FAQs on pension from abroad
Read our answers to frequently asked questions about pensions from abroad.
If you want a rough estimate of how much pension you will get from abroad, you have to ask the pension authority in that country. The easiest and often only way to ask for a rough estimate is to write them a letter.
The information needed for the request varies from country to country, but the letter should include at least:
- your name (current and former), address and date of birth;
- your personal identity number or insurance number for the country in question, if you know them; and
- as much information as possible about where you lived and about your work there.
When you ask for an estimate from an EU/EEA country, the United Kingdom, Switzerland or a country that has a social security agreement with Finland, you can write the letter in English or in any other official EU language. Some countries have a form for this. You can print it from the website of the country’s pension authority.
Most foreign pension authorities send you the estimate by post to your home address. Some of them might send you a log-in code or password. Use these to check your own pension information directly from the web service of the foreign pension authority.
Some countries cannot give a rough estimate, but they can send you an employment record of the insurance periods that have been registered in your name in the country in question.
The country that grants you a pension will withhold tax from your pension based on the country’s own rules about taxes. For more information on the taxation of your pension from abroad, see the pension decision you got from abroad or contact the foreign pension authority or tax authorities.
Whether your pension will be taxed in Finland depends on the tax agreement Finland has with the country in question. For more information on the effects of a foreign pension on your taxation in Finland, call the Finnish Tax Administration’s tax service for specific international tax situations.
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If you have worked or been self-employed in Finland and another EU/EEA country, the United Kingdom or in Switzerland, your Finnish earnings-related pension provider needs a certificate of the periods you have lived and worked (that is, your insurance periods) in another EU or EEA country. For example, the foreign pension authority may need more information about your work abroad in order to be able to establish your insurance periods in the country in question. Kela also needs information and a certificate on the periods you have lived abroad to be able to process your claim for a national pension.
It is important that you reply to the questions that the foreign pension authority has sent you. If you don’t, your pension claiming Finland may be delayed or even rejected.
If your pension from another country has been stopped, it may be because you were getting a fixed-term pension or because you have not sent in whatever information that the foreign pension authority has asked for. If you were getting a disability pension from abroad, you might not get it anymore if you have reached the retirement age in that country and you have not yet claimed or received a decision on your old-age pension from that country.
The payment of your pension may also have stopped because you have not sent in the life certificate on time.
If a pension recipient dies, their next of kin should tell the foreign pension provider as soon as possible. Otherwise, the pension provider may pay out more pension than they should. If that happens, the foreign pension provider will recover the overpayment afterwards.
If the next of kin do not know from which pension provider or from which country the pensioner was paid a pension, they can contact the Finnish Centre for Pensions’ Customer Services.
The Finnish Centre for Pensions will receive information about the death of a pensioner with a slight delay after the Population Register has been updated. Once we have been informed of the death of the pension recipient, we will also send the information to the foreign pension provider from which the pension recipient, according to our register data, has received a statutory pension.
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If you get a pension from another country, it might reduce the amount of benefits you get from Finland, like the the unemployment or sickness allowance. It could even stop you from getting the benefit completely. Before you claim a pension from abroad, contact the institution that pays out your benefit in Finland. They can tell you how the pension from abroad will affect the amount of benefit you get here.
If you are a pensioner, you have to tell the foreign pension provider about any changes to your situation as soon as possible. This information is not usually sent abroad from Finland automatically. Significant changes in circumstances include changes in your address, marital status and bank account number, as well as information about a new employment or self-employment.