Part Time Jobs in Finland for International Students: 2026 Pay, Hours and Tax

  • Last Updated on: October 16, 2026 by
  • Ananya Nallagalla
Part-Time Jobs in Finland for International Students
Part-Time Jobs in Finland for International Students

Part-time jobs in Finland for international students pay EUR 9.58 to EUR 14.31 an hour in 2026, and your student permit lets you work an average of 30 hours a week under Migri’s Working and internships during studies page. A job can’t pay tuition, but it can cover living costs once you find steady hours. Below: 12 pay rates across retail, hospitality and cleaning, what tax takes, and the papers for your first weeks of study in Finland.

Written by
Ananya Nallagalla
Senior Counsellor
Ananya Nallagalla, Senior Counsellor for Nordic Countries at AOEC India (Hyderabad), has 7 years of experience in Nordic admissions and has counselled 113 students at AOEC India, specialising in Sweden and Finland.
95% visa success rate
Reviewed by
Sridhar Kongara
Managing Director
Mr. Kongara Sridhar, Director of AOEC India, has over 12 years of experience in overseas education consulting, admissions, and student visa guidance.
Over 12 years Experience

Key Takeaways

  • Pay runs EUR 9.58 to EUR 14.31 an hour (about INR 1,020 to INR 1,524), set by sector pay deals.
  • Your permit allows 30 hours a week on average, which is 1,560 hours a year.
  • Summer full-time work is fine only if your yearly average stays at 30 hours a week or less.
  • Beginners can be paid less: 80 per cent for a first restaurant job, 85 per cent for a first shop year without experience.
  • At 120 hours a month and EUR 12.21 an hour, you keep about EUR 1,320 to 1,340 (about INR 1.41 to 1.43 lakh) after deductions.
  • Wages cover living costs, not tuition, and can’t count toward your first permit money.
Table of Contents
How many hours you can work on a Finnish student residence permit Scroll here ↓ Part-time jobs in Finland and what each one pays in 2026 Scroll here ↓ Finding a part-time job in Finland when you don’t speak Finnish Scroll here ↓ Documents you need before your first shift in Finland Scroll here ↓ Your monthly take-home pay from a part-time job in Finland Scroll here ↓ Frequently Asked Questions Scroll here ↓

How many hours you can work on a Finnish student residence permit

A residence permit for studies allows paid work in any field for an average of 30 hours per week, or 1,560 hours a year, under Migri’s Working and internships during studies page. Because it is a yearly average, one busy week does not break it.

Thirty hours over 52 weeks makes 1,560 hours. Migri also gives a monthly average of 120 hours, the figure the pay table below uses. You can work full time in the summer or Christmas break, but only if your year still averages 30 hours a week or less. Your employer checks your Finland student residence permit, but you share the responsibility, so log your own hours.

  • Term time: plan 25 to 30 hours, leaving room for exams.
  • Holidays: work more, then balance it across the year.

Part-time jobs in Finland and what each one pays in 2026

Finnish law sets no minimum wage, so each rate comes from the collective agreement (a sector pay deal between employers and the union) for that work, as InfoFinland wages guidance explains. Restaurant rates apply from 1 June 2026, the rest from 1 August 2026.

JobSector pay dealEUR per hourINR per hourGross a month at 120 hours
Assistant (kitchen or service) or porter, first 6 months (trainee rate)HospitalityEUR 9.58INR 1,020EUR 1,150 (INR 1.22 lakh)
Waiter, cashier, cook or cleaner in a cafe, first 6 months (trainee rate)HospitalityEUR 9.77INR 1,041EUR 1,172 (INR 1.25 lakh)
Shop assistant, first year (beginner rate), outside Helsinki areaRetailEUR 10.51INR 1,120EUR 1,261 (INR 1.34 lakh)
Shop assistant, first year (beginner rate), Helsinki areaRetailEUR 10.95INR 1,166EUR 1,314 (INR 1.40 lakh)
Cleaner, trainee rate (beginners, including students in school holidays)CleaningEUR 11.33INR 1,207EUR 1,360 (INR 1.45 lakh)
Assistant (kitchen or service) or porterHospitalityEUR 11.97INR 1,275EUR 1,436 (INR 1.53 lakh)
Waiter, cashier, cook or cleaner in a cafe or fast-food outletHospitalityEUR 12.21INR 1,301EUR 1,465 (INR 1.56 lakh)
Shop assistant, from year two, outside Helsinki areaRetailEUR 12.37INR 1,318EUR 1,484 (INR 1.58 lakh)
Cleaner, after the trainee rateCleaningEUR 12.59INR 1,341EUR 1,511 (INR 1.61 lakh)
Shop assistant, from year two, Helsinki areaRetailEUR 12.88INR 1,372EUR 1,546 (INR 1.65 lakh)
Waiter or cook where strong alcohol is servedHospitalityEUR 13.70INR 1,459EUR 1,644 (INR 1.75 lakh)
Hotel receptionist or conciergeHospitalityEUR 14.31INR 1,524EUR 1,717 (INR 1.83 lakh)

The trainee and beginner rows already include the pay cut, so nothing more comes off them. Under the PAM and MaRa hotel and restaurant agreement, someone new to restaurant work is a trainee for six months on 80 per cent of the rate. The trainee period is two months if you already have the training the job needs. In shops, the retail collective agreement allows 85 per cent of the second-year wage for your first year, if you have no shop experience or retail training.

Under the same PAM and MaRa agreement, restaurants add EUR 1.40 an hour from 18.00 to midnight and EUR 2.37 from midnight to 06.00, and that extra doubles on Sundays and public holidays. Sunday night shifts pay best, so take them first.

Finding a part-time job in Finland when you don’t speak Finnish

Finding a job during your studies is challenging, especially without Finnish or Swedish, according to Study in Finland’s fees and cost of living page. Many service jobs, even in cafes and supermarkets, ask for at least basic Finnish, especially outside Helsinki. So apply to cleaning and kitchen work in your first week.

  • Cleaning companies.
  • Restaurant kitchens.
  • Food delivery apps, where you work for yourself.
  • Shops and supermarkets.
  • Campus jobs such as research or lab assistant posts.

Search three places: Job Market Finland (Työmarkkinatori), the public job site; private sites such as LinkedIn; and your university career service. Many student jobs are filled through personal recommendations, so tell classmates you’re looking. Openings usually rise before the summer and December holidays, so apply early.

Take a short Finnish course in your first term. It widens your job options, and Finnish work experience strengthens your CV for the job hunt under the Finland post-study work permit.

Documents you need before your first shift in Finland

Get these in order before your first shift:

  1. Personal identity code (henkilötunnus): the number banks and employers ask for. In most cases it comes with your permit, as Migri’s personal identity code page explains.
  2. Municipality of residence: your registered home town. The identity code does not give you one. Register it in person at the Digital and Population Data Services Agency; you need it for city health care.
  3. Finnish bank account: open one once you have your code.
  4. Tax card (verokortti): the slip telling your employer how much tax to take. Take your passport and student ID to the Finnish Tax Administration (Vero), whose Academic studies in Finland page explains the process and the study-based tax relief check. If you already have your identity code, you can send the form instead of visiting, says Vero’s Coming to work for a Finnish employer page.
  5. Hygiene passport (hygieniapassi): a Finnish food-safety certificate for jobs handling unwrapped fresh food. You need it once you’ve worked three months for that employer, counting similar earlier work. A foreign hygiene passport, including one from India, does not count under Finnish Food Authority guidance.
  6. Written employment contract: a legal right for every employee in Finland, listed on the Job Market Finland employee rights page. Ask for it before you start.

Your monthly take-home pay from a part-time job in Finland

At EUR 12.21 an hour for 120 hours a month, a student grosses about EUR 1,465 and keeps roughly EUR 1,320 to 1,340. On the Finnish Tax Administration’s 2026 tax rate examples, income tax at that pay is under 1.5 per cent, so pension and unemployment insurance at 8.19 per cent is the bigger cut.

At EUR 12.21 an hour15 hours a week120 hours a month
Gross a monthEUR 794 (INR 84,579)EUR 1,465 (INR 1.56 lakh)
Insurance at 8.19 per centEUR 65EUR 120
Income taxEUR 0EUR 7 to 22
Take-home a monthEUR 729 (INR 77,655)EUR 1,323 to 1,338 (INR 1.41 to 1.43 lakh)

Fifteen hours a week comes to about EUR 9,500 a year, under Vero’s EUR 10,000 example taxed at 0 per cent. Full hours come to about EUR 17,600, between its 0.5 and 1.5 per cent examples. Vero’s examples assume a Helsinki church member, so your rate may differ slightly. Any course longer than six months makes you a resident taxpayer on these low rates; on a short stay your employer takes 35 per cent tax before paying you, under the same Vero students page.

Living costs run about EUR 900 to EUR 1,200 a month, depending on the city, in Study in Finland’s cost of living guidance. Full hours leave about EUR 120 to EUR 440 spare, while 15 hours a week leaves you about EUR 170 to EUR 470 short. Part-time pay won’t cover both living costs and tuition, which typically runs EUR 9,000 to EUR 20,000 a year. Our cost of studying in Finland guide puts the whole year on one page.

Parents: on a first permit, work does not count toward the money you must show, under Migri’s Income requirement for students page. That money is EUR 800 a month, or EUR 9,600 for a year, in the student’s own account, plus first-year tuition if unpaid. Plan wages as extra money, not tuition money. Tuition waivers, listed on our scholarships in Finland page, are what cut that bill.

From our counselling desk: in the Finland files we handled for the 2026 autumn intake, the students earning within two months were the ones who applied for cleaning and kitchen work in their first week, before chasing jobs in their own field.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Not quickly. Many service jobs ask for at least basic Finnish, so many students start in cleaning, kitchens, or food delivery instead. Plan your first semester on savings, not on a job you have not found yet, and start a Finnish course early.

Yes. Platform work is allowed under the Migri page on business activities of permit holders, through apps such as Wolt or Foodora on a student permit, as long as your studies keep moving. You work as a self-employed rider, not an employee, so keep the hours modest: your permit depends on your studies moving at a normal pace.

Not if the credits are agreed before you start. Migri does not apply the 30-hour limit to thesis work (diploma work) or internships that are part of your degree, when the credit is agreed up front. If you register the work as an internship afterwards, the limit applies.

No. In Finland, work without pay is legal only in work trials run by the employment services, voluntary work, or practical training that is part of your studies. A probation period is paid at the normal wage, so a restaurant asking for a free trial shift is breaking the law.

Yes, at renewal. On your first permit, work cannot count toward the money you must show. When you apply for an extended permit, your wages can count, as long as work has not slowed your studies. Migri reads your pay from the Incomes Register (Finland’s national pay database), so you attach no payslips.

Part-time jobs in Finland for international students help with rent and food if you plan from day one. Ardent Overseas advises Indian families on Finland from offices in Hyderabad and Tirupati, checking each budget against current pay deals and Migri rules.

Sources

Official sources first, then reputable third-party.

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