New Nationality Act accepts multiple nationality

Finnish legislation accepts dual or multiple nationality. A Finn who acquires a foreign nationality will not lose his/her Finnish nationality, nor will a foreigner who acquires Finnish nationality be obliged to renounce his/her current nationality. It should be noted, however, that the nationality legislation of the other country in question does not necessarily accept multiple nationality.

In spite of the fact that multiple nationality is accepted a person holding dual nationality may lose his or her Finnish citizenship at the age of 22 if he or she lacks sufficiently close ties with Finland.

Due to the new legislation a former Finnish citizen can regain his Finnish citizenship through application. (Please see the Finnish Immigration Service's home page for details about instructions and forms.)

NB! Regarding the right of expatriate Finns the transition period for the declaration procedure ended on the 2nd of June 2008. After this date a declaration procedure requires living in Finland.

Former Finnish citizens and their descendants submitted so many citizenship declarations in order to regain citizenship that at the beginning of 2010 there were still plenty of unresolved applications left. From April to June 2008, the Finnish Immigration Service received an average of 100 hundred citizenship declarations every day, whereas earlier the daily number of declarations varied from 5 to 10. Declarations were sent from Finnish diplomatic missions abroad even after June. On the Immigration Service's web page it is possible to follow the rate of unresolved citizenship declarations.

In October 2008 the Finnish Ministry for the Interior started an evaluation project to revise the Nationality Law. This work is expected to result in a proposition to the Parliament during the early spring of 2010. You can read more on this revision project on the pages of the Interior Ministry (only in Finnish and Swedish).

Read more:

The Citizenship Pages of the Finnish Immigration Service

The Citizenship Pages of the Finnish Foreign Ministry

Finnish Nationality Act

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