The objective of the assessment commissioned by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health was to propose solutions to the challenges involved in determining entrepreneurs’ pension contributions and the confirmed YEL income that forms the basis for their pensions, as well as to present development proposals for the self-employed persons’ pension insurance system. The assessment was performed by Jukka Rantala, PhD.
Rantala submitted his report to the Minister of Social Security Sanni Grahn-Laasonen on 5 December 2025.
Rantala’s report contains five development proposals, the first of which is to determine entrepreneurs’ YEL income on the basis of the taxable earned income from their entrepreneurial activity. This would be the main rule for insurance.
Furthermore, he proposes that a self-employed person could opt for an imputed YEL income determined under the same principles as currently when their earned income exceeds EUR 35,000 per year. The current YEL income calculator would be further developed to more accurately measure the value of the entrepreneur’s work input (so-called work input gauge).
Rantala also proposes abandoning the four-month time limit for the insurance obligation be abandoned and setting the income threshold for insurance at three times the lower limit under the Employees Pensions Act (TyEL), i.e., approximately EUR 2,520 euros per year.
In the press release concerning the publication of the report, Minister Grahn-Laasonen stated that the government is willing to reform the YEL system during the current government term, and to that end will launch a dialogue with entrepreneurs.
Varma will closely monitor the progress made to develop the YEL system and will inform its customers of potential changes.
The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health’s press release on the publication of the report on the development needs of the YEL system 5 December 2025 (in Finnish)
Rapporteur Jukka Rantala’s report Self-employed persons also deserve decent pension security (in Finnish)
Further information for our clients
We offer our customers a free webinar on what the proposed changes to the YEL system really mean on 15 December at 10:00 am. In our webinar, we will provide up-to-date information on what the report includes and how the proposals, if implemented, could affect entrepreneurs. You can also send us questions in advance when signing up for the webinar. After the event, the webinar recording can be found on the same event page on varma.fi and on Varma’s YouTube channel.
Read more and sign up for the webinar on what the proposed changes to YEL really mean (Please note that the webinar will be in Finnish)