If employment ends before retirement age

If your employment ends, one of the first things to do is register as an unemployed jobseeker in the Job Market Finland online service. Do this as soon as possible, because you cannot register retroactively.

You should register as an unemployed jobseeker no later than the first day of unemployment. This ensures that you receive unemployment allowance. 

Unemployment allowance will secure your income for at most 500 days, i.e. approximately two years. If you are close to retirement age, you can also receive daily allowance for longer under certain conditions. However, the right to additional allowance does not apply to self-employed persons or persons born in 1965 or later. You can get more detailed information about the daily allowance from Kela or your unemployment fund. 

See your local employment authority`s contact details on the regional pages of Job Market Finland

Read more on Kela's website: Unemployment

Your pension is mainly accrued on the salary paid for your work. Usually, the earnings that accrue pension are the same as your taxable earned income.

When your work ends, your pension accrual on earned income also ends. However, pension accrues on the salary paid for the statutory period of notice, regardless of whether you work or not. On the other hand, pension is not accrued on, for example, severance pay or other compensation paid for the termination of employment.

Since 2005, pension has also accrued on many benefits received on periods without wages. The prerequisite is that you have earned a total of at least EUR 21,514.19 (2026) during your years of service.

The earnings-based daily allowance paid by the unemployment fund accrues pension up to your lowest retirement age. The pension accrued on the earnings-related daily allowance period is slightly lower than the pension accrued during working time.

While you receive earnings-related unemployment allowance, your pension continues to accrue based on the earnings used to calculate your allowance. When calculating the pension accrued on the earnings-reated daily allowance period, 75% of this earnings is taken into account. Pension accrues in the same way as for work, i.e. 1.5% per year.

However, you do not accrue pension on the earnings-related daily allowance period if you receive partial disability pension. Furthermore, the basic daily allowance or labour market subsidy (from 1 May 2026 onwards, general social security benefit) paid by Kela do not accrue pension.

If you have reached the age of 61, partial old-age pension allows you to take 25 or 50 per cent of your pension in advance before the old-age pension age. For those born in 1964, the minimum age for partial old-age pension is 62 years. You can apply for partial old-age pension if you have not already been granted another pension based on your own work.

You can also receive unemployment allowance at the same time as partial old-age pension, as partial old-age pension does not require you to work alongside your pension. However, partial old-age pension may reduce the general social security benefit paid by Kela.  

If you have not yet reached the old-age pension age and your work ability has been reduced for a long time due to illness, you can choose either vocational rehabilitation or disability pension granted until further notice. If you have had a strenuous career and have reached the age of 63, you can apply for years-of-service pension.  The years-of-service pension requires that your work ability has been permanently reduced and no more than one year has passed since your employment relationship ended.

Read more in our Pension coverage for the unemployed brochure (pdf)

In Varma Online Service, we help you see how unemployment may affect your future pension and estimate your retirement income. Pension accrued on layoffs and unemployment will be updated on the earnings-related pension record in the spring of the following year at the latest.

You can also update your information to get a more accurate view of your estimated pension:

• select old-age pension estimate
• enter the starting date of your pension
• add the end date of the employment relationship, if necessary.

This will give you a better view of your pension.

Log in to Varma Online Service