Applying for pension

Apply for pension online

Log in using banking codes or a mobile certificate.

Pension is a benefit that must be applied for

Before applying for pension, you can estimate the amount of your pension in our online service.

Check this page for your eligibility to receive pension. You should also check what other information is required for completing your application (besides your IBAN account number).
Fill in the electronic application. Check when is the right time to submit an application.
You can apply for both earnings-related and national pension at the same time. Are you eligible for national pension? Check whether you would also be eligible to receive pension from KELA. If an illness is making it difficult for you to continue working, consider applying for rehabilitation.

Is your employee about to retire? What should the employer do? (pdf).

If you become unemployed, the daily unemployment allowance will secure your income for at most 500 days, i.e. approximately two years. Someone who is elderly and becomes unemployed can receive the daily allowance for a longer period of time, for so-called additional days, until the age of 65 at the most.

A person born in 1955 or 1956 must be 60 years old in order to receive additional days of unemployment allowance once the 500-day period of compensation has been reached. For those born in 1957–1960, the lower age limit is 61 years. In addition, the employee must have performed pension-insured work for at least five of the last 20 years. Self-employed persons are not entitled to additional days of unemployment allowance.

Pension cover for the unemployed (pdf).

1. Apply during the month before the start of your retirement. (If you have lived or worked overseas apply 6 months earlier.) Fill in the old-age pension application and choose the item "Old-age pension for persons 62 years or over who have received additional days of unemployment allowance".
2. Inform the payer of the allowance of the month at the beginning of which you will retire.
3. Send us a certificate from your unemployment fund immediately after you receive it.
4. We will make the pension decision when we receive the final daily allowance data from the earnings register.

Partial old-age pension

• Age limit 61 years.
• 25 or 50% of the pension accrued up until the end of the previous year.

How to apply for partial old-age pension

1. Plan. Estimate the amount of your pension Also think about whether your current employment earnings will change, because working while drawing partial old-age pension is voluntary. You can also think about when you intend to switch to full old-age pension.
2. Arrange. If you are employed and wish to reduce your working hours, you must arrange that with your employer. If you are an entrepreneur and your work input changes as you begin drawing partial old-age pension, be sure to indicate the amount of your new earned income under the Self-Employed Persons Pensions Act (YEL) in your pension application. Entrepreneurs must have YEL insurance if, while they are drawing partial old-age pension, the amount of their work input exceeds the lower limit for the mandatory insurance €7,958.99 in 2020 (€7,799.37 in 2019).
3. Apply. Apply for the pension 2 weeks prior to the start of your retirement. Partial old-age pension can begin, at the earliest, at the start of the month after it was applied for.

Please note that when you decide to retire on full old-age pension, you must apply for it separately.

Partial old-age pension (pdf).

Alternative text for the seeing impaired for the graph “From sick leave to work, rehabilitation or retirement”

1. When thinking about applying for pension

Always find out about the possibility of rehabilitation first.  Calculate an estimate of your rehabilitation allowance and pension online.

You can think about applying for disability pension 2 - 3 months before your period of receiving daily sickness allowance ends, when you have discussed your return to work, rehabilitation and retirement with your doctor and

• you have not yet reached retirement age
• your workability is reduced by illness for at least a year

Also think about whether you should apply for partial disability pension.

Disability pension (pdf).

2. Get a Medical Statement B

Before applying for pension you need a Medical Statement B, including an opinion on your workability. You can send us the statement (permitted filename extensions: pdf, jpg, jpeg, jpe, tif, tiff, png) when you fill in the electronic pension application.

3. Fill in the electronic application 2 - 3 months before your period of receiving daily sickness allowance ends

If your earnings-related pension is small, you can also apply for national pension at the same time. If you are granted full disability pension, the pension will usually begin after you have received daily sickness allowance for 300 days, i.e. approximately one year after the illness began.

If you need to apply for a continuation of fixed-term rehabilitation allowance, send us a new medical statement B one month before the allowance ends. You are not required to file a new pension application.

What information do you need when filling in an application? See the checklist

• The cash rehabilitation benefit is a fixed-term pension, while disability pension is granted until futher notice.
• The partial cash rehabilitation benefit or partial disability pension is half of the full pension.

Do you go back to work? Begin rehabilitation? Or should you appeal the decision?

Appealing Varma's decision

Those who have reached their lowest age of retirement can apply for old-age pension. If you meet the conditions for the years-of-service pension you can apply for it. You can apply for years-of-service pension if you were born in 1957 (and not yet 63 years 9 months old) or you can start planning applying if you were born in 1958. If you are unsure of how much pension you have accrued, you can ask our advisory services for an estimate of the amount of your years-of-service pension. Follow these steps:

1. Discuss the conditions for receiving the years-of-service pension with your occupational healthcare.
2. When you have received a Medical Statement B, you can apply for pension. You can send us the statement (permitted filename extensions: pdf, jpg, jpeg, jpe, tif, tiff, png) when you fill in the electronic application.
3. Be prepared to describe your work for at least the past 38 years in your pension application.
4. Apply for a preliminary decision on your pension approx. three months before you have planned to retire.

Years-of-service pension (pdf).

A person born in 1957 can now opt for years-of-service pension. A person born in 1958 may consider the possibility of applying for years-of-service pension.

• Agelimit 63 years (below the lowest pensionable age)
• Strenuous and wearing work for 38 years
• Workability reduced by illness

A person born in 1957 (lower retirement age 63 years 9 moths) can receive years-of-service pension for no more than 9 months. The pension automatically changes into old-age pension once you reach your retirement age.

Survivors’ pension to

• a child under 18 years of age.
• the spouse of the deceased.
• the surviving partner of a registered partnership.

A common-law spouse is not entitled to survivors’ pension.

How to apply for survivors' pension

Apply for survivors’ pension as soon as possible but no later than 6 months following the death of the primary beneficiary, because, unless there is a specific reason, survivors’ pensions are not payable retroactively for more than six months.

Submit your application to Varma if the insured (i.e. the deceased person) received pension from us or if his/her employment earnings in the two years preceding his/her death were primarily insured by us.

1. Fill in the surviving spouse’s pension application if you are entitled to survivors' pension. Check right to pension. 
2. Fill in a separate survivors’ pension application form for each child.
3. Fill in an appendix U (Living and working abroad) if you or the primary beneficiary has worked or lived abroad. 

See the PDF forms below to check what information you need when filling in an application. The fastest way to submit your application is through Varma's eServices.

Survivors' pension (pdf).

1. You can apply for pension for work carried out in EU and EEA member states, Switzerland and social security agreement countries with the same application that you use for applying for pension for work carried out in Finland. If you have accrued pension from a country other than the ones mentioned above, apply for pension directly in the country in question.  
2. Fill in the pension application in our eServices at the earliest six months before the date when you hope to retire. Note! If you are applying for pension for work carried out in a social security agreement country, the Finnish Centre for Pensions will send you the pension application form that is compliant with the social security agreement.
3. With the Appendix U in our eServices, you provide more detailed information about residence abroad, such as information about your employer and the periods you worked and lived abroad. You should fill in the Appendix U carefully as the information will always be delivered abroad and the information you provide affects the time it takes to process the information abroad.
4. Varma delivers your pension application and its appendices (the Appendix U and potential other appendices, such as employment certificates) to the Finnish Centre for Pensions.
5. The Finnish Centre for Pensions takes care of sending of your pension application and its appendices to EU and EEA member states, Switzerland and social security agreement countries.
6. The foreign pension institution processes and makes the decision on your pension application according to their local legislation and, if necessary, contacts you to request additional details. The foreign pension decision will be sent directly to you.

More information about matters related to pension for work carried out abroad can be found on the Työeläke.fi website.

Working abroad may influence your earnings-related pension amount. Residence abroad is taken into account when calculating Kela’s national pension. Pension paid for work carried out abroad may influence your other benefits, such as the unemployment allowance. For more information about the effects of foreign pension, contact your pension or benefit provider.

Read online or print out a brochure that provides you with information about pensions.

• Old-age pension (pdf)
• Pension cover for the unemployed (pdf)
• Partial old-age pension (pdf)
• Disability pension (pdf)
• Years-of-service pension (pdf)
• Survivors' pension (pdf)
• Vocational rehabilitation (pdf)
• Varma secures your earnings-related pension (pdf)
• An employee is retiring (pdf)

Waiting for a pension decision can seem to take a long time. You can follow the processing of your application on our web service. 

The average processing time for old-age pension is  about a week. Submitting the application earlier will not expedite the process; we will be able to make a decision only after we have received the final, actual pay information from the Incomes Register. For this reason, you should not apply until two weeks before the start of the pension. If you have been working abroad, the processing takes longer than average.
The processing time for early old-age pension is about two days.

The processing of a disability pension application takes  less than about four weeks on average. It is advisable to submit your pension application 2–3 months before the end of the 300-day sickness allowance period. You will more likely receive a pension decision from us before the payment of your daily sickness allowance ends.

A survivors’ pension decision is normally made within less than two weeks. It is possible to follow the processing of a surviving spouse's pension application online.

Please note that it may take longer than usual to process the application if we have to wait for additional information that is required to make a decision.

If you have received a decision concerning your pension on rehabilitation from Varma that you are dissatisfied with, you have the right to appeal the decision within 7 + 30 days of posting the decision. If you have opted for an electronic decision, the appeal period is 3 + 30 days. If we cannot change the decision about your application in the manner you request, we will forward your appeal to the Pension Appeal Board.

The appeal must arrive at Varma at the latest by 4 pm (Finnish time) on the last day of the appeal period. If the last day of the appeal period is not a weekday, the appeal can be submitted on the following weekday.

If you are unable to submit an electronic appeal, please deliver the appeal documents to the address Varma, Muutoksenhaku, PL 3, 00098 VARMA or as a secured e-mail to the address https://turvaposti.varma.fi (the recipient being tyokyvyttomyyselake(at)varma.fi).

The fastest way to submit your appeal is through Varma's eServices.

Instructions for Appeal are attached to the decision and you should read them carefully before appealing the decision.

An appeal sent electronically must arrive no later than on the last day of the appeal period.