poll (2026) reached the same result.
| Group | % |
|---|---|
| SDP (Social Democrats) | 49.2 |
| National Coalition (Kokoomus) | 12.3 |
| Left Alliance | 11.6 |
| Swedish People's Party (RKP) | 7.8 |
| Greens | 6.6 |
| Centre Party | 5.0 |
| Finns Party | 3.3 |
| Christian Democrats | 2.3 |
| Movement Now | 1.0 |
Political participation nevertheless remains markedly lower among people with a foreign background. The big question for Finland's political future is this group's support potential, should its turnout rise. The two observations have to be read together: there are relatively few voters, but those who do vote, vote in a concentrated way. The electoral effect is therefore clearly smaller at present than the support figure alone suggests, and it grows as both the number of eligible voters and turnout rise.
The turnout gap between Finnish- and foreign-background voters in the 2025 municipal elections was 33.0 percentage points.
| Group | % |
|---|---|
| Swedish-speakers | 65.2 |
| Finnish background | 55.2 |
| Finnish/Sámi-speakers | 54.8 |
| Foreign-language speakers | 22.4 |
| Foreign background | 22.2 |
n=67 voting districts in Vantaa in each election, 161,063 eligible voters living in Finland (2023) and 190,699 eligible voters (2025)
Statistics Finland, Eläkeläiset aktiivisia äänestäjiä kuntavaaleissa 2025, 6 June 2025A survey carried out by Taloustutkimus for the think tank Suomen Perusta (May–July 2025, sample 1,232, of whom 555 or 45% stated a party preference). Support among foreign-language speakers split as follows: SDP 49.2%, National Coalition 12.3%, Left Alliance 11.6%, Swedish People's Party 7.8%, Greens 6.6%, Centre 5.0%, Finns Party 3.3%, Christian Democrats 2.3%, Movement Now 1.0%. Left-wing and immigration-friendly parties dominate. The publisher, Suomen Perusta, is the Finns Party's think tank, but the survey itself was conducted by Taloustutkimus, an established polling firm.
A poll commissioned by Helsingin Sanomat from Taloustutkimus (July 2026): the SDP is the most popular party among foreign-language speakers too. 21% of all foreign-language speakers would vote SDP, rising to 45% among those who state a preference. The Greens were second at 7%. Of respondents, 29% could not name a preference, 17% declined to say, and 10% would not vote. Taloustutkimus managing director Jari Pajunen attributes the support to the SDP's campaign work and the government's immigration policy. The article frames immigrant-majority neighbourhoods as a potential vote reservoir for the SDP. This poll confirms the same picture as the earlier Suomen Perusta survey, and this time it was commissioned by a mainstream outlet, HS.
An HS follow-up to the July 2026 poll in which the SDP was clearly the most popular party among foreign-language voters. Taloustutkimus managing director Jari Pajunen judges that the government's strict immigration line has increased the party's support in this group. Tuomas Finne, executive director of the Helsinki SDP, stresses that this trust cannot be taken for granted. The piece is reported from Itäkeskus, where the party periodically runs a campaign tent. It is an explanatory feature rather than a new poll.
After each Riksdag election, Statistics Sweden (SCB) publishes background figures on the eligible voters of every voting district, among them the share born abroad. Combined with the Swedish Election Authority's results by district, they show how an area's population and its result vary together.
Over 13,000 voters at 93 election-day polling stations and 68 early-voting locations (2026), 11,160 voters at 105 election-day polling stations and 55 early-voting locations (2022)
SVT, Så röstade olika väljargrupper, 13 September 2026n=6,312 voting districts (2026) and 6,264 (2022), 7.8 million eligible voters registered in Sweden
SCB, press release, 2 October 2026The House of Commons Library publishes general election results by candidate and constituency. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) also publishes the religion figures of the 2021 census of England and Wales by 2024 constituency. Together they show how a constituency's population and its result vary together.
n=575 constituencies in England and Wales, of which the Speaker's seat is left out. 59.6 million people lived in these constituencies at the 2021 census
House of Commons Library, General election 2024 results (CBP-10009)On polling day in each round of the 2022 presidential election, the polling firm Ifop asked registered voters whom they had voted for and what their religion was. The surveys were carried out for the newspaper La Croix.
In Ifop's polling-day survey, 69% of Muslims who voted for a candidate said they had voted for Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Among all voters he took 22.0% in the survey. Emmanuel Macron took 14% of the Muslim vote and Marine Le Pen 7%.
| Group | All | Muslims |
|---|---|---|
| Mélenchon | 22.0 | 69.0 |
| Macron | 27.5 | 14.0 |
| Le Pen | 23.3 | 7.0 |
| Zemmour | 7.1 | 2.0 |
| Jadot | 4.6 | 2.0 |
| Hidalgo | 1.7 | 2.0 |
| Pécresse | 4.8 | 1.0 |
| Lassalle | 3.2 | 1.0 |
| Roussel | 2.3 | 1.0 |
| Poutou | 0.8 | 1.0 |
| Dupont-Aignan | 2.1 | 0.0 |
| Arthaud | 0.6 | 0.0 |
First round: 3,784 registered voters (sample 4,066, metropolitan France), online survey on 10 April 2022. Second round: 4,827 registered voters (sample 5,086), online survey on 24 April 2022. The number of Muslim respondents was not published
Ifop, publication, 11 April 2022The Dutch Electoral Council (Kiesraad) publishes the results of elections to the House of Representatives (Tweede Kamer) by municipality, and Statistics Netherlands (CBS) publishes each municipality's population by country of origin. Together they show how support for the DENK party varies with the share of residents of Turkish or Moroccan origin.
n=342 municipalities in each election, 10.4 million valid votes (2023) and 10.6 million (2025)
Kiesraad, Verkiezingsuitslag Tweede Kamer 2025 (data.overheid.nl)After Storting elections, Statistics Norway (SSB) reports how immigrants and their Norwegian-born children voted. For the 2025 election, turnout is counted from the electoral rolls for every eligible voter, and party choice comes from SSB's election survey.
Turnout: SSB's register of all 4,059,200 eligible voters. Party choice: SSB's election survey, a representative sample of 10,750 voters and an additional sample of 2,300 voters with an immigrant background. The party choice table has 1,630 immigrants and 1,238 Norwegian-born children of immigrants.
SSB, Rapporter 2026/3, 5 February 2026Public debate on immigration has produced target figures and promises. Some of them can now be checked: the target year has arrived, or the number demanded has been reached.
This part collects the claims as they were stated and places the measured outcome beside them. The point is not to catch individual speakers out but to look at what followed from the targets. It opens with a map that shows, one year at a time, which countries people moved to Finland from and on what grounds.
In 1990, 1,186 foreign-born people moved to Finland. The largest origins were Sweden with 372 and the former Soviet Union with 341, and the third largest, Germany, sent 36 people. In 2024 the figure was 56,110, forty-seven times as many, led by the former Soviet Union with 8,048, Ukraine with 7,200 and the Philippines with 3,706.
The map shows this one year at a time. The thickness of an arc is the number of people who moved to Finland, the thin arc in the other direction is the people who moved from Finland to that country, and the colour says which grounds were the most common among that country's applicants that year.
The balance of grounds shifts more within a decade than the totals suggest. In 2015, 31,707 people applied for international protection and 5,976 on the basis of work. In 2019 work was the largest ground with 11,813 applications. In 2024 the largest was family with 22,267, and in 2025 work-based applications were down to 10,752 against 22,592 family-based ones.
The thickness of the map's arcs comes from this table: immigration and emigration by country of birth, whole country, from 1990 onwards. It covers every registered move, including those by EU citizens, who do not appear in residence permit statistics.
The map's colours come from this source: first residence permit applications on work, family and study grounds, plus asylum and temporary protection applications, by citizenship from 2015 onwards. The figures are applications lodged.
Below is the history of immigration to Finland one year at a time, from the year Finland acceded to the Refugee Convention. Each year carries its own figures and what was said about the arrivals at the time. The quotations are verbatim and each has its source beside it.
The emphasis is on speech. How presidents, ministers, party papers and letter-writers talked about arrivals has varied more than the numbers have, and often in the opposite direction. What is known about the same subjects today is collected in the knowledge base.
Finland acceded to the Geneva Refugee Convention. The implementing decrees were issued on 5 December 1968.
Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. 129, lainaa: asetukset 812–813/1968On 6 May 1970 the Aliens Office reported 1,752 refugees residing in the country, a figure compiled for the 20th anniversary of the Geneva Convention.
Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. 129A military junta seized power in Chile on 11 September 1973 and the first asylum seeker soon arrived at Finland's legation in Santiago. Finland took a group of one hundred.
Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. 40–44By the end of 1975 Finland had received 151 refugees, of whom 32 to 42 had already moved on. The Chilean group stood at 118 in March, 92 of them Chilean citizens.
Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. 44On 3 September 1976 the Ministry of the Interior appointed a committee to prepare a reform of aliens legislation. Finland had no Aliens Act, only the decree of 1958.
Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. 55It would be more sensible to consider the forms and extent of financial aid than to daydream about bringing boat people to Finland. The number of refugees Finland could place would in any case be so small that it would make no difference to the refugee problem.
The governing party's paper rejected taking boat people. Five days later, after the government decided to take a hundred, the same paper wrote: "Now that this road has been taken..."
Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. 50, lainaa: Suomen Sosialidemokraatti 2.7. ja 7.7.1979The foreign press points an accusing finger at our country: every Western European country except Finland has taken in refugees.
The National Coalition Party's paper. The book notes that every governing party gave evasive statements.
Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. 50, lainaa: Uusi Suomi 20.6.–5.7.1979The cabinet's foreign affairs committee refused the UN's request to take boat people on 21 June 1979 and decided on 4 July to take a hundred. The first arrived in the autumn.
Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. 51Finland's first Aliens Act (400/1983) was passed on 26 April 1983 and entered into force on 1 March 1984. Its decree was late, so March 1984 ran without one.
Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. 59 ja liite s. 185Finland admitted 134 disabled Indochinese refugees and 15 family members.
Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. 51At the end of the year the cabinet's foreign affairs committee decided in principle to take about a hundred new refugees a year. This is the origin of the refugee quota. That same year the government had admitted nine refugees and ten family members.
Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. 51In March 1986 Ilta-Sanomat measured support for relaxing immigration policy. It stood at 15 per cent of citizens. The Immigration Service's own history uses the figure to show that four years earlier, in the 1982 uproar over the turning back of a Salvadoran priest, public opinion had been measured "only in the corridors of parliament and among journalists". Between what the politicians said and what the public thought there was a considerable gap.
Ilta-Sanomat 18.3.1986, siteerattuna: Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. 56–57There are 12 to 15 million refugees in the world. Let us use the larger figure. The Finnish people are one per mille of the world's population. Our responsibility would then be one per mille, that is 15,000 refugees. [...] Those would be the limits, 15,000 to 75,000, depending on the point of comparison.
An interview in Helsingin Sanomat's monthly supplement. According to the book, Sorsa meant directing development aid to UNHCR for 15,000 refugees, but the statement was at once read as a demand for 15,000 quota refugees a year.
Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. 67, lainaa: HS Kuukausiliite 1987It is quite possible that our population will not develop the way many consider desirable. We once had a debate that labour should be brought into this country, and it met a lot of resistance then. It is quite possible that this is the very same phenomenon under a slightly different name. And it is quite possible that it would be to our advantage to take in people of an advantageous age.
An A-studio interview. According to the book it irritated the Swedish People's Party's papers and MPs, who held that fitness for work should not be a criterion in selecting refugees.
Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. 71, lainaa: Yle A-studio 23.9.1987The first wave of Magdalena Jaakkola's series of attitude surveys. Of the respondents 41 per cent would have admitted more refugees than Finland was taking. The series put the same questions five times up to 2007, and this was its most receptive reading on refugees.
Magdalena Jaakkola, Maahanmuuttajat suomalaisten näkökulmasta, Helsingin kaupungin tietokeskus 1/2009Magdalena Jaakkola's partial study came out in early October 1987, from interviews made between May and July. It overturned myths: Finns related to foreigners "considerably more positively than has been presented in the media". The most hospitable were highly educated Swedish-speaking young women, and sympathy depended on where the arrival came from. The most interesting finding was a collective misperception: most Finns believed others to be more prejudiced than they actually were.
HS 7.10.1987 ja Magdalena Jaakkola, Suomalaisten suhtautuminen ulkomaalaisiin ja ulkomaalaispolitiikkaan (Siirtolaisuustutkimuksia 21, 1989), siteerattuna: Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, s. 69–70Helsingin Sanomat counted the letters its own readers sent in the summer of 1987. Half of the writers opposed refugees coming to Finland, a smaller group supported them and some took no clear view. The writer of the summary could find no arguments among the opposing majority beyond unemployment, the housing shortage and safety. In the autumn twice as many letters arrived, of which the paper published a third.
Helsingin Sanomien yleisönosastoyhteenveto 1987, siteerattuna: Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. 66The Ministry of the Interior's Aliens Centre was founded on 1 June 1989, replacing the Aliens Office.
Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. 77–78The starting point has been that the Ingrians are Finns. Their forefathers were moved to that region under Swedish rule and they have been through a great deal there. It can be compared to return migration. No decisions have been made in this sense regarding other Finnic peoples.
An interview with the foreign correspondents' association. According to the book it took the Aliens Office by surprise and was read as an order to proceed. The return migration of Ingrian Finns began here.
Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. 82, lainaa: Koivisto, Historian tekijät (1995), s. 298–299 · HS 5.4. ja 27.7.1990Somali asylum seekers began arriving via the Soviet Union. Almost 200 came through Vainikkala on 26–28 November 1990, and 230 by train on 30 December. From the start of the year to November the arrivals numbered about 1,500.
MTV Uutiset 15.2.2015, Salaiset arkistot 1990 · Leitzinger 2010, s. 85The Somalis should be stopped at the border. Take down their names and promise to consider. State that the Soviet Union is a safe country. If someone disagrees, then we argue. If these are not stopped, how would any others be.
From Koivisto's own memoirs. On 30 November 1990 the Holkeri government prepared a decision under which arrivals via the Soviet Union could have been turned back at the border. Prime Minister Holkeri opposed it and the decision was never used. A form often repeated in public, in which Koivisto is said to have spoken of shooting the arrivals, appears in none of these sources.
Koivisto, Historian tekijät (1995), lainattu Kaleva 17.8.2017 ja MTV Uutiset 15.2.2015 · Leitzinger 2010, s. 85Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. 85, lainaa: Koivisto, Historian tekijät (1995), s. 292The height of it was when Somalis arrived from Leningrad on a Finnish bus and at the border it was merely noted: right, refugees, fine. Off to Lahti. Not even the names were taken down.
Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. 85, lainaa: Koivisto, Historian tekijät (1995), s. 292I feared that a sharply grown flow of refugees would quickly give rise to xenophobia.
welfare refugees ... well-meaning fools
Two expressions from the speech. According to the book Ilaskivi meant the Somalis and the Finns who granted residence permits and social security too readily. The speech won him popularity that did not carry the 1994 presidential election.
Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. 70EVA's autumn 1990 measurement (n = 2,426) is the oldest run of immigration questions it has. Two figures give the setting of the time. The claim that it is "better to pay Finns to have children than to increase refugee immigration" was accepted by 69 per cent and rejected by 17. The claim that "the growing labour shortage can only be solved with foreign labour" was accepted by 14 per cent and rejected by 68.
EVAn Arvopankki, osuus laskettu vastausjakauman lukumääristä. Arvopankki julkaisee painottamattomat vastausmäärät, joten osuus voi poiketa prosenttiyksikön tai kaksi EVAn omista painotetuista julkaisuluvuista · EVAn kansallinen asennetutkimus, syksy 1990It wears on me that there is some elite telling the people what to think..., that one should somehow grovel before other people.
An Ilta-Sanomat interview. According to the book the press pressed Koivisto six times in January 1991 to condemn popular hostility to foreigners, and he repeated that he had seen no evidence of such an attitude.
Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. 85, lainaa: Ilta-Sanomat 11.1.1991 · Koivisto, Historian tekijät (1995), s. 294Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. 71–72There is a great deal of sanctimony here that the border must not be closed. Anyone who sets foot across the border and says I request asylum should be taken in, in this world situation. [...] And what if large numbers really do start moving from there? It would be far better to support their efforts rather than hinder them, so that no new migration of peoples takes place.
The reformed Aliens Act (378/1991) entered into force on 1 March 1991. The Ombudsman for Aliens and the Asylum Board began the same day. Reception centres were put on a statutory footing on 31 December 1991.
Ulkomaalaislaki 378/1991, FinlexRefugees from the wars of Yugoslavia's break-up began arriving at the start of the year, mostly Kosovo Albanians. In June the Aliens Centre took part for the first time in selecting quota refugees, in Turkey, from where Iraqi and Iranian Kurds came. The last Vietnamese boat refugees were selected in August.
Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. 51, 88–90The image of a closed society and an isolated people is largely a myth of the post-war era.
The article was written in the middle of the first Somali arrivals and the recession. According to it Finland probably had over 40,000 foreigners in 1914 and 24,451 at the end of 1920, and before the Second World War more foreigners lived in Finland than in Sweden. At the end of 1991 there were 37,579 foreign citizens.
Antero Leitzinger, Ulkomaalaiset Suomessa, johdantoa immigraatiohistoriaamme, Siirtolaisuus–Migration 4/1992, s. 27–31, ja Tilastokeskus, väestörakenneAn act (14/1993) provided for exceptional handling of certain Yugoslav citizens' asylum applications. On humanitarian grounds Finland took patients from Sarajevo's hospital with their companions, 111 at once and 140 more in 1994.
Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. 88 ja liite s. 188The second wave of the series, at the bottom of the recession. Only 20 per cent would now have admitted more refugees, and six in ten would have admitted fewer foreign job-seekers than Finland was taking. The six-year fall on the refugee question was 21 percentage points.
Magdalena Jaakkola, Maahanmuuttajat suomalaisten näkökulmasta, Helsingin kaupungin tietokeskus 1/2009EVA's spring 1993 measurement (n = 2,367) asked whether respondents believed racism and xenophobia would rise in Finland over the following ten years. It was thought likely by 65 per cent. In the same measurement 61 per cent held that capable Finns moving abroad is a bigger problem for Finland than foreigners arriving.
EVAn Arvopankki, osuus laskettu vastausjakauman lukumääristä. Arvopankki julkaisee painottamattomat vastausmäärät, joten osuus voi poiketa prosenttiyksikön tai kaksi EVAn omista painotetuista julkaisuluvuista · EVAn kansallinen asennetutkimus, kevät 1993There were 839 asylum seekers, against 3,634 two years earlier. The government later noted: "In 1994 to 1997 fewer than 1,000 asylum seekers a year arrived." There were 3,538 Somali citizens living in Finland at the end of the year, against 1,882 in 1992.
The number of Somalis grew throughout the decade even though few asylum seekers arrived. The growth came from family reunification and births, not from new applicants.
Hallituksen esitys 66/1998 vp, Edilex, ja Tilastokeskus, väestörakenneFinland joined the European Union on 1 January 1995. The Directorate of Immigration was established as an independent central agency on 1 March 1995.
Laki ulkomaalaisvirastosta 156/1995, FinlexThe refugee quota had been 500 since 1989. For 1995 and 1996 an additional quota of 500 refugees from the former Yugoslavia was confirmed, so the quota was 1,000 in those years. In practice 221 quota refugees were received in 1995 and 817 in 1996.
The quota went unfilled almost every year. In 1997 it returned to 500.
Hallituksen esitys 66/1998 vp, Edilex, ja Pentikäinen, Loputon matka, Työpoliittinen tutkimus 274, taulukko 1The Joensuu skinheads came to national attention when Darryl Parker, the American signing of the Kataja basketball team, left the city after skinheads attacked him. In November 15 skinheads were charged with assaulting and threatening Somalis.
Yle wrote in 2023 that the skinhead problem only reached the public then, although the violence had gone on for years.
Yle 21.7.2023, Skinit herättivät Joensuussa pelkoa 30 vuotta sittenThere were 711 asylum seekers, the fewest of the decade. According to the Ministry of Labour, immigrants' unemployment rate at the end of the year averaged 47 per cent. For Bosnians it was 92, for Iraqis 89, for Vietnamese 76 and for Somalis 75 per cent.
The figures are from the 1998 integration bill, which used them to justify the law. They are the baseline against which later employment figures can be read.
Hallituksen esitys 66/1998 vp, luku 3.2, EdilexIn 1997 the Directorate of Immigration decided 742 asylum cases. Four people were granted asylum, 16 a residence permit on grounds of need for protection and 231 on humanitarian grounds. In 1995 to 1998 asylum in the strict sense was granted to 4, 11, 4 and 7 applicants a year.
The figures are from the table in the government's 2002 Aliens Act bill. They show that in the late 1990s people stayed almost entirely on humanitarian permits, not on refugee status.
Hallituksen esitys 265/2002 vp, taulukko 3, lähde Ulkomaalaisvirasto, EdilexOn 16 October 1997 the government adopted its immigration and refugee policy programme, the first of its kind. According to it "quickly adopting the language and the rules of society is a precondition for succeeding in Finland". The programme proposed raising the refugee quota by one hundred a year up to a quota of one thousand.
The quota was still 500 in 1997. In 2019 Rinne's government promised to raise it to at least 850, and in 2023 it was 1,050. In June of that year the next government cut it to 500.
Hallituksen esitys 66/1998 vp, luvut 1 ja 5.1, Edilex, siteeraten ohjelmaa464 relatives of refugees were received through family reunification, the most of the decade. In 1999 the figure was 155.
Public debate assumed family reunification would keep growing. In the Ministry of Labour's series it peaked in this very year.
Pentikäinen, Loputon matka, Työpoliittinen tutkimus 274 (2005), taulukko 1, lähde työministeriöThe government submitted the integration bill. According to it "at the end of 1997 about 80,600 people, about 1.5 per cent of Finland's population, were foreign citizens. The corresponding figure at the start of 1990 was about 0.4 per cent." The refugee population was about 15,500. Those who had come through the work permit procedure were estimated at under 10,000.
The 1998 budget had provided for 600 quota refugees and 500 family members. In the event 308 quota refugees were received.
Hallituksen esitys 66/1998 vp, luvut 3.1 ja 5.1, EdilexThe same bill admitted the problems of reception: "The average length of accommodation is over a year." About one asylum seeker in ten was detained, and detention took place in facilities intended for criminal suspects, "although under international agreements this should not be done".
In December 1997 there were 11 reception centres with 1,250 places. In 2015 there were eventually about 140 centres. What reception costs today is collected under the costs of reception.
Hallituksen esitys 66/1998 vp, luvut 2.2 ja 3.8, EdilexThe Act on the Integration of Immigrants and Reception of Asylum Seekers (493/1999) entered into force on 1 May 1999. Integration had a law of its own for the first time.
The act tied support to obligations. For the first three years labour market support was paid only as integration support, and the basic amount of income support could be cut by 20 per cent if an immigrant refused an integration plan, and by 40 per cent for repeated refusal. That structure is still the basis of integration support. What integration costs and how far it reaches is under the cost of integration.
Laki maahanmuuttajien kotouttamisesta 493/1999, FinlexOn 23 April 1999 Finland announced it would receive a thousand evacuees from Kosovo within two weeks. Five hundred came in the first week, 164 of them to the Joutseno reception centre. According to the Ministry of Labour some of the arrivals were in poor health.
The UN refugee agency put the reception request to Finland the same day. The same spring also brought Finland more than a thousand asylum applications from Slovak Roma.
Yle 23.4.1999, Suomeen tuhat Kosovon pakolaistaThere were 4,410 Somali citizens living in Finland at the end of the year, almost a thousand fewer than a year earlier. Somali speakers, however, numbered 6,251, more than ever. The gap is explained by 1,208 Somalis receiving Finnish citizenship this year and 476 the year before, as the first arrivals of the early 1990s met the residence requirement.
From here on the citizenship statistics show a different picture from the language statistics. Every later claim about the number of Somalis depends on which figure is used.
Tilastokeskus, väestörakenne ja Suomen kansalaisuuden saaneet, StatFin 11rg, 11rl ja 11l3In July 1999 Finland imposed a visa requirement on Slovak citizens after about 1,100 asylum applications from Roma from that country. Yle reported on 8 July 1999 that dozens were already returning home.
There were 1,516 Slovak applicants in 1999. In 2001 there were 88. The visa requirement lapsed when Slovakia joined the EU on 1 May 2004.
Yle 8.7.1999, ja hallituksen esitys 15/2000 vpEVA's long population question begins in spring 1999, and it begins at the floor of its own series. The claim that an ageing and shrinking population requires making it easier for foreigners to move here was accepted by 18 per cent and rejected by 61. It is from this level that the 29-point shift EVA referred to in 2021 is measured.
EVAn Arvopankki, osuus laskettu vastausjakauman lukumääristä. Arvopankki julkaisee painottamattomat vastausmäärät, joten osuus voi poiketa prosenttiyksikön tai kaksi EVAn omista painotetuista julkaisuluvuista · EVAn Arvo- ja asennetutkimus, kevät 1999, n = 2 186An accelerated asylum procedure was enacted in the summer of 2000. An application from a safe country of origin had to be decided within seven days. The bill recorded that 3,106 asylum applications were made in 1999, of which 1,516 came from Slovakia, and that 29 people were granted asylum.
In 2001 there were 88 applicants from Slovakia and three from Poland. The 2003 Aliens Act bill concluded that the law's aim had been well achieved.
Hallituksen esitys 15/2000 vp, EdilexOur historical ethnic minorities and immigrants bring Finland language skills, cultural competence and other resources that we have so far learned to use for the common good only on a very small scale. Reporting that makes it possible to condemn a whole ethnic group, or to brand all immigrants as criminals and benefit abusers, must always be avoided.
A speech at the European Cultural Foundation seminar on immigrants between two cultures, a year after the Slovak Roma asylum row. In the same speech the president noted that the foreign-citizen share of 1.8 per cent was the lowest in Western Europe.
Tasavallan presidentin kanslia, presidentti Halosen puheet: Euroopan kulttuurisäätiön seminaari 31.10.2000Statistics Finland's population projection of 1 October 2001 stated: "Annual net migration has been assumed at 5,000 people." It projected the population to grow until 2023 and to decline after that.
Realized net migration in 2001 was 5,802 and exceeded the assumption every year after that. From 2007 on it was more than double the assumption. The assumption applied to the whole projection period, not to a single year.
Tilastokeskus, väestöennuste 2001, tiedote 1.10.2001The transitional periods must be flexible, and their possible shortening can be considered on a tripartite basis in due course.
A transitional period meant the right to keep workers from the new EU countries out of the labour market for up to seven years after accession. Finland applied one when Estonia and Poland joined in 2004 and dropped it on 1 May 2006. SAK backed the restriction but warned that it is circumvented by sending workers as service providers. That was exactly the reason the Minister of Labour Filatov gave five years later for abandoning it.
SAK, tiedote 27.4.2001A society growing multicultural is a richness and an opportunity. It requires tolerance and openness to interaction. New cultures need not take anything away from Finnishness, they can widen the room to live and act.
A speech at the Academy of Finland seminar on Finland in a multicultural world, two weeks after the 11 September attacks. The president observed that although the shrinking labour force had put the need for immigrants on the agenda, they were still felt to be a threat.
Tasavallan presidentin kanslia, presidentti Halosen puheet: Suomen Akatemian seminaari 27.9.2001On 1 November 2002 the government submitted a bill for a new Nationality Act. Under it "a Finnish citizen would retain their citizenship even if they acquired the citizenship of a foreign state by application or in a comparable way". At the same time naturalisation would as a rule require six years of residence instead of the previous five.
The bill noted that it had earlier been thought undesirable for Finland to acquire minorities holding the citizenship of two states. The act took effect on 1 June 2003. There were 18,041 dual citizens at the end of 2002 and 197,944 at the end of 2025. The residence period was cut to five years in 2011 and raised to eight in 2024.
Hallituksen esitys 235/2002 vp, Edilex, ja Tilastokeskus, väestörakenneOn 20 December 2002 Paavo Lipponen's second government submitted a bill for a complete reform of the Aliens Act. Its justification stated: "The number of foreigners residing in Finland has risen in ten years from about 25,000 at the start of the 1990s to over 100,000." Long processing times were described as a problem that showed up in complaints to the Parliamentary Ombudsman.
The bill lapsed when parliament ended its work before the March 2003 election. The next government resubmitted it in June 2003, and the act took effect on 1 May 2004. Parliament had called for the complete reform as early as 1998.
Hallituksen esitys 265/2002 vp, Edilex, ja hallituksen esitys 28/2003 vpInterior Minister Ville Itälä is pressing for an official immigration policy to be created for Finland. According to Itälä, who spoke at the Council of Europe ministerial meeting on Monday, foreign labour will be needed in the care sector within the next few years.
Yle's report from the Council of Europe migration ministers' meeting in Helsinki. In the same report Johannes Koroma of the employers' confederation TT said it was high time to decide on Finland's immigration policy. The new Aliens Act was being drafted.
Yle Uutiset 17.9.2002: Siirtolaiskokous korosti yhteistyötäThe programme of Matti Vanhanen's first government of 24 June 2003 promised: "Where the dependency ratio so requires, the government will promote a work-based immigration policy." It also promised a flexible transitional period at EU enlargement and a separate immigration policy programme.
All three were delivered on schedule: the Aliens Act 301/2004, the transitional act 309/2004 and the immigration policy programme of 19 October 2006. How the ground for entry shows in employment two decades later is under grounds for entry.
Pääministeri Matti Vanhasen hallituksen ohjelma 24.6.2003, valtioneuvoston julkaisuarkistoStatistics Finland reported on the Ministry of Labour's Työvoima 2020 forecast in September 2003: "When the labour outflow exceeds the inflow to the labour market by a good 10,000 people a year at the end of this decade, the annual difference rises to nearly 20,000 in the next decade."
The same article warned: "There is a risk that we will have a large number of unemployed people and a large labour shortage at the same time." The working-age population began to fall around 2010, but after the 2009 recession unemployment did not fall durably and the labour shortage was widely discussed only in the 2020s.
Tilastokeskus, Tietoaika 9.9.2003, työmarkkinaneuvos Matti SihtoFinland cannot have an immigrant and migration policy that departs from our population policy. These must be woven into our general population policy.
The party won three seats. Its leading vote-getter Tony Halme took 16,390 votes in Helsinki, five times what the party chair Timo Soini had guessed before the election.
Perussuomalaisten eduskuntavaaliohjelma 2003, ja Yle Elävä arkistoImmigrants are a richness for Finland. Finland needs a clear immigration policy that separates refuge from work-based immigration.
The programme for the March 2003 parliamentary election. It called for work-based immigration to be made easier. The government's bill for a new Aliens Act was tabled in June.
Vihreän liiton eduskuntavaaliohjelma 2003, Pohtiva-arkistoThe new Aliens Act (301/2004) entered into force on 1 May 2004, the day Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland joined the EU. Finland kept transitional restrictions on workers from those countries until May 2006.
Ulkomaalaislaki 301/2004, FinlexMigration forecasts for the enlargement were described the same year: "Estonia would then send 15,000 people a year to Finland and the other current candidate countries 1,000 a year in total." Lower estimates put migration from Estonia at 4,000 to 5,000 a year.
There were 14,000 Estonian citizens living in Finland at the end of 2004 and 25,510 at the end of 2009. The increase was 2,000 to 3,000 a year, the level of the lower estimates.
Elli Heikkilä ja Taru Järvinen, Talous & Yhteiskunta 1/2004The Family Federation of Finland's population policy programme set an annual net migration target of 7,000 people. It proposed that Finland move to active immigration.
The target was exceeded every year from 2005 on. The figures put forward ten years later were five times as large.
Väestöliitto, Väestöpoliittinen ohjelma 2004, lainattuna teoksessa Olemme muuttaneet 2005In Soini's view the act must include a real fast-track deportation procedure for manifestly unfounded asylum applications, as is already in use in many other EU countries.
Parliament was finalising the new Aliens Act and had just rejected faster fast-track deportations. In the same report Suvi-Anne Siimes of the Left Alliance demanded that applications continue to be handled individually.
Yle Uutiset 27.3.2004: Turvapaikkahakemusten käsittelyajoista erimielisyyttäForeigners working in Finland are not a cost to society, nor do they create any particular competitive threat to Finns
A speech at the industry days in Raisio two days before EU enlargement and the entry into force of the new Aliens Act. Employers opposed the two-year transition period imposed on workers from the new member states.
Yle Uutiset 29.4.2004: TT: Ulkomaista työvoimaa tarvitaanWhether it is because of a generous reception system with high daily allowances or something else, asylum shopping must be curbed by joint effort in the EU.
Rajamäki said about 70 per cent of applicants in July 2005 were unfounded. There were 3,574 asylum seekers in 2005 and only 1,505 in 2007. The cash income support was replaced by a reception allowance only in 2011.
MTV3 21.8.2005, Sunnuntaisuomalaisen haastatteluI see no obstacle to increasing the number received. Most immigration, though, takes place on other grounds, and it must be looked at within the common rules of the EU countries.
An interview in the centenary issue of the church weekly Kotimaa, asked whether Finland could take more refugees. Given weeks after the French suburb riots.
Kotimaa 2.12.2005, tasavallan presidentin kanslian arkisto (presidentti Halosen puheet ja haastattelut)Finland did not at the time apply a transitional period to services but does apply one to the movement of labour. This has led to work being disguised as services.
The labour market organisations and the state agreed the same day not to extend the transitional period for workers from the new EU countries. The restrictions ended on 1 May 2006. There were 17,599 Estonian citizens in Finland at the end of 2006 and 25,510 three years later.
Yle 10.2.2006On 19 October 2006 the government adopted its first immigration policy programme as a resolution. The programme set out that Finland should make its attractions better known, simplify the residence permit system for workers and increase the number of foreign students.
The programme was written in anticipation of a labour shortage. Three years later its successor was found partly premature because of the recession, and the residence permit reform was postponed.
Hallituksen maahanmuuttopoliittinen ohjelma 19.10.2006, siteerattuna työvoiman maahanmuuton toimenpideohjelmassa 2009Researchers at the Migration Institute pointed out that people coming temporarily for work do not enter the migration statistics at all. As an example they noted that 12,000 Estonian construction workers worked in Finland in 2006.
There were 17,599 Estonian citizens resident in Finland at the end of the same year. The gap shows how much labour mobility falls outside the statistics.
Heikkilä ja Pikkarainen, Väestön ja työvoiman kansainvälistyminen nyt ja tulevaisuudessa, Siirtolaisuusinstituutti 20081,300 asylum seekers vanished without trace from our reception centres in 2005 alone.
The programme demanded fast-track removal of unfounded applicants. The party took 4.1 per cent and five seats in the 2007 election.
Perussuomalaisten eduskuntavaaliohjelma 2007, PohtivaThe programme of Matti Vanhanen's second government of 19 April 2007 promised two things: "The Directorate of Immigration will be renamed the Finnish Immigration Service" and "Labour market testing will be phased out."
The agency was renamed on 1 January 2008. Labour market testing is still in force in 2026, so that promise has been open for almost two decades.
Pääministeri Matti Vanhasen II hallituksen ohjelma 19.4.2007, valtioneuvoston julkaisuarkistoThe Ministry of Labour's Työvoima 2025 report used an annual net migration of 7,500 in its calculations. The Ministry of Employment and the Economy's own report noted a year later that net migration in 2007 was almost 13,000.
The realized figure was 13,586. The report concluded that immigration can offset the fall in the labour force only if both net migration grows substantially and immigrants' labour force participation rises.
TEM analyyseja 2/2008, Kai Torvi, Maahanmuutto vastauksena työvoiman saatavuuteenFinland is slowly beginning to understand that immigration can be a good thing for Finnish society.
The programme's opening sentence in the year of the labour-shortage debate. That spring the country's first migration minister, Astrid Thors, told Yle that Finland needed at least 10,000 new workers a year from abroad.
Vihreä liitto: Maahanmuuttajat töissä Suomessa, tarvitsemme uutta maahanmuuttopolitiikkaa (2007), Pohtiva-arkistoIn immigration policy the Finns Party Youth support the principle "in the country, the country's way". We see the cultivation of multiculturalism at the expense of our own Finnish and Western culture as short-sighted.
The party paper's election issue. The author stood in the election and entered parliament in 2011. The party won 4.1 per cent and five seats in March 2007.
PerusSuomalainen 1/2007, Itsenäisesti ajattelevat: Perussuomalaiset Nuoret, s. 12The last wave of Jaakkola's series, and its permissive extreme on labour migration. Only one in four would now have admitted fewer foreign job-seekers, and more people would have admitted more than fewer. On refugees the change was smaller: 27 per cent would have admitted more.
Magdalena Jaakkola, Maahanmuuttajat suomalaisten näkökulmasta, Helsingin kaupungin tietokeskus 1/2009The Directorate of Immigration was renamed the Finnish Immigration Service on 1 January 2008.
Leitzinger (toim.) 2010, Mansikkamaan vartijat, s. liite s. 186, lainaa: asetus 1104/2007In the October municipal elections the Finns Party increased its support more than any other party. Statistics Finland put its support at 5.4 per cent, 4.5 percentage points more than in the previous municipal elections, on 137,758 votes.
Three years later the party took 19.1 per cent in the parliamentary election. By then immigration had become an election theme for the first time.
Tilastokeskus, kunnallisvaalit 2008, vahvistettu tulosThe word maahanmuuttokriittinen, immigration-critical, became established in public language around 2008. It was introduced by the people it describes, and the media adopted it after the 2008 municipal elections.
In December 2017 some newsrooms briefly switched to the word anti-immigration and went back to the old one in 2018. Which word is chosen has itself been contested throughout.
Jarkko S. Tuusvuori, niin & näin 3/2018, Takapakkia maahanmuuttajavastaisuuden käsittelyssäSince the purpose of refuge is not economic migration and staying in Finland but returning to the country of origin, residence in a wholly foreign culture is apt to create frustration and various side effects that often cause insecurity for the native population.
Adopted by the party council in Järvenpää for the October 2008 municipal elections, in which the Finns Party rose to 5.4 per cent and Jussi Halla-aho was elected to Helsinki city council.
Perussuomalaisten kunnallisvaaliohjelma 2008, luku 10.4, Pohtiva-arkistoIntegration is a precondition for the growth of immigration. Learning the language has an important role in the integration process, but it cannot be made a binding obligation.
The informal meeting of EU justice and home affairs ministers in Cannes, where France presented its immigration pact. The minister rejected a binding language requirement.
Yle Uutiset 7.7.2008: Thors korostaa maahanmuuttajien kotouttamisen tärkeyttäThere were 5,988 asylum seekers, the most up to then. Total reception costs were about 84 million euros, against about 33 million the year before.
The number fell the next year and stayed at a little over three thousand until 2014. In 2015 there were 32,476 applicants. How many applications lead to protection is under the need for protection and recognition rates.
Hallituksen esitys 266/2010 vp, FinlexOn 5 November 2009 the government adopted an action programme on labour immigration. It stated that "the supply of labour will start to contract rapidly early in the next decade, so a labour shortage lies ahead once the current recession has passed". It also noted that the number of foreign workers needed cannot be derived directly from forecasts.
After the recession unemployment did not fall durably, and the wide debate on a labour shortage began only in the 2020s. The programme set no annual target.
Työvoiman maahanmuuton toimenpideohjelma, valtioneuvoston periaatepäätös 5.11.2009On 8 September 2009 the Helsinki District Court fined MP Jussi Halla-aho 30 day-fines for breaching the sanctity of religion. The charge of ethnic agitation was dismissed. The court of appeal upheld the judgment in 2010.
The Supreme Court changed the outcome in 2012 and convicted him of ethnic agitation as well.
Yle 8.9.2009Magdalena Jaakkola's series of attitude studies was published as a whole. According to them, in 1993 six out of ten Finns would have admitted fewer foreign job-seekers than at the time. By 2007 only one in four thought so, and more people would have admitted more than fewer.
The series began in 1987 and asked the same questions five times. Opinion on refugees moved differently: those wanting to admit more stood at 41 per cent in 1987, 20 per cent in 1993 and 27 per cent in 2007.
Magdalena Jaakkola, Maahanmuuttajat suomalaisten näkökulmasta, Helsingin kaupungin tietokeskus 1/2009Active support for work-based immigration could be invested in the same way as the promotion of Finnish exports of goods and services.
The report opened by noting that only a year earlier the talk had been of a labour shortage and now it was of unemployment. The proposed state recruitment organisation later took shape as the Talent Boost programme.
EVA, Jaakko Pehkonen, Pulaa työstä ja työvoimasta 9.6.2009A Coalition Party working group proposed in May 2009 that age testing be written into law, that family reunification be limited to the nuclear family and that unfounded applications be reduced.
Age testing entered the Aliens Act on 1 August 2010. The limitation of family reunification to the nuclear family was not carried out then.
Kokoomus, Realismia turvapaikkapolitiikkaan, resursseja kotoutumiseen, 15.5.2009All the old Finnish parties and the Greens support, without restraint, a sharp increase in immigration in the name of a so-called labour shortage. The Finns Party supports a nationally responsible immigration policy whose starting point is the principle "in the country, the country's way", a principle that also includes an active will to find work.
The programme for the June 2009 European election, in which Timo Soini won 130,432 votes after leaving Halla-aho off the list.
Perussuomalaisten EU-vaaliohjelma 2009, luku Maassa maan tavalla, Pohtiva-arkistoBad immigration is not a force of nature. It is a political choice.
The manifesto demanded among other things an end to cash income support in reception centres and a conditional citizenship. A reception allowance replaced income support in 2011 and the residence requirement for citizenship rose to eight years in 2024. The signatories later included the party's chair, a Speaker of Parliament and ministers.
Nuiva vaalimanifesti 2010, teksti kokonaisuudessaan Anssi Joutsenlahden blogissa 25.11.2010A joint forecast by Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa in March 2010 estimated that the foreign-language population of the Helsinki region would grow from 100,000 to 250,000, and its share to 15 per cent, by 2030. In Helsinki the share was then 9.6 per cent.
Three years later the same cities raised the 2030 estimate to nearly 300,000. The forecast was already too low before 2015.
Helsingin kaupungin tietokeskus, Vieraskielisen väestön ennuste Helsingin seudulla 2010–2030An amendment to the Aliens Act took effect on 1 August 2010. Age assessment by forensic examination was written into law, and family reunification for a person granted international protection now required sufficient income if the family had been formed only after arrival in Finland.
More than 2,000 family-tie applications were lodged in 2011 and slightly under 600 a year in 2012 and 2013.
Hallituksen esitys 240/2009 vp, ja Maahanmuuton ja kotouttamisen suunta 2011–2014Yle's MOT programme The Price of Immigration reported in December 2010 that about 5,000 new family members were expected in Finland that year, mainly from Somalia and Iraq.
Family-tie applications from people granted protection collapsed after that year's amendment, from over two thousand to under six hundred a year.
Yle MOT, Maahanmuuton hinta, 2010But if the pull factor is that we have a fair processing system, then that is a factor I do not want to give up.
An interview on Yle's morning programme after the record asylum year of 2009 and threats against the minister. She called for broad condemnation of hate speech and described Finnish racism as refined.
Yle Uutiset 10.4.2010: Thors: Suomalainen rasismi muuttanut muotoaanThe programme of Jyrki Katainen's government of 22 June 2011 stated: "Immigrants are a permanent and welcome part of Finnish society." It set the aim of raising immigrants' employment rate and halving their unemployment.
The government's own review in January 2015 reported that foreigners' unemployment rate had varied between 25 and 30 per cent in 2008 to 2013 and stood at 28.6 per cent at the end of 2013. Unemployment was not halved.
Pääministeri Jyrki Kataisen hallituksen ohjelma 22.6.2011, ja Maahanmuuton ja kotouttamisen suunta 2011–2014In the parliamentary election the Finns Party took 19.1 per cent of the vote and 39 seats. Its support grew by 15.0 percentage points on 560,075 votes.
The party's support was 17.7 per cent in 2015, 17.5 per cent in 2019 and 20.1 per cent in 2023.
Tilastokeskus, eduskuntavaalit 2011, vahvistettu tulosIn the coming years we will need immigrants as labour, as our population ages and the number entering working life shrinks. Immigrants bring with them varied human, social and cultural capital, language skills included.
The programme, titled Work is the best integrator, was published six weeks before the election and opened under the heading Difference is richness. The party's chair Päivi Räsänen became interior minister after the election.
Kristillisdemokraattien maahanmuuttopoliittinen ohjelma 3.3.2011, Pohtiva-arkistoImmigration without work comes expensive for Finland.
The programme's chapter on immigration policy argued that most asylum seekers move for economic reasons. The party won 39 seats in the April election.
Perussuomalaisten eduskuntavaaliohjelma 2011, luku 9.2, Pohtiva-arkistoIn the spring of the Finns Party's election win, EVA's series was at its post-financial-crisis floor. Easing immigration for demographic reasons was supported by 25 per cent and rejected by 56, the sharpest rejection in the series since 1999. Ten years later the same figures were 48 and 34.
EVAn Arvopankki, osuus laskettu vastausjakauman lukumääristä. Arvopankki julkaisee painottamattomat vastausmäärät, joten osuus voi poiketa prosenttiyksikön tai kaksi EVAn omista painotetuista julkaisuluvuista · EVAn Arvo- ja asennetutkimus, kevät 2011, n = 1 912On 8 June 2012 the Supreme Court also convicted Jussi Halla-aho of ethnic agitation. Its reasoning held that the claims in the text "are apt to arouse intolerance, contempt and possibly even hatred towards the group they target". The fine rose from 30 to 50 day-fines.
The ruling is still the precedent on where the limit of political speech runs. The person convicted became his party's chair in 2017 and Speaker of Parliament in 2023.
Korkein oikeus KKO:2012:58, 8.6.2012, perustelut lainattuna Kansan Uutiset 12.6.2012Statistics Finland's population projection of 28 September 2012 stated: "Annual net migration has been assumed at 17,000 people in the projection." It put the population in 2060 at about 6.23 million.
That is the highest figure any Statistics Finland projection has given for 2060. Six years later the same office projected the population to start falling as early as 2035.
Tilastokeskus, väestöennuste 2012, tiedote 28.9.2012A Green municipality is open and welcomes people of all kinds. We make use of the opportunities of multiculturalism, support the integration of immigrants and take enthusiasm from subcultures.
The programme for the October 2012 municipal elections, chapter What a Green municipality is like.
Vihreän liiton kunnallisvaaliohjelma 2012, Pohtiva-arkistoSince some of Finland's Somalis who have been granted refugee status or subsidiary protection holiday in Somalia, they can no longer be considered to need the protection Finland offers
A written question demanding that Somalis' protection status be reassessed as Mogadishu calmed. Pekka Haavisto replied the same day that it was still too early to say whether peace had really been reached.
MTV Uutiset 22.8.2012: Halla-aho: Somalialaiset lomailevat entisessä kotimaassaan, pakolaisasema poisEVA's Values and Attitudes survey found the hardening of immigration attitudes had stopped. Because of an ageing population, 32 per cent would have made immigration easier, and 46 per cent thought immigration enriches the culture. One in two, 51 per cent, considered Finns' reserve towards foreigners wise.
EVA Analyysi Ovi raottuu – suomalaisten maahanmuuttoasenteet 2012, Ilkka Haavisto 8.5.2012On 13 June 2013 the government adopted the strategy Maahanmuuton tulevaisuus 2020. Its vision opened with the sentence "Immigration is anticipated and managed". The strategy's own chart estimated 345,300 foreign citizens in 2020 and 525,300 in 2030.
There were 278,917 foreign citizens at the end of 2020, about 66,000 fewer than estimated. At the end of 2025 there were 432,654. The year 2015 came two years after the strategy.
Valtioneuvoston periaatepäätös Maahanmuuton tulevaisuus 2020 -strategiasta 13.6.2013, ja Tilastokeskus, väestörakenneHelsinki, Espoo and Vantaa updated their forecast for the foreign-language population in February 2013. In Helsinki the number was projected to grow from 68,000 to 146,000 by 2030 and the share from just under 12 per cent to 21 per cent.
Three years earlier the same cities had estimated 250,000 for the whole region in 2030. Now the estimate was raised to nearly 300,000.
Yle 12.2.2013, Helsingin, Espoon ja Vantaan tilasto- ja tutkimusyksikötThe problem is that these people do not have the kind of capacities for entering the labour market that post-industrial countries like Finland, Sweden and the countries of Western Europe require
Halla-aho and Vesa-Matti Saarakkala opposed taking Syrian refugees to Finland. Petteri Orpo of the National Coalition called the stance complete indifference.
Verkkouutiset 23.9.2013: Orpo: Halla-aho ja Saarakkala täydellisen piittaamattomiaIt is in everyone's interest that each person finds their place in Finland. Immigrants' skills must be put to use, their particular needs must be met, and more and more must be invested in integration
A blog post on the Maahanmuutto 2020 strategy the government adopted the same day. The minister called immigration an opportunity Finland cannot leave unused.
Verkkouutiset 13.6.2013: Hautala: Maahanmuutto on mahdollisuus, jota emme voi jättää käyttämättäIn a poll TNS Gallup ran for Helsingin Sanomat (n = 1,002), 52 per cent thought immigration must be restricted for as long as Finland has unemployment. Two years earlier the share was 45. Those fully agreeing that anyone who wants to come should be allowed to were 17 per cent, against 26 in 2011. Taking more immigrants was opposed by 44 per cent, the same share as in 2011.
HS-gallup, TNS Gallup, uutisointi Yle 21.9.2013The Confederation of Finnish Industries reported in January 2014 that 32,000 foreign employees worked in its member companies at the end of 2013, a third more than in 2011. One member company in ten expected to increase their number.
This is the baseline against which the organisation's 2020s targets can be read. In 2023 it proposed 40,000 work-based residence permits a year and in 2026 at least a net 45,000 immigrants coming into work.
Elinkeinoelämän keskusliitto 24.1.2014Integration into society is a lofty aim into which hundreds of millions of euros are pumped through various channels without even asking whether they do any good. What is being maintained is a large official apparatus and the illusion that immigrants can be integrated into society as future taxpayers and labour
A demand to audit every form of immigration support after Pia Kauma of the National Coalition had raised the Espoo pram controversy.
Verkkouutiset 2.9.2014: Perussuomalaiset vaatii maahanmuuton eri tukimuotojen selvittämistäThe central aim of the action programme is to raise the employment rate of immigrants. Finland needs immigrants' labour, new innovations and international networks
The launch of the action programme of the government's Maahanmuuton tulevaisuus 2020 strategy.
Verkkouutiset 14.3.2014: Suomi tarvitsee maahanmuuttajien työpanostaThere has been talk in the media of a street gang, or of a single gang committing crimes in Helsinki. That is not true. There are no street gangs in Helsinki or in Finland.
The media had reported a group of more than 50 young people robbing and assaulting other young people in Helsinki, and according to the police these were loosely connected groups of friends. What is known about street gangs now is collected in the knowledge base section Street gangs.
Yle 10.10.2014, Poliisi: Helsingissä ei ole katujengiä, eikä rikosaallon taustalla ole yksittäinen jengiThe programme of Juha Sipilä's government of 29 May 2015 promised: "An independent study will be prepared on the costs and effects of immigration in our society, enabling a fact-based debate and better integration policy and decision-making." It also promised tuition fees for students from outside the EU and EEA.
The study was made by the Ministry of Finance itself and was completed on 22 December 2017. Tuition fees took effect on 1 August 2017. The programme was written four months before the number of asylum seekers rose tenfold.
Ratkaisujen Suomi, pääministeri Juha Sipilän hallituksen strateginen ohjelma 29.5.2015On 29 January 2015 the business think tank EVA published the analysis Tulevaisuuden tekijät, which said Finland needs 34,000 net immigrants a year, up from a level of about 18,000, because the working-age population is shrinking.
Total net migration in 2015 was 12,441. The figure of 34,000 was first exceeded in 2022.
EVA-analyysi Tulevaisuuden tekijät 29.1.2015, Myrskylä ja PyykkönenAbout 32,500 asylum seekers arrived in Finland, almost 29,000 more than the year before. The Finnish Immigration Service's figure is 32,476, of whom 20,484 were Iraqi citizens.
Tilastokeskus, Tieto&trendit 26.1.2016 · Maahanmuuttovirasto, tilastopalveluSea rescue operations are a direct transfer of income to people smugglers.
In the same broadcast he estimated that two hundred thousand people a year come to Europe. The interview was three months before the number of asylum seekers in Finland rose tenfold.
Yle 21.5.2015, Halla-aho A-studiossaI hope this becomes some kind of popular movement that voluntarily bears the burden of housing asylum seekers.
Sipilä announced live that he would give his Kempele home to asylum seekers at the turn of the year. In the same interview: "I appeal: what is needed now is caring."
Yle 5.9.2015, Sipilä: Annan kotini turvapaikanhakijalleWell under half of the asylum seekers will be granted asylum.
Orpo said it was impossible to judge whether the figure was 30 or 40 per cent. According to the Ministry of Finance's report, about a fifth of the 2015 applications led to permission to stay at first instance. In October 2015 the ministry had cut its forecast for the year from 50,000 to between 30,000 and 35,000, and the final figure was 32,476.
Kaleva 11.11.2015, ja Yle 14.10.2015From the centres they will be returned efficiently to their home countries, either voluntarily or by force. This of course also requires return agreements, which are being negotiated intensively with Iraq among others.
No agreement with Iraq was reached. Iraq's migration ministry announced in January 2017 that it would not agree to any deal on involuntary returns.
Yle 3.12.2015, ja Yle 16.1.2017When the new people entering the labour market start to grow the economy, we will understand: a new Nokia was given to us as a gift from abroad. It is a lottery win to get more child-bearers to Finland.
The column appeared three weeks after the number of asylum seekers began to increase tenfold. About one in five of the 2015 applicants was allowed to stay.
Helsingin Sanomat 10.9.2015Finland's short-term objective is to cut off the uncontrolled flow of asylum seekers into our country, bring asylum costs under control and integrate effectively those granted asylum.
The programme's first sentence, three months after the Ykkösaamu interview. The programme removed humanitarian protection from the law, made family reunification harder and shortened appeal periods.
Valtioneuvosto, Hallituksen turvapaikkapoliittinen toimenpideohjelma 8.12.2015, s. 1In a poll Taloustutkimus ran for Yle (n = 1,001, October 2015), 51 per cent believed that most of the asylum seekers who stay would remain unemployed and live on benefits, while 31 per cent disagreed. In the same poll 65 per cent held that asylum seekers are not a threat to Finnish culture and identity. As a threat they were seen by 26 per cent.
Taloustutkimus Ylelle 6.10.2015, 1 001 haastateltuaNet migration is immigration minus emigration across all countries of birth, and it does not distinguish the grounds for entry.
The same scale in every year.
The offer stands. I have asked security experts to assess whether it is safe for a family with children to move there. Because of the great publicity, the assessment is that it is not sensible now.
No asylum seekers ever moved into the Kempele house. Sipilä sold it in March 2016. In 2019 he said the security authorities had judged that the family would face hostility in Finland.
Keskisuomalainen, tammikuu 2016 · Kaleva 27.1.2019In February 2016 the Finns Party estimated that if the approval rate stayed at the previous year's level, 17,500 Iraqis would receive a residence permit. Päivi Nerg, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of the Interior, replied that applications would lapse and that a large share of applicants would be returned as Dublin cases.
The Finnish Immigration Service made 28,200 asylum decisions in 2016, of which about 27 per cent were positive. For Iraqis the share was 18 per cent.
Yle 12.2.2016, ja Uusi Suomi 11.1.2017On 17 May 2016 the Finnish Immigration Service announced it would stop granting humanitarian protection and issued new country guidelines on Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia. According to the agency, people could be returned to those countries regardless of which part of the country they came from.
Humanitarian protection had been removed from the Aliens Act by an amendment the same spring. It had been granted 119 times in 2015. The share of positive asylum decisions fell from about 60 per cent in the second half of 2015 to about 30 per cent in the second half of 2016.
Yle 18.5.2016, ja Politiikasta 4.12.2020The income requirement for family reunification was extended on 1 July 2016 to the family members of people granted international protection. During preparation it was reported that, for example, the parents of a family with two children would have to earn a combined 2,600 euros a month net.
In 2019 Rinne's government promised to stop applying the requirement to minors acting as sponsors. According to the Ministry of Finance's report there were then about a thousand positive family reunification decisions a year. Employment and income for those who came on family grounds are under grounds for entry.
Laki ulkomaalaislain muuttamisesta 505/2016, Finlex, ja Yle 2.12.2015You may come to Finland to work, but not to loaf. In this employment situation Finland needs no extra labour beyond highly educated people in the rarer fields.
A governing-party MP defending the bill that cut refugees' integration allowance by about a tenth, part of the post-2015 package to reduce Finland's pull factors.
Eduskunnan täysistunnon pöytäkirja PTK 94/2016 vp, asiakohta 9, 4.10.2016The day before yesterday Barcelona, yesterday Turku. We are no longer an island.
Ten people were stabbed in Turku on 18 August 2017 and two of them died. The perpetrator had arrived as an asylum seeker in the spring of 2016 and had a negative decision under appeal. He was sentenced to life on 15 June 2018 in Finland's first conviction for a terrorist offence.
Verkkouutiset 19.8.2017, pääministerin ja sisäministerin tiedotustilaisuusOn 22 December 2017 the Ministry of Finance published a report on the costs of asylum seekers. Its conclusion was: "In an annual budget of over 55 billion euros, a phenomenon limited to hundreds of millions still has only a marginal effect."
The report was the independent assessment promised in the government programme, made by the ministry itself. It is still the official benchmark for cost figures put forward in public.
Valtiovarainministeriö, Turvapaikanhakijat, mitä tiedämme kustannuksista, 22.12.2017The countries are not willing to send the necessary documents very quickly.
Risikko said there were 11,000 people with negative decisions in reception centres and 1,400 refusing to leave. In 2017 the police escorted 154 people to Iraq. In June 2018 Baghdad police sent three escorted returnees back to Helsinki.
Yle 22.8.2017, ja Yle 18.6.2018So in 2003 dual citizenship was not in fact ”allowed”, since it had never before been completely forbidden either.
Dual citizenship became a national talking point at the turn of January and February 2017, when the question was whether a citizen of two countries could hold posts in the defence forces and the foreign service. According to Leitzinger the media and many politicians did not understand what the concept means. The debate led to act 564/2019, in force from 1 May 2019, under which citizenship can be lost for treason, high treason or a terrorist offence. There were 197,944 dual citizens at the end of 2025.
Antero Leitzinger, Kaksoiskansalaisuus, ikiaikainen suomalainen perinne, Siirtolaisuus–Migration 1/2017, s. 56–57, ja laki 564/2019, FinlexPromoting, even attracting, the immigration of skilled people will be very important for Finland in the coming years. The population structure is turning less favourable fast, and without immigration the labour force loses 300,000 people by 2030.
Made during the debate on a residence permit for start-up entrepreneurs, seven weeks after the Turku stabbings. The speaker drew a line between work-based and humanitarian migration.
Eduskunnan täysistunnon pöytäkirja PTK 99/2017 vp, asiakohta 3, 5.10.2017Most of those on the move were there for economic reasons. Not because they were fleeing war or personal persecution.
Said on Yle's Ykkösaamu about the arrivals of 2015 and 2016. Yle checked the claim: EU countries made about two million asylum decisions in 2016 and 2017, of which more than a million were positive.
Yle 2.9.2018, Eero Mäntymaa, Analyysi: Pääministeri on väärässä, siteeraten Ylen Ykkösaamun haastatteluaThe government's immigration policy programme Töihin Suomeen of 4 January 2018 quoted a three-year-old EVA figure: "annual immigration should grow to 34,000 immigrants so that the labour force does not contract in the coming decades". The programme set no annual target of its own.
According to the programme's own figures, 5,436 work-based residence permits were granted in 2015, 5,770 in 2016 and 6,751 in 2017. Net migration in 2018 was 11,965, the lowest of the decade.
Töihin Suomeen, hallituksen maahanmuuttopoliittinen ohjelma 4.1.2018Statistics Finland's population projection of 16 November 2018 assumed net migration of 15,000 people a year. It projected the population to grow until 2035 and then decline.
The next year's projection moved the turning point forward to 2031. Six years later the assumption was raised to 40,000 and no decline was projected within the period at all.
Tilastokeskus, väestöennuste 2018, tiedote 16.11.2018Technology Industries of Finland reported on the basis of a member survey that companies in the sector need more than 53,000 new skilled people by 2021. Three in five of those needs concerned graduates.
The figure is part of a series. In 2021 the organisation put forward 130,000 skilled people over ten years and in 2022 raising net migration to 50,000 a year.
Teknologiateollisuuden jäsenkysely 2018, uutisointi ETNIn September 2018 the Finnish Immigration Service reported that the cases of a good two thousand of the 2015 asylum applicants were still pending. A few individual cases were still awaiting a first decision.
The 2015 government programme had promised that decisions and returns would be made without delay. Three years later some of the 2015 applications were still unresolved.
Yle 13.9.2018, Maahanmuuttoviraston luvutBut it is also a fact that Finland needs immigration, work-based immigration above all, and of course a very well functioning integration system.
A governing-party MP in the first reading of the new Integration Act. In the same speech he said people seeking only a better standard of living should not be admitted as asylum seekers, and closed by saying racism must be given no room.
Eduskunnan täysistunnon pöytäkirja PTK 77/2018 vp, asiakohta 6, 4.9.2018Everyone who comes here must obey Finnish law and respect the bodily integrity of every person. Those who commit crimes will be held responsible under the principles of the rule of law. Serious crimes also weigh against the granting of a permanent residence permit. The asylum system cannot protect criminals.
The statement was given after the Oulu sexual offence investigations. On 15 January 2019 the parliamentary groups agreed to expedite three bills, and they were passed before the April election.
Yle 11.1.2019In March 2019 the Finns Party told a question hour that immigration costs as much as 3.2 billion euros a year. Yle's fact check rated the claim false: officials at the Ministry of Finance called the calculation overstated and shaky in its underlying assumptions.
The ministry's own report had arrived at hundreds of millions in 2017. In the April election the Finns Party took 17.5 per cent of the vote.
Perussuomalaiset 7.3.2019, ja Ylen tarkistus 29.3.2019The programme of Antti Rinne's government of 6 June 2019 promised: "The refugee quota will be raised to at least 850 in 2020." It also set a target of an average one-month processing time for work-based residence permits.
The quota was raised and stood at 1,050 in 2023. In June of that year the next government halved it to 500.
Pääministeri Antti Rinteen hallituksen ohjelma 6.6.2019, Osallistava ja osaava SuomiOn 14 November 2019 the European Court of Human Rights found that Finland had breached the Convention by returning an Iraqi man who was reported to have been killed after his return. The state was ordered to pay compensation.
The National Bureau of Investigation opened an inquiry in 2020, and according to the Iraqi authorities the death certificate was forged. The court annulled its own judgment entirely on 13 July 2021 and rejected the application as an abuse of the right of petition.
Yle 14.11.2019, ja Yle 13.7.2021Two surveys measured attitudes in the election year. According to the Foundation for Municipal Development 47 per cent of Finns viewed immigration positively and 41 per cent negatively. In a survey by Yle and Taloustutkimus 41 per cent wanted more labour migrants, 38 per cent found the pace right and 19 per cent would slow it.
The same survey separated the types of immigration sharply. A clear majority supported admitting foreign students and EU workers, while about half would have reduced the number of refugees and asylum seekers.
Yle 9.3.2019, Kunnallisalan kehittämissäätiö, ja Yle 4.11.2019, TaloustutkimusWe will also need work-based immigration here in the future. In practice that means that if the foundation of our welfare is to be kept, there have to be the makings of growth here, and those makings come through labour, which also comes from abroad.
Answering the National Coalition's interpellation on employment policy four months after the government took office.
Eduskunnan täysistunnon pöytäkirja PTK 40/2019 vp, asiakohta 3, 1.10.2019In EVA's Values and Attitudes survey, 39 per cent held that an ageing population requires making immigration easier and 36 per cent disagreed. At the same time 52 per cent considered immigration at its current level too much. The data was collected both before and after the Oulu sexual-offence suspicions, which according to EVA's research director did not move general attitudes.
EVAn Arvo- ja asennetutkimus, EVA Analyysi Härmä sulaa, Ilkka Haavisto 18.3.2019Observations of that kind have been made, that things may be heading in that direction. But there is no need to worry yet.
According to Ahlgren street gangs were not yet very common in Finland. The fear was that more would come and that they would take up drug dealing and debt collection and take control of territory.
Yle 29.3.2019, Poliisi huolissaan: Suomessa on 800 rikollisjengien jäsentäWe must help these people and above all the children. This is a humane decision and it shows that Finland respects human rights.
Finland decided to receive at most 175 especially vulnerable asylum seekers from Greece, Cyprus, Malta and Italy. Greece had asked for 150. In the autumn of the same year Finland took 11 minors from the burnt-out camp at Moria.
Yle 22.2.2020, Sisäministeriö vahvistaa: Suomi voi ottaa 175 turvapaikanhakijaa Välimeren pakolaisleireiltäOn 22 January 2020 the Finland Chamber of Commerce proposed that the target for work- and study-based residence permits granted could initially be about 25,000 a year. About 15,000 were granted in 2019.
The figure covers residence permits, not net migration. Total net migration in 2020 was 17,814.
Keskuskauppakamari, tiedote 22.1.2020Too large a share of immigration to Finland is harmful immigration. It need not be so. The situation is the result of the wrong kind of policy. Abusing the asylum system is easy and tempting.
Second reading of a bill raising the age limit of integration services for unaccompanied minors to 25, at the end of the first pandemic spring.
Eduskunnan täysistunnon pöytäkirja PTK 98/2020 vp, asiakohta 4, 22.6.2020In EVA's measurement 40 per cent would make moving to Finland easier because of the ageing population and 35 per cent would not. Attitudes moved towards a more permissive position for the fourth consecutive wave. There were 2,060 respondents.
EVAn Arvo- ja asennetutkimus, EVA Analyysi Kansainvälisyyden kahtiajako, Ilkka Haavisto 29.7.2020The Finns Party's Jussi Halla-aho claims that Finland is “on Sweden's path” in the growth of youth violent crime. The claim is simply not true.
The debate began after Helsingin Sanomat reported on youth groups in Helsinki. The day before, Detective Superintendent Jari Taponen of the Helsinki police had judged Finland's situation to be still far from Sweden's.
Maria Ohisalo, X 11.11.2020The Chamber of Commerce's 25,000 means work- and study-based residence permits granted, not net migration. It is included because permit targets are quoted alongside net figures in public.
Net migration is immigration minus emigration across all countries of birth, and it does not distinguish the grounds for entry.
The same scale in every year.
Hybrid influencing as a practice is state-led illegal activity in which the victims are the people used as its instruments.
Said when thousands of migrants had gathered at the Belarus-Poland border. The same definition was Finland's position when the eastern border was closed in November 2023 and when the temporary act on instrumentalised entry was passed in 2024.
Yle 9.11.2021, Sisäministeri Maria Ohisalo: EU:n ei pidä taipua Valko-Venäjän painostukseenOn 9 September 2021 the Government published its roadmap for education- and work-based immigration to 2035. The aim was at least to double work-based immigration by 2030 so that the total increase of at least 50,000 work-based immigrants required by the sustainability roadmap is achieved, and after that an increase of at least 10,000 a year. The number of new foreign degree students was to be tripled to 15,000.
The total increase is a cumulative figure for 2021–2030, not an annual level, so it cannot be shown as a bar alongside the other figures. Total net migration in 2021 was 22,905.
Valtioneuvosto, Koulutus- ja työperusteisen maahanmuuton tiekartta 2035, 9.9.2021At its spending-limits session in April 2021 the government confirmed the aim of doubling work-based immigration by 2030. The goal was 10,000 work- or study-based immigrants a year.
There were 15,012 first work-based residence permit applications in 2021 and 20,960 in 2022. After that the number fell three years running: 16,999, then 15,024, then 11,324 in 2025.
Yle 29.4.2021, ja Maahanmuuttovirasto, maahanmuuton tilastotOn 19 April 2021 the Finland Chamber of Commerce proposed a target of 30,000 people moving to Finland for work or study as early as the following year, and doubling that by the end of the decade.
About 29,000 first work and study applications were filed in 2022, close to the target. In 2025 the figures were 11,324 and 13,565.
Keskuskauppakamari, tiedote 19.4.2021In October 2021 the Finns Party and Movement Now tabled an interpellation on immigration policy and the economy. It was the first interpellation on immigration in at least fifteen years. The government won the confidence vote by 89 to 68.
Between 2007 and 2018 no interpellation was tabled on immigration, even though the subject dominated election debates. The next one came in December 2022 and concerned street gang crime.
Eduskunta, äänestystulos VK 4/2021 vp, 21.10.2021Statistics Finland's population projection of 30 September 2021 stated: "The projection assumes that Finland gains 20,000 people through net migration this year and 15,000 a year after that."
In the following years realized net migration was 34,363, then 57,914, then 47,051. Three years later the assumption was raised to 40,000.
Tilastokeskus, väestöennuste 2021, tiedote 30.9.2021This much we do know: Finland unambiguously needs immigration. Humanitarian immigration rests on the fact that people are fleeing danger.
Replying to the same interpellation. The speaker added that a person who meets racism and hatred does not integrate, and that fixing the attitude costs nothing.
Eduskunnan täysistunnon pöytäkirja PTK 121/2021 vp, asiakohta 3, 20.10.2021Most of the costs of immigration arise from social security spending and services. The direct costs, such as reception or integration, are a fraction of that.
The Finns Party and Movement Now interpellation on immigration policy and the economy. The speaker said the costs were still something of a taboo in political debate.
Eduskunnan täysistunnon pöytäkirja PTK 121/2021 vp, asiakohta 3, 20.10.2021In EVA's measurement the share rose to 48 per cent, with 34 per cent disagreeing. According to EVA the attitude had moved 29 percentage points towards permitting immigration since 1998, meaning that at the start of the series about a fifth of respondents agreed.
EVAn Arvo- ja asennetutkimus, EVA Arvio Tervetuloa töihin, Sanna Kurronen 29.6.2021Unfortunately we have observed gangs of this kind. According to the National Bureau of Investigation among others, street gangs are emerging here. At the moment there are indications of fewer than ten such groups.
According to Kolehmainen some gang members had an immigrant background, but people of Finnish background were involved too. In October the Helsinki police estimated that the Helsinki region's fewer than ten street gangs held about a hundred men in their twenties in all.
MTV Uutiset 4.9.2021, Poliisiylijohtaja MTV:lle: Suomeen on syntynyt nuorten katujengejäOn 12 December 2022 Technology Industries of Finland set a target of raising Finland's net migration to 50,000 people a year by 2030, citing slowing population growth, ageing and a shrinking working-age population.
Total net migration in 2022 was 34,363. It passed the target in 2023, seven years early.
Teknologiateollisuus ry 12.12.2022More than four million people have already fled Ukraine. The current estimate is that as many as 40,000 to 80,000 refugees could come to Finland too.
The appropriation was based on an estimate of 60,000 applications in 2022. In the event 47,302 applications for temporary protection were filed, near the bottom of the range. In the following years the figures were 19,426, then 12,617, then 12,018.
Uusi Suomi 6.4.2022, ja Maahanmuuttovirasto, maahanmuuton tilastotWe are rather on the path of 2020s Finland. In London, for example, street gangs have divided areas block by block. Does any group hold a street corner in Finland? I would say not.
According to Heinikari Finland was not yet on Sweden's path. In the Helsinki police's assessment a new kind of street-gang culture had emerged in Finland over the previous year, and the department set up a coordination group of its own to counter it.
Yle 28.11.2022, Poliisi on havainnut uusia katujengejä Helsingin seudullaIn the police's estimate there are around ten street gangs in Finland. They are mostly in the Helsinki region, but there are signs elsewhere in Finland too. These gangs have about two hundred people in them.
Mikkonen did not consider Finland to be heading straight down Sweden's path.
Yle 3.12.2022, Sisäministeri Krista Mikkonen haluaa Suomeen 700 uutta poliisiaIn December 2022 the Finns Party tabled an interpellation on tackling youth and street gang crime by immigration and criminal policy means. The government won the confidence vote by 100 to 70.
It was the third interpellation touching on immigration in little over a year, after none had been tabled for at least fifteen years.
Eduskunta, äänestystulos VK 6/2022 vp, 19.12.2022In work-based immigration idealism does not meet reality. Enormous numbers of new arrivals are wanted in the country, yet the problems only multiply.
Opposing a bill that widened the long-stay D visa to speed up work-based entry.
Eduskunnan täysistunnon pöytäkirja PTK 127/2022 vp, asiakohta 6, 22.11.2022The importance of immigration to a greying Finland grows all the time. Finland needs immigrants so that we can secure the funding of the welfare state and so that employers find enough skilled people for open jobs.
The minister presenting the new Integration Act as the government pushed to raise work-based immigration.
Eduskunnan täysistunnon pöytäkirja PTK 108/2022 vp, asiakohta 4, 12.10.2022The 2022–2024 peak is explained in large part by temporary protection for people fleeing Ukraine, which none of the people setting targets had in mind.
Net migration is immigration minus emigration across all countries of birth, and it does not distinguish the grounds for entry.
The same scale in every year.
Discrimination cannot be accepted. Racism is to be given no room in Finland.
The statement followed a summer in which Minister of Economic Affairs Vilhelm Junnila resigned after 11 days on 30 June 2023 and Finance Minister Riikka Purra's writings from 2008 became a public dispute. The leaders of the governing parties signed an anti-racism declaration on 11 July 2023, and the statement was given to parliament at the start of the autumn session.
Valtioneuvoston tiedonanto yhdenvertaisuuden, tasa-arvon ja syrjimättömyyden edistämisestä suomalaisessa yhteiskunnassa (VNT 2/2023 vp) 31.8.2023, teksti kokonaisuudessaan YlelläOn 3 February 2023 Etla calculated that permanently stabilising the size of the birth and working-age cohorts would, with the current age and sex structure, require net migration of as much as 44,000 a year, almost three times Statistics Finland's projection assumption of 15,000 at the time.
Etla, raportti 132 Maahanmuutto ja työvoiman riittävyys, tiedote 3.2.2023On 8 March 2023 the Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK) proposed doubling work-based immigration to 40,000 a year by the end of the electoral term and tripling international students to 15,000.
The figure covers work-based residence permits, not net migration, so it is not comparable with the other targets.
Elinkeinoelämän keskusliitto 8.3.2023Net migration was 57,914, more than any target that had been put forward. The level demanded was reached and exceeded years before the earliest target year.
Tilastokeskus, muuttoliike, StatFin muutl/159q, nettomaahanmuutto, kaikki syntymämaatThe programme of Petteri Orpo's government of 20 June 2023 set out: "Finland's refugee quota is 500 people a year." On the residence requirement for citizenship it said: "The period of residence in Finland will be extended to eight years." On work-based permits: "A person must leave Finland if their employment ends and they have not entered a new employment relationship within three months."
The quota was 1,050 in 2023. The eight-year residence requirement took effect on 1 October 2024 and the three-month rule on 11 June 2025. The euro limits for family reunification income had still not been decided by September 2026.
Vahva ja välittävä Suomi, pääministeri Petteri Orpon hallituksen ohjelma 20.6.2023The government closed the entire eastern border from 30 November 2023. Minister of the Interior Mari Rantanen said a full closure was necessary in the name of national security, and Prime Minister Orpo said Russia had caused the situation and could also end it.
More than 1,300 applicants arrived across the eastern border in 2023. The border was still closed in September 2026. First asylum applications across the whole country numbered 2,405 in 2024 and 2,047 in 2025.
Yle 28.11.2023In EVA's values and attitudes survey 55 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement that the ageing and threatened decline of the population require making immigration to Finland easier. Thirty per cent disagreed.
It was the first time in 25 years of measurement that a majority agreed with the statement. Agreement stood at 31 per cent in 2016, 39 per cent in 2019 and 48 per cent in 2021. In the same survey 85 per cent regarded asylum seekers and work-based immigration as two entirely different things.
EVA, arvo- ja asennetutkimus, julkaistu 26.4.2023If we think only of the costs that go into income transfers, I would point out that problematic immigration is a very large economic factor.
Debate on the Orpo government's programme a week after it took office. The speaker called the government's change of paradigm in immigration policy a significant economic measure as well.
Eduskunnan täysistunnon pöytäkirja PTK 18/2023 vp, asiakohta 5, 27.6.2023The other figures from the same EVA measurement: 82 per cent would make it much easier for skilled and educated foreigners to move to Finland, 52 per cent held that too large a share of arrivals are refugees, and 39 per cent judged immigration to do the Finnish economy more harm than good. The same survey therefore backed labour migration and rejected humanitarian migration.
EVAn Arvo- ja asennetutkimus kevät 2023, EVA Analyysi Maahanmuuton leirit, Ilkka Haavisto 26.4.2023In spring 2023 EVA's oldest immigration question drew as much support as opposition for the first time. The claim that "the growing labour shortage can only be solved with foreign labour" was accepted by 42 per cent and rejected by 41. In 1990 the same figures were 14 and 68, a shift of 28 percentage points over thirty-three years.
EVAn Arvopankki, osuus laskettu vastausjakauman lukumääristä. Arvopankki julkaisee painottamattomat vastausmäärät, joten osuus voi poiketa prosenttiyksikön tai kaksi EVAn omista painotetuista julkaisuluvuista · EVAn Arvo- ja asennetutkimus, kevät 2023, n = 2 043In Finland the police have managed to intervene in street gangs' activities at an early stage of their development.
According to Rantanen there were nonetheless signs in Finland of a development like Sweden's. In the police's estimate Finland's criminal street gangs had about 150 members, while Sweden had as many as 30,000 gang criminals.
Yle 7.10.2023, Sisäministeri Mari Rantanen nuorisorikollisuuden taltuttamisestaEK's 40,000 is work-based residence permits, not net migration. It is included because it is quoted alongside net figures in public.
The 2022–2024 peak is explained in large part by temporary protection for people fleeing Ukraine, which none of the people setting targets had in mind.
Net migration is immigration minus emigration across all countries of birth, and it does not distinguish the grounds for entry.
The same scale in every year.
A state under the rule of law has the right to defend itself.
Said on the day parliament passed the temporary act on countering instrumentalised entry. The Greens and the Left Alliance voted against, as did six Social Democrats and Eva Biaudet of the Swedish People's Party.
Yle 12.7.2024, Eduskunta hyväksyi käännytyslain, pääministeri Orpo: viesti Venäjälle on vahvaOn 8 November 2024 Etla put forward an alternative to Statistics Finland's population projection. Statistics Finland had raised the projection's net migration assumption from 15,000 to 40,000 a year, and Etla argued the long-run level should be set at 24,000.
Etla, Vaihtoehto Tilastokeskuksen ennusteelle, 8.11.2024Net migration was 47,051.
Tilastokeskus, muuttoliike, StatFin muutl/159q, nettomaahanmuutto, kaikki syntymämaatOn 24 October 2024 Statistics Finland published a projection assuming net migration of 52,000 in the current year, 45,000 in 2025 and 40,000 a year after that. It projected the population to grow to 6.5 million by 2070.
The assumption was 2.7 times the one made three years earlier. Within two months the Ministry of Finance was calculating with 25,000, the Bank of Finland with 27,000 and Etla with 24,000. Realized net migration in 2025 was 31,233.
Tilastokeskus, väestöennuste 2024, julkaistu 24.10.2024The amendment to the Nationality Act took effect on 1 October 2024. The residence required for naturalisation rose from five to eight years, and only residence on a permit counts. In July parliament had passed, by 167 votes to 31, a temporary act on countering instrumentalised entry.
A third fewer citizenship applications were filed in 2025 than the year before. The temporary act had not been applied once by September 2026, and its validity was extended to the end of 2026. Naturalisation numbers and the make-up of the population are under demographic change.
Laki kansalaisuuslain muuttamisesta 474/2024, ja laki 482/2024, EdilexIn its alternative budget in November 2024 the Centre Party proposed halting the deterioration of the dependency ratio by raising net migration to 40,000 a year.
The party's deputy chair Antti Kaikkonen publicly withdrew the target in June 2026, saying there is no particular need for work-based immigration right now.
Keskustan vaihtoehto 26.11.2024A Ministry of the Interior memorandum estimated in February 2024 that without restrictions at least 10,000 to 20,000 asylum seekers a year would arrive across the eastern border.
The estimate cannot be tested because the border stayed closed. Across the whole country there were 2,405 first asylum applications in 2024 and 2,047 in 2025.
Yle 8.2.2024, sisäministeriön muistioFinland is a safe country, but Finland is unsafe especially for women and especially for immigrants. And Finland is unsafe for immigrants because racism occurs in Finland.
A debate on equality and non-discrimination after the racially motivated stabbing of a child in Oulu, a year into the racism controversy around the government.
Eduskunnan täysistunnon pöytäkirja PTK 71/2024 vp, asiakohta 7, 24.6.2024According to the police's situation report of April 2024 there were about 10 groups classed as street gangs in Finland. About 350 people had been linked to them, of whom about 150 were in the police's assessment key persons or members of the groups.
They were mainly foreign-background men aged 18–30 of several different nationalities, and a large share of them held Finnish citizenship.
Oikeusministeriö, Toimenpideohjelma nuoriso- ja jengirikollisuuden ehkäisemiseksi ja torjumiseksi vuosille 2024–2027, OM 2024:13, 25.4.2024We do not yet have quite the same as in Sweden, but it is probably heading that way.
Rauma said this in an interview with Yle Österbotten about the gang culture emerging around Jakobstad and Kokkola.
Yle 25.10.2024, Uudet huumeilmiöt ja jengikulttuuri uhkaavat PohjanmaataStatistics Finland's 40,000 is a calculation assumption of the population projection, not a target. It is included because Etla's proposal was an alternative to exactly that.
The 2022–2024 peak is explained in large part by temporary protection for people fleeing Ukraine, which none of the people setting targets had in mind.
Net migration is immigration minus emigration across all countries of birth, and it does not distinguish the grounds for entry.
The same scale in every year.
Finland is not as attractive a country for work-based immigration as it used to be.
In the same article the Director General of the Finnish Immigration Service, Ilkka Haahtela, said the reducing effect of the current government's measures cannot yet be read from the statistics. There were 15,024 first work-based residence permit applications in 2024 and 11,324 in 2025.
Yle 13.5.2025, Maahanmuutto hidastuu, mutta se ei johdu vain hallituksen toimistaNet migration was 31,233, 46 per cent below the 2023 peak.
The 2022–2024 peak is explained in large part by temporary protection for people fleeing Ukraine. The preliminary figure for 2025 was about 35,000, and the figures put forward in spring 2026 were still compared with that.
Tilastokeskus, muuttoliike, StatFin muutl/159q, nettomaahanmuutto, kaikki syntymämaatThe government programme's commitments took effect in three stages. The duration of international protection permits was shortened on 2 January 2025, the three-month rule for holders of work-based permits began on 11 June 2025 and new conditions for family reunification on 16 June 2025.
Asylum is now granted for three years instead of four. A person who loses their job has three months to find new work, specialists six. About 2,800 removal decisions were issued to permit holders in 2025, 41 per cent more than the year before.
Maahanmuuttovirasto, tiedotteet lakimuutoksista 2025If you want growth, you had better understand the realities. We need immigration, we do not need the belittling of people who come here from elsewhere.
Debate on the fiscal plan the day after finance minister Purra wrote on X that 38 per cent of mothers giving birth in Vantaa and Kerava were non-Finnish, and called it worrying.
Eduskunnan täysistunnon pöytäkirja PTK 46/2025 vp, asiakohta 6, 7.5.2025Immigration is also, to the greatest degree, a security question. We have heard that from Sweden too. Immigration, poor integration and crime go together, and that should be recognised and admitted here as well.
The minister presenting the report on internal security and replying to the opposition's claim that Finland needs immigration.
Eduskunnan täysistunnon pöytäkirja PTK 91/2025 vp, asiakohta 4, 7.10.2025According to the Government's strategy against organised crime there were around ten groups classed as street gangs in Finland, mainly in the Helsinki region and South-West Finland. About 300 people had been linked to their activities, of whom about half were in the authorities' assessment members of the groups.
Valtioneuvoston periaatepäätös järjestäytyneen rikollisuuden torjunnan strategiasta ja toimenpideohjelmasta vuosille 2025–2030, OM 2025:7, 27.2.2025On 23 March 2026 the Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK) published its targets for the 2027–2031 electoral term: the target for immigration leading to work is set at a net 45,000 immigrants a year at least, and EK wants the target written into the next government programme.
Three years earlier EK's target was 40,000 work-based residence permits. The new figure is a net figure, so it is more demanding than the earlier one. What arrivals on different grounds cost the public finances and bring to them is under the economy.
EK, Työhön johtava maahanmuutto vaalikaudella 2027–2031, EK:n tavoitteet 23.3.2026On 23 March 2026 Etla's report 176 estimated that securing a sufficient workforce for public finances would require net migration of about 44,000 a year. Research director Antti Kauhanen called the target very challenging.
Yle first wrote that net migration should be tripled and corrected it the same day: the need would be a good quarter more than the preliminary 2025 figure of about 35,000.
Etla, raportti 176 Maahanmuuton taloudelliset vaikutukset, 23.3.2026, ja Yle 23.3.2026Annual net migration of about 25,000 would keep the number of the elderly relative to the working-age population roughly stable for the next 20 years.
In the same week EK demanded 45,000 and Etla calculated 44,000. The figures answer different questions: Toikka's stabilises the dependency ratio, Etla's the public finances.
Sitra, kasvuatlas-artikkeli 25.3.2026On 30 January 2026 the Finnish Immigration Service published the 2025 statistics. There were 11,324 first work-based residence permit applications, a quarter fewer than the year before, and 13,565 study-based ones. Director General Elina Hirvelä said the fall in work-based immigration is primarily due to the weak development of the Finnish economy in recent years.
The targets put forward the same spring were 44,000 and 45,000. The agency's own estimate for 2026 was 11,000 to 13,000 work-based applications.
Maahanmuuttovirasto, maahanmuuton tilastot 2025, tiedote 30.1.2026In March 2026 the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions replied to EK's target of 45,000 that it does not take account of high unemployment. The Coalition Party's platform adopted in June set no figure but promised to process specialists' residence permits in under a week and to abolish labour market testing.
Abolishing labour market testing was already promised in a government programme in 2007. It was still in force in September 2026.
SAK 23.3.2026, ja Kokoomuksen tavoiteohjelma 7.6.2026In June 2026 the Centre Party's deputy chair Antti Kaikkonen withdrew his party's target of 40,000 net immigrants. He said there is no particular need for work-based immigration right now, although there are needs in the longer term.
The target had been put forward in the party's alternative budget a year and a half earlier. It is so far the only one of the figures put forward that its proponent has publicly withdrawn.
Antti Kaikkonen SuomiAreenassa 25.6.2026, uutisointi Suomen UutisetOur growing immigration has also caused us internal security problems, which show in our prisons as well.
Debate on the prime minister's announcement of government policy for 2026. The minister added that, on the forecasts, more than half of prisoners might be foreigners within a few years.
Eduskunnan täysistunnon pöytäkirja PTK 13/2026 vp, asiakohta 3, 25.2.2026That is why the situation changes. Immigration must be limited to 10,000 people a year. Other countries are going to do the same. We have to take this decision now.
The first number on the timeline that is a ceiling rather than a floor. All sixteen earlier ones concern how much immigration would be needed at a minimum: nine are targets, three are calculations of the need, one criticises a target and one withdraws one. Harkimo's limit would cover humanitarian immigration too. For scale: Statistics Finland recorded about 51,000 arrivals last year and just under 190,000 in 2023–2025 together, and the Confederation of Finnish Industries wants at least 45,000 work-based net immigrants a year. Harkimo argues from unemployment and artificial intelligence: "We have 400,000 unemployed and AI is taking jobs. We have no work to offer them."
Harry Harkimo Ilta-Sanomien haastattelussa 12.9.2026, toimittaja Hanna VesalaMinister for Foreign Trade and Development Ville Tavio (Finns Party) proposed capping immigration from outside the EU and EEA by law at 0.1 per cent of the population a year, which he put at ”in the order of about 5,600 people a year”. He argued for ”a new social contract that recognises Finland's carrying capacity as limited”.
The second ceiling in four days, and drawn around a different group than Harkimo's. Harkimo's 10,000 covers all immigration, Tavio's limit only arrivals from outside the EU and EEA, so movement by EU citizens would fall outside it. The figure is tied to the population, so the ceiling moves with the head count. For scale: Statistics Finland recorded 51,121 immigrations to Finland in 2025 and the Finnish Immigration Service granted 49,785 first residence permits the same year. A first residence permit goes to people from outside the EU and EEA, which is exactly the group the ceiling would cover, so the ceiling would be about a ninth of last year's level. The two figures still do not measure the same thing, because a permit is a decision rather than a move.
Ville Tavion tiedote, uutisointi Iltalehti 15.9.2026, toimittajat Miia Sirén ja Teppo OvaskainenEK's 45,000 is immigration leading to work, in net terms, so only one part of total net migration. Family members, students and people granted protection come on top of it.
Etla calculated its figure from the point of view of public finances and VATT from that of the dependency ratio. A different question yields a different number, though both are net migration.
Net migration is immigration minus emigration across all countries of birth, and it does not distinguish the grounds for entry.
The same scale in every year.