Finland

No. The rate was cut to 25% on 1 January 2026, down from 32%, and the duration is 84 months, or seven years. It is a final withholding tax on the salary of a foreign key employee earning at least EUR 5,800 a month in cash. Higher-education teaching and research staff face no salary minimum at all. On EUR 300,000 a year, the 25% rate against a top marginal rate of roughly 52% saves about EUR 80,000 annually, for seven years running. Any memo citing 32% or 48 months is out of date. Existing card holders get the 25% rate automatically. Everyone else must apply for the tax card within 90 days of starting work.

Yes, and this is new as of 1 January 2026. Returning Finnish citizens are now eligible for the 25% key-employee rate for work starting on or after that date. The cap, though, is 60 months rather than the 84 available to foreign nationals. As with everyone else, you must not have been a resident taxpayer in Finland during the five calendar years before starting. It fits a clear counter-trend. Sweden has raised its citizenship bar. Norway has tightened its exit tax. Finland, meanwhile, cut its key-employee rate, extended the duration and opened the door to returning Finns.

The process moves fast. Two-week decisions apply under Finland's fast track for specialists, EU Blue Card holders, start-up entrepreneurs and ICT specialists, and family members can be included. For 2026 the salary threshold for both the specialist permit and the Blue Card is EUR 3,937 a month, effective 1 January. A D visa is applied for alongside the permit. It lets you travel to Finland immediately once granted, which is a genuine advantage. Watch one trap. Fringe benefits do not count toward the EUR 3,937 threshold, only cash salary does, and applications that fall short are silently converted to the slower general employed-person permit with labour-market testing.

Finland has no wealth tax. Capital gains are taxed at 30%, rising to 34% above EUR 30,000. The top marginal rate on earned income fell to roughly 52% from 2026, down from about 57%, so the higher figure still widely quoted is out of date. For senior talent, the key-employee regime overlays a 25% final withholding on qualifying salary for seven years, and that changes the picture materially. Right now, Finland is quietly the most inbound-friendly Nordic country for senior talent.

No, and the reports that it has keep circulating and are wrong. A report proposed replacing inheritance tax with a capital gains tax, but it was not implemented, and in March 2026 Finance Minister Riikka Purra explicitly ruled out abolition, citing at least EUR 1bn of revenue loss and going against members of her own coalition. What actually happened for 2026 was a modest raising of thresholds: the inheritance tax-free threshold rose from EUR 20,000 to EUR 30,000, and the gift tax threshold from EUR 5,000 to EUR 7,500 on a three-year rolling basis. Do not build a Finnish estate plan on an abolition that is not coming.

Yes, and it is the single most-missed fact about Finnish citizenship. The standard residence requirement is eight years, but it drops to five for anyone who meets the Finnish or Swedish language requirement. That is a materially different proposition from Sweden's flat eight years with no carve-out. The language requirement is not a hurdle. It is a three-year discount. The tightening to eight years took effect on 1 October 2024. Finland permits dual citizenship, so no renunciation is required.

From 17 December 2025, a separate income requirement applies. You are treated as having insufficient resources if you drew unemployment benefits or social assistance for more than three months total in the past two years. You must also give a reliable account of where your money came from to live in Finland over that period. There are limited exemptions for permanent disability and retirement. Identity and integrity requirements were tightened as well. Note too that only 365 days of absence count toward the residence period, and at most 90 from the year immediately preceding the decision. Mobile executives should count carefully.

None is in force. A 2022 Ministry of Finance draft used a four-of-ten-years residence test rather than a short lookback. It drew heavy opposition and never became law, though no formal withdrawal has been recorded. Treat its status as dormant rather than dead. That absence, combined with no wealth tax, a 25% key-employee rate for seven years, and a five-year citizenship route for language-learners, is why Finland is moving decisively the opposite way to Sweden and Norway. It is currently the most inbound-friendly Nordic country for senior talent, and almost entirely unremarked in the advisory market.