Earnings-related allowance

You may be eligible for earnings-related allowance if you are unemployed, laid off, or working only part-time.

To receive the allowance, you must be registered as a full-time jobseeker with the unemployment authority, meet both the membership condition and work requirement and have no other obstacles to payment.

Membership Condition

The membership condition refers to the minimum period you must have continuously been a member of the unemployment fund to qualify for earnings-related allowance.

(Read more in the section: Membership condition)

Work Requirement

The work requirement refers to the period of employment you must accumulate before becoming eligible for earnings-related allowance. You can only accumulate the work requirement during unemployment fund membership.

(Read more in the section: Work Requirement)

Register as a Job Seeker on Time

Receiving earnings-related allowance requires that your jobseeker status is valid. Remember to register with the employment authority no later than the first day from which you apply for the allowance. The allowance must be applied for within three months.

Note that those who are laid off or working part-time must also register as full-time jobseekers with the employment authority.

You can find more information about job seeker rights and obligations on the Työmarkkinatori website.

For under 25 years of age

If you are under 25 and do not have a vocational qualification or a higher educational degree, receiving earnings-related allowance may require you to fulfil a joint application obligation supervised by the employment authority.

Read more about unemployment benefits for under the age of 25 here.

Membership condition is the minimum time you must continuously be a member of the unemployment fund before you can receive earnings-related allowance. The membership condition is 12 months.

Previous membership with another unemployment fund will be considered towards the membership condition if you have joined the Unemployment Fund of Service Union United within one month of leaving your previous unemployment fund.

The work requirement needed for earnings-related allowance is 12 months. Only work completed while you are a member of the unemployment fund counts towards this requirement.

The review period is generally calculated backwards from the date you register as a jobseeker. The work requirement does not need to be accumulated in consecutive months but it must be met within a 28-month review period.

The review period may be extended for a valid reason, such as parental leave, childcare leave, periods of disability or full-time studies. The review period can be extended by up to seven years.

How does the work requirement accumulate?

The work requirement accumulates based on your income, meaning the salary you receive from your work. The work requirement is counted for the calendar months in which you have been paid.

Work months are accumulated as follows:

• If you have earned at least 930 euros in a month, one full month of employment is added to the work requirement.
• If you have earned 465-929 euros in a month, half a month of employment is added to the work requirement.

Two half months of employment equals one full month of employment. For example, the work requirement can be met with 11 full months and to half months of employment.

Accumulation of the work requirement prior to 2 September 2024

The work requirement for periods before 2 September 2024 accumulates based on working hours. This means that any calendar week in which you have worked, or had other paid time (such as annual leave or paid sick leave), for at least 18 hours count towards the work requirement.

If your work requirement includes both weeks accumulated on the basis of hours (before 2 September 2024) and employment months (after 2 September 2024), the weeks based on hours will be automatically converted into income-based employment months. The conversion is calculated so that 4 weeks of employment always equal one employment month. Of the remaining weeks, 1-2 weeks count as half a month, and 3 weeks count as a full employment month.

Pay subsidies and work requirement

Working with pay subsidies does not usually accumulate the work requirement necessary for earnings-related allowance eligibility. However, pay-subsidized work fully extends the 28-month review period, i.e. the period within which the work requirement must be met.

If the pay subsidy has been granted because of reduced working capacity or for the employment of a long-term unemployed person over the age of 60, part of the work can be accepted for the employee's work requirement.

Basic component

Earnings-related allowance consists of a basic component and an earnings-related component. The basic component of earnings-related allowance is the same for everybody and the full daily allowance is always at least the basic component amount.

The basic component is 37,21 € / day. The basic component is equal to Kela's basic unemployment allowance.

Earnings-related component

The earnings component paid in addition to the basic component depends on your income. The earnings component is 45 % of the difference between your daily wage and the basic component. If your monthly wage is higher than 3534,95€, the earnings component is 20 % of the wages above this amount. 

The amount of earnings-related allowance is calculated from your earnings in the period immediately before unemployment. The calculation takes into account the regular wage income included in the work requirement. Holiday pay and sick pay are also taken into account in the work requirement period. If your working hours were reduced due to partial pension, partial disability pension, partial childcare leave or partial sickness allowance, the period preceding this is calculated. In these cases you must submit a wage certificate for the period covered by the work requirement. 

Only regular income is taken into account in the calculation. Profit-related bonuses, holiday bonuses or holiday compensation, for example, are not regular income so they are not taken into account in the calculation. 

A percentage deduction is made from wages before daily allowances are calculated. This deduction corresponds to an employee’s employment pension and unemployment insurance contributions and the daily allowance contribution of health insurance (3,54 % in 2025). Therefore the wages that daily allowances are determined on are always lower than actual average monthly wages. 

Full earnings-related allowance is at most 90 % of the daily wage that the allowance is based on. If you are paid an increased earnings-related component for a period of employment promotion, the daily allowance can at most be the daily wage that the allowance is based on. 

Re-calculating the allowance

Your daily allowances are re-calculated when your work requirement is met again.

If the 26-week work requirement is met again before September 2, 2024, and less than a year has passed since the previous calculation of the daily allowance and the first paid day, the level of the daily allowance will not be recalculated, and there is no new waiting period.

Staggering of earnings-related allowance (starting from 2 September 2024)

Staggering means that the amount of earnings-related allowance will decrease as the duration of the unemployment increases. The allowance will be staggered if the calculation of the benefit is based on the new income-based work requirement on or after 2 September 2024. The allowance will not be staggered if payment of the allowance’s maximum period has started on or before 1 September 2024.

The amount of the benefit will decrease to:

• 80 % of the full allowance after 40 benefit days (approximately 8 weeks)
• 75 % of the full allowance after 170 benefit days (approximately 34 weeks)

Remember that earnings-related allowance can never be smaller than Kela’s basic daily allowance. In addition, if you fulfill your 12-month work requirement again, the amount of the allowance returns to full and the maximum payment period resets.

Daily allowance calculator

You can estimate your daily allowance with TYJ's daily allowance calculator or the calculator in our eService. 

Employment-promoting services

Find information about how participating in an employment-promoting service may affect the amount of your allowance.

Earnings-related allowance is paid for five days a week. Length of the maximum payment period depends on your work history prior to the unemployment.  The maximum payment period of earnings-related allowance is always reset when the work requirement filled again.

The maximum period of earnings-related allowance is: 

• 300 days if your employment history is no more than three years when unemployment starts. 
• 400 days if your employment history is more than three years when unemployment starts. 
• 500 days if you are at least 58 years old when you meet the work requirement and have worked at least 5 years in the last 20 years.  You may also be entitled to 500 days if the maximum allowance period began before 1.1.2017. 

Right to additional days

Earnings-related allowance can be paid after the maximum period has been met as “additional days” up to the end of the calendar month when you reach the age of 65 years.

A new change security scheme has been introduced from the beginning of 2023 for those who were born in 1965 or after. Change security will replace the right to additional days gradually by the year 2030. 

You may be entitled to additional days if:

• you were born between 1957-1960 and turned 61 before the maximum allowance period was reached
• you were born between 1961-1962 and turned 62 before the maximum allowance period was reached
• you were born in 1963 and turned 63 before the maximum period was reached
• you were born in 1964 and turned 64 before the maximum period was reached

The age requirement is met also if you turn 61-64 on the same day that the maximum payment period ends.

A further requirement is that you have worked at least 5 years in the last 20 years.  

The Unemployment Fund checks your entitlement to additional days when the maximum allowance period is reached.  

The government has decided to remove the right to additional days in the future. This will apply for applicants, who were born 1965 or later.

Earnings-related allowance is a benefit, so it is taxed differently from wages. 

In accordance with the Tax Administration’s instructions, at least 25% tax is withheld from earnings-related allowance if the tax information the fund has is for wage income. 

If you want, you can order a revised tax card for benefits from the Tax Administration. This is easy to do, for example in the Tax Administration’s MyTax service.When you select PAM Unemployment Fund/Palvelualojen työttömyyskassa as the benefit payer in the service, the unemployment fund can access the information electronically the next day. 

Please note that the revised tax card must be specifically for benefits. If the revised tax card is for wage income, 25% tax is still withheld from the benefit. 

Read more about taxation of unemployment benefits on the Tax Administration website. 

You must complete a waiting period before you can receive earnings-related allowance. The waiting period is equivalent to seven working days, during which no allowance is paid.

The waiting period is set when you apply for earnings-related allowance for the first time or when you meet the work requirement again.

Waiting days can only be counted when you are registered as a jobseeker with the employment authority and there are no other obstacles to the payment of earnings-related allowance, such as a suspension period or the periodization of holiday compensation. No more than five waiting days can be counted in a single week.  

The waiting period must be fulfilled within eight consecutive weeks. Days outside this timeframe cannot be counted toward the waiting period. 

Waiting Period for Part-Time Workers

For part-time workers, the waiting period is calculated in hours. It is based on the difference between full-time hours and the hours you have actually worked. The wating period is considered fulfilled once the total number of hours equivalent to seven working days has been reached.

In practice, completing the waiting period may take longer for part-time workers than for someone who is fully unemployed. This is because the hours worked reduce the amount of unemployment time that can be counted toward the waiting period each week.

The waiting period is not accrued for periods when working hours exceed 80 % of the maximum working hours for a full-time employee.

If you are paid holiday compensation at the end of a full-time job that has lasted for two weeks or more, the compensation will be periodized. This means that you will not be entitled to unemployment benefit for the duration of the periodization.

When your holiday compensation is periodized, the paid compensation is divided by your average daily salary. This is used to calculate how many days the compensation is equivalent to. The number of days corresponds to the period for which you are not entitled to daily earnings allowance.

A holiday compensation equal to one month’s salary postpones the commencement of the daily allowance by approximately one month. Only weekdays are taken into account in the periodization , i.e., a maximum of 5 days in a week.

Remember that the waiting period (see the previous section) does not accrue during the periodization of the holiday compensation. The waiting period begins once the holiday compensation period has ended.

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Example #1

Your daily wage is 100 € / day. You are paid 1 000 € holiday compensation at the end of the employment relationship. The compensation corresponds to 10 days' salary (1000 € : 100 € = 10 days). Your daily allowance application is rejected for ten business days (earnings-related daily allowance is paid for 5 days / calendar week), starting from the day after the end of the employment relationship.

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Example #2

Your full-time employment, which has lasted more than two weeks, ends on Sunday 7 January 2024. You have registered as a job seeker at the employment authority from January 8, 2024. You have not received earnings-related daily allowance before so a waiting period of 7 days must be accrued after the periodization.

You receive a 1000 € holiday compensation for unused vacation days and your calculated daily salary is 100 €. The duration equal to the holiday compensation if 10 business days (1000 € : 100 € = 10 days). Your holiday compensation is periodized from the day following the end of the employment relationship, i.e. from 8 January 2024. The period is 10 business days, which means that from 8 to 19 January 2024, you are not entitled to daily allowance.

The waiting period is accrued after the periodization of the holiday compensation, i.e. from 20 January 2024. The waiting period is 7 days long (from 1 January 2024 forward) and only weekdays are taken into account. Your waiting period of 7 business days will accrue between January 20 and 30, 2024.

Therefore, you will be paid daily allowance from January 31 2024.

A suspension period is an unpaid time limit set by the employment authority. Daily allowances are not paid for the period of the suspension period and the waiting period is also not taken.The length of the suspension period varies from 7 days to 45 days depending on the basis for it. You can read more about this on the employment authority's website. 

Annual holiday, holiday pay and holiday bonuses may reduce the amount of daily allowances paid or prevent payment altogether. The effect of these depends on whether the holiday and related payments were accrued from full-time work or part-time work.  

If you have been laid off from full-time work, you are not entitled to daily allowances for annual holiday periods. Enter holiday periods in your application.  You are entitled to unemployment allowance for holiday periods earned from part-time work on condition that your job search has been active with the employment authority.

Enter holiday days in your application according to the holiday hours paid. Holiday pay and holiday bonuses are taken into account in the adjustment in the application period in which they were paid to the applicant’s account. Work where the contractual working hours do not exceed 80% of the total working hours in the collective agreement is considered part-time work. Read more about adjusted daily allowances or entitlement to daily allowances in lay-off situations.