What to do when I wish to apply for a change in my YEL income?

Apply for a change in your YEL income through the Varma Online Service

You can easily submit a change application concerning your YEL income through the Varma Online Service. You can find the application under Insurance policies > Insurance policy information > Apply for a change in your YEL income. We will ask you for further information if needed.

Use your personal online banking credentials to log in to the service.

We will start processing your application and will ask you for more information if required. We will confirm your YEL income and send you a decision.

Apply for a change in your YEL income

Read more about YEL income and how to determine it 

Use the YEL calculator to estimate the effect of your confirmed income to contributions and social security

How long will it take to process my application?

Many factors affect the processing of an application. Changes concerning YEL income always require legal due diligence from us. It is our task to ensure that your YEL income corresponds to the value of your work input. We process applications in the order in which we receive them, and we always aim to make decisions on them as quickly as possible.

The processing time for your application is affected, for instance, by the following matters:

  • We process applications in the order of arrival. Sometimes we receive a lot of applications at once, so the processing times may unfortunately increase.
  • We may need to ask you for additional information about your entrepreneurial activities and your work in order to process your application. Read more about the information we may request from you.
  • Every decision we issue is appealable. The appeal period is 30 days from when you receive the decision. During this 30-day period, we cannot issue you a new decision. Therefore, if you have recently received a decision from us, we will have to wait until the end of the appeal period before we can issue a new decision.
  • If you have applied for a rectification or filed an appeal against a decision you previously received, we must first process it before we can issue a new decision. We also cannot issue a new decision if you have filed an appeal, for instance, with the Pension Appeal Board on a decision you received and the matter is pending.

Why are you proposing a different YEL income for me than the one I have applied for?

It is our task to ensure that your YEL income corresponds to the value of your work input. If, based on the information you provide, your current YEL income or the amount in your application does not correspond to the value of your work input, we will suggest an amount of YEL income that corresponds to it based on legislation and the Finnish Centre for Pensions’ application guidelines. Read more about how YEL income is determined.

Why is Varma asking me for more information?

Sometimes we have to ask you for more information in order to confirm the right amount of YEL income for you. Although we get information from public registers, there is a lot of information that we can get faster directly from you. Under the Administrative Procedure Act we are obligated to ask you to provide any information that may be missing from your application. Providing additional information is not mandatory, but if it is not provided, the application may be rejected or left unprocessed. Below you can read about our reasons for asking for certain information.

Turnover, or net sales, is one factor that is taken into account when determining an entrepreneur’s YEL income. An increase or decrease in turnover is often a good indication of a change in your work input and helps determine the correct level of your YEL income. For example, a decrease in your YEL income requires proof that there has been a decrease in your work as an entrepreneur. One factor to take into account in that case is lower turnover. We can only get information about your company’s turnover from you.

The overall assessment of YEL income takes into account, among other things, the Finnish Centre for Pensions’ sector-specific guidelines on YEL income. Your business sector, therefore, has an impact on the determination of the level of YEL income, and the income level guidelines for your industry or the closest applicable industry are used in its determination.

The number of employees may affect the validity of your YEL insurance or the amount of your YEL income. Information about your company’s employees and how many there are is taken into account in the overall assessment of your YEL income. Often, for example, an entrepreneur’s YEL income increases as the number of employees working in the company grows.

Only for a justified reason can an entrepreneur’s YEL income be lower than the annual salary of the best-paid employee.

The average number of hours you work in a week indicates how much you work and therefore plays a part in determining the level of your YEL income.