Finnish Centre for Pensions’ eServices
In the eServices of the Finnish Centre for Pensions you can claim foreign pensions and apply for A1 certificates. You can do this for yourself or on behalf of your company or someone who has authorized you to act for them.
Our eServices can help you with tasks relating to the A1 certificate. You can use the service to
- apply for an A1 certificate;
- track the progress of your application and download a certificate of pendence;
- look at and save the certificate and cover letter to, for example, your mobile phone;
- check the status of applications that are pending, active, expired, or drafts; and
- report any changes to the certificate.
Employers can see certificates in our eServices for three years after they have expired. You can get information on older certificates from the Finnish Centre for Pensions. You can also print the certificate information as a separate Excel spreadsheet.
In our eServices, you can only download certificates that have been granted. If your application is rejected or sent to another country for processing, you and others involved will be notified by post. In our eServices, you can see if you have been granted a certificate, if your application has been rejected or if it has been sent to another country for processing.
When it comes to claiming a pension from abroad, you can check the status of your claim in our eServices to find out if the Finnish Centre for Pensions or a foreign pension authority is still processing your claim or if your claim has already been processed by the foreign pension authority. In that case, you will receive their decision by post.
How to log in to our eServices
To use our eServices, identify yourself in the Suomi.fi service. To do so, you need Finnish identification tokens (Finnish online banking credentials, a mobile certificate, or a certificate card for authentication).
You cannot log in to the service using foreign identification tokens, that is, pan-European identification tokens or the Finnish Authenticator application.
Who is authorized to use our eServices?
You can manage your own matters through the Finnish Centre for Pensions’ eServices. You can also use the service to deal with matters related to applying for an A1 certificate on behalf of your company.
You can be authorized to use our eServices on behalf of your company if you hold one of the following positions in your company:
- CEO/managing director,
- person with the sole authority to sign documents on behalf of your company.
If you hold one of these positions in your company, you can apply for A1 certificates for your company’s employees without a separate authorization.
Acting for another person in eServices
You can authorize someone else to take care of your matters in the eServices of the Finnish Centre for Pensions.
With a separate authorization, you can mandate someone else to apply for an A1 certificate for your company’s employees. You can do this through the Suomi.fi service, in the section ‘e-Authorizations’. Authorization on behalf of the company can be given by persons whose right to represent the company is registered in the Trade Register or to whom the company has given the right of authorization or the right of representation in e-Authorizations in Suomi.fi. Select the mandate theme “Handling social security matters relating to work in other countries” in Suomi.fi.
Limiting authorizations
You can limit the managing of social security matters related to working abroad within your organisation, for example, by department or unit. The mandate specifiers are defined in the section e-Authorizations in Suomi.fi. The specifier used by the Finnish Centre for Pensions is called sub-organisation identifier.
A sub-organisation identifier is a way for the employer to differentiate parts of the organisation and to specify what information the mandated person can see in the service. If the employer wants to introduce identifiers, the employer must define them in e-Authorizations in Suomi.fi. The use of sub-organization identifiers is not mandatory.
Not always possible to act on behalf of someone
You cannot act on behalf of a company in the Finnish Centre for Pensions’ e-Services if
- the company’s status in the Trade Register is bankruptcy, restructuring and/or liquidation, or
- the status in the Trade Register of the person acting on behalf of the company is something other than “normal”.
Right to grant an authorization from mandate service provided by officials
The mandate service provided by officials makes it possible to mandate with the help of an official if you cannot use Suomi.fi e-Authorizations on your own. Public administration and municipal organisations, foreign companies and individuals who do not have the tools for online identification can give someone else the right to act on their behalf using a mandate request. Through the mandate service provided by officials, the employer can primarily request mandates for its employees of the type ‘right to grant a mandate’.
Once the rights to grant a mandate have been registered, individuals with these rights may grant the actual mandate for transactions as a self-service in e-Authorizations of Suomi.fi. Getting the right to grant a mandate requires that the right is applied for. The Digital and Population Data Services Agency gives detailed instructions on this matter.
Acting on behalf of several companies
If your company is authorized to handle matters relating to insuring work abroad on behalf of different companies, your Main User can appoint different employees within your company to handle the matters of the other companies. In practice, the Main User selects the customer ID (Business ID) to target the authorization for the appointed employee, who can then handle the issues of that customer company.
If your company (for example, an accounting or a consulting firm) applies for A1 certificates on behalf of another company via the eServices of the Finnish Centre for Pensions, you do not need to submit a separate power of attorney to the Finnish Centre for Pensions. You can manage the necessary authorizations online via a Suomi.fi mandate.
Handling A1 certificate applications on behalf of another person
As a self-employed person or a grant recipient, you can apply for the A1 certificate yourself. However, you can also choose to authorize another individual or company to send in the application for you using the Finnish Centre for Pensions’ eServices. To do this, you need to set up a personal authorization in the Suomi.fi service. The authorization is called “Handling social security matters relating to work in other countries”
You can only authorize another person or company to apply for an A1 certificate on your behalf with a personal authorization. An authorization issued by a company, even if you have given the authorization yourself, cannot be used to apply for an A1 certificate for a self-employed person insured under the Self-employed Persons’ Pensions Act (YEL) or the Farmers’ Pensions Act (MYEL).
If you have any questions about authorizations, you can contact the Suomi.fi service or the customer service of the Digital and Population Data Services Agency:
In the Finnish Centre for Pensions’ eServices, it is possible to act on behalf of another person if the customer has given authorization to do so in the Suomi.fi service. To do this, the customer must give another person a Suomi.fi authorization under the mandate theme “Handling pension matters“.
Acting on behalf of another person in the eServices of the Finnish Centre for Pensions is prevented if
- the person has been taken into custody,
- the person has a non-disclosure order for personal safety reasons,
- one of the person’s guardians has a non-disclosure order for personal safety reasons, or
- a custody decision or agreement covers matters other than living arrangements.
The Digital and Population Data Services Agency’s Public Service Info provides guidance on granting authorizations.
Advantages when applying for the A1 certificate online
- In the online service, you handle your matters securely with strong authentication, so your information is kept safe and secure.
- If you apply for an A1 certificate through the online service, it will be processed more quickly. All the information you need is sent straight to our computer system, so your application can be processed automatically on the same day.
- The online service helps you fill in the A1 certificate application form.