Citizenship Application 2017

[jazwaq]

Hi,

I have spent 6 months(182 days) in US for a research visit.

Would that affect my citizenship application?

[gowthas]

Hi,

I have spent 6 months(182 days) in US for a research visit.

Would that affect my citizenship application?

If you could prove that it is for work related thing, then it should not be a problem!

[brexit]

Hi,

I have spent 6 months(182 days) in US for a research visit.

Would that affect my citizenship application?

It won't be a problem at all. Your residence is considered as continuous if you are not absent for more than one year. However, there are different guideline on how the residency are counted if your period of absence is more than a month and less than a year. Below is the text from the migri website

Trips outside Finland – effect on continuous residence

Short periods of absence do not interrupt the continuous period of residence. Your continuous period of residence will be interrupted if the periods of absence are regular and frequent enough that you can be considered chiefly to reside outside Finland. Your continuous period of residence is not interrupted if you have a well-founded personal reason for your absence. Such a reason must involve an exceptional and sudden situation, such as acute illness while you are abroad that prevents you from returning to Finland. Reasons such as caring for parents or grandparents who are ill in your former home country, or elsewhere abroad, are not considered well-founded personal reasons.

The following periods of absence will not interrupt your continuous period of residence:

absences that last a maximum of one month
a maximum of six periods of absence that last 1–2 months each
a maximum of two periods of absence that last 2–6 months each
If you are temporarily absent from Finland for over six months but no longer than one year, your continuous period of residence will not be interrupted. However, the period of absence is not counted as continuous residential time.

If you are absent from Finland for longer than one year, your periods of residence in Finland will be taken into account as an accumulated period of residence.

Accumulated period of residence

If your continuous period of residence is interrupted, your periods of residence in Finland will be taken into account as an accumulated period of residence. The accumulated period of residence may consist of several periods of residence in Finland. The required total period is a minimum of seven years. Of this time, you must have lived in Finland continuously for the past two years. The time you have spent in Finland with a temporary residence permit (B-permit) will not be included in the accumulated period of residence.

[gowthas]

Hi,

I have spent 6 months(182 days) in US for a research visit.

Would that affect my citizenship application?

It won't be a problem at all. Your residence is considered as continuous if you are not absent for more than one year. However, there are different guideline on how the residency are counted if your period of absence is more than a month and less than a year. Below is the text from the migri website

Trips outside Finland – effect on continuous residence

Short periods of absence do not interrupt the continuous period of residence. Your continuous period of residence will be interrupted if the periods of absence are regular and frequent enough that you can be considered chiefly to reside outside Finland. Your continuous period of residence is not interrupted if you have a well-founded personal reason for your absence. Such a reason must involve an exceptional and sudden situation, such as acute illness while you are abroad that prevents you from returning to Finland. Reasons such as caring for parents or grandparents who are ill in your former home country, or elsewhere abroad, are not considered well-founded personal reasons.

The following periods of absence will not interrupt your continuous period of residence:

absences that last a maximum of one month
a maximum of six periods of absence that last 1–2 months each
a maximum of two periods of absence that last 2–6 months each
If you are temporarily absent from Finland for over six months but no longer than one year, your continuous period of residence will not be interrupted. However, the period of absence is not counted as continuous residential time.

If you are absent from Finland for longer than one year, your periods of residence in Finland will be taken into account as an accumulated period of residence.

Accumulated period of residence

If your continuous period of residence is interrupted, your periods of residence in Finland will be taken into account as an accumulated period of residence. The accumulated period of residence may consist of several periods of residence in Finland. The required total period is a minimum of seven years. Of this time, you must have lived in Finland continuously for the past two years. The time you have spent in Finland with a temporary residence permit (B-permit) will not be included in the accumulated period of residence.

There was a particular clause about work related trips outside of Finland. I could not find that anymore. Have they removed it?

[jazwaq]

If you could prove that it is for work related thing, then it should not be a problem![/quote]

Thanks for the info.

[jazwaq]

The following periods of absence will not interrupt your continuous period of residence:

absences that last a maximum of one month
a maximum of six periods of absence that last 1–2 months each
a maximum of two periods of absence that last 2–6 months each
If you are temporarily absent from Finland for over six months but no longer than one year, your continuous period of residence will not be interrupted. However, the period of absence is not counted as continuous residential time.


What does this refer to?

[camphor]

Hi,

A slightly unrelated question. I am experiencing a problem to create an user account and log in on Enterfinland.fi for citizenship application. I am using my bank codes from Nordea to authenticate my identity which succeeds and re-directs me to Enterfinland website where I am asked to accept terms of use and click "Activate User Account." After this step I re-directed back to Log in page. And I have to restart the bank authentication and the same process is repeated.

Is anyone else facing the same problem? I am trying since 17.06, I have sent the e-mail on customer service and have received no response. Is there anyone who successfully created their account since 17.06?

I just tried logging in to the Enterfinland web site using my own bank codes (from OP in my case). I was able to log in without a problem, but I had established my user account last August. This indeed suggests a problem with generating new accounts, instead of a more general problem with the login system itself.

BTW, I could never create a user account using the alternative option - user name etc. I would try creating passwords that fulfilled the criteria - but the system always told me my chosen passwords were unacceptable. So I had to resign myself to using bank codes.

Thanks for your input. I gave up on trying with bank codes, instead I tried with another e-mail id and I was able to create the account and submit the citizenship application. Earlier I was under the impression (mis-communicated) that only bank codes log in works for citizenship application. Their seems to be something wrong with the bank code log in, because I asked my friend to create an account and he faced the same problem. EnterFinland customer service mailed me that they are looking into the matter as some users are experiencing this issue.

[Y77]

in case Migri asks you for further info after the application, how long do they give you to submit it? A week? Thanks

[tavastia]

in case Migri asks you for further info after the application, how long do they give you to submit it? A week? Thanks

2 weeks was in my case.

[brexit]

in case Migri asks you for further info after the application, how long do they give you to submit it? A week? Thanks

2 weeks was in my case.

I think two weeks is the standard time they allow everyone.

[bigli]

The following periods of absence will not interrupt your continuous period of residence:

absences that last a maximum of one month
a maximum of six periods of absence that last 1–2 months each
a maximum of two periods of absence that last 2–6 months each
If you are temporarily absent from Finland for over six months but no longer than one year, your continuous period of residence will not be interrupted. However, the period of absence is not counted as continuous residential time.


What does this refer to?

I remember I also got worried about my time abroad (I had about 6 months total but in 3 different trips of 2 months each) when applying and read this section on migri many many times. My understanding is that if you an absence between 6 months and one year, they subtract that period from your total time of continuous resident in Finland, but they do not consider your residence to be non-continuous. I believe the purpose of time abroad whether it's work or family related, does not affect this.

[challengingtimes]

The following periods of absence will not interrupt your continuous period of residence:

absences that last a maximum of one month
a maximum of six periods of absence that last 1–2 months each
a maximum of two periods of absence that last 2–6 months each
If you are temporarily absent from Finland for over six months but no longer than one year, your continuous period of residence will not be interrupted. However, the period of absence is not counted as continuous residential time.


What does this refer to?

I remember I also got worried about my time abroad (I had about 6 months total but in 3 different trips of 2 months each) when applying and read this section on migri many many times. My understanding is that if you an absence between 6 months and one year, they subtract that period from your total time of continuous resident in Finland, but they do not consider your residence to be non-continuous. I believe the purpose of time abroad whether it's work or family related, does not affect this.

Well if this refers to overall period then yes you are right. But in my case they treated my last 2 years with 2 absences totalling less than 7 months rather harshly and even though this was less than the maximum criteria of 8 months they still rejected my application. Again they have got one fact wrong there besides the point I made in the previous sentence.

Here is my break up of last 2 years. Total of continuous residence permit and living if last 2 years are included is 7 years.

I have been in Finland from
a) Jul 2005 to Jun 2008 (B Type permit)
b) Jun 2008 to Jun 2012 (A type permit)
c) Jun 2012 to Jun 2013 (P type Permit)
d) *********** Jun 2013 to May 2015 (overseas) ---> Less than 2 years
e) Jun 2015 to Feb 2016 (Permanent)
f) ********** Mar 2016 to Aug 2016 ( overseas )----> less than 6 months
g) Sep 2016 to Nov 2016 (P type permit)
h) ********** Nov 2016 - Dec 2016 ( (overseas ) ---> Less than 1 month
i) Dec 2016 to PRESENT (P Type Permit)

Any opinions when I should apply again???? I tried asking migri but they gave evasive answers with lots of conditions... basically it did not help. Maybe I am missing something

[jazwaq]

The following periods of absence will not interrupt your continuous period of residence:

absences that last a maximum of one month
a maximum of six periods of absence that last 1–2 months each
a maximum of two periods of absence that last 2–6 months each
If you are temporarily absent from Finland for over six months but no longer than one year, your continuous period of residence will not be interrupted. However, the period of absence is not counted as continuous residential time.


What does this refer to?

I remember I also got worried about my time abroad (I had about 6 months total but in 3 different trips of 2 months each) when applying and read this section on migri many many times. My understanding is that if you an absence between 6 months and one year, they subtract that period from your total time of continuous resident in Finland, but they do not consider your residence to be non-continuous. I believe the purpose of time abroad whether it's work or family related, does not affect this.

Oh, I'm hoping that they don't subtract this period as I'm hardly meeting the required timeline...

[bigli]

The following periods of absence will not interrupt your continuous period of residence:

absences that last a maximum of one month
a maximum of six periods of absence that last 1–2 months each
a maximum of two periods of absence that last 2–6 months each
If you are temporarily absent from Finland for over six months but no longer than one year, your continuous period of residence will not be interrupted. However, the period of absence is not counted as continuous residential time.


What does this refer to?

I remember I also got worried about my time abroad (I had about 6 months total but in 3 different trips of 2 months each) when applying and read this section on migri many many times. My understanding is that if you an absence between 6 months and one year, they subtract that period from your total time of continuous resident in Finland, but they do not consider your residence to be non-continuous. I believe the purpose of time abroad whether it's work or family related, does not affect this.

Oh, I'm hoping that they don't subtract this period as I'm hardly meeting the required timeline...

I have the same worry as my time living in Finland is just slightly over four years and if they subtract the time abroad from this, it will be less than four years even! Could you please update us if you get further questions from them or a decision? I will do the same.
Good luck!

[bigli]

The following periods of absence will not interrupt your continuous period of residence:

absences that last a maximum of one month
a maximum of six periods of absence that last 1–2 months each
a maximum of two periods of absence that last 2–6 months each
If you are temporarily absent from Finland for over six months but no longer than one year, your continuous period of residence will not be interrupted. However, the period of absence is not counted as continuous residential time.


What does this refer to?

I remember I also got worried about my time abroad (I had about 6 months total but in 3 different trips of 2 months each) when applying and read this section on migri many many times. My understanding is that if you an absence between 6 months and one year, they subtract that period from your total time of continuous resident in Finland, but they do not consider your residence to be non-continuous. I believe the purpose of time abroad whether it's work or family related, does not affect this.

Well if this refers to overall period then yes you are right. But in my case they treated my last 2 years with 2 absences totalling less than 7 months rather harshly and even though this was less than the maximum criteria of 8 months they still rejected my application. Again they have got one fact wrong there besides the point I made in the previous sentence.

Here is my break up of last 2 years. Total of continuous residence permit and living if last 2 years are included is 7 years.

I have been in Finland from
a) Jul 2005 to Jun 2008 (B Type permit)
b) Jun 2008 to Jun 2012 (A type permit)
c) Jun 2012 to Jun 2013 (P type Permit)
d) *********** Jun 2013 to May 2015 (overseas) ---> Less than 2 years
e) Jun 2015 to Feb 2016 (Permanent)
f) ********** Mar 2016 to Aug 2016 ( overseas )----> less than 6 months
g) Sep 2016 to Nov 2016 (P type permit)
h) ********** Nov 2016 - Dec 2016 ( (overseas ) ---> Less than 1 month
i) Dec 2016 to PRESENT (P Type Permit)

Any opinions when I should apply again???? I tried asking migri but they gave evasive answers with lots of conditions... basically it did not help. Maybe I am missing something

I am guessing they might treat time abroad differently for cases of accumulated period of residence. The description on migri website does not make it very clear what they mean. Maybe try contacting Virka and ask their opinion? https://www.hel.fi/kanslia/virka-en/advice/