Employee time off and attendance policy in Finland: a guide for employers

Finland’s annual leave law gives employees a statutory entitlement of 24 to 36 working days per year, depending on tenure. But the number that surprises most employers is how those days are counted. Under the Finnish Annual Holidays Act (Vuosilomalaki), Saturdays count as working days, which means a single week of vacation consumes six days of entitlement, not five. Combined with a mandatory summer holiday window and a three-tier accrual system, Finnish leave law has more moving parts than most European countries. This guide covers everything employers need to know: statutory entitlements, sick leave obligations, work hour tracking rules, parental leave, and the compliance thresholds that kick in as your headcount grows.

TL;DR

• Statutory leave accrues at 2 days/month in year one, 2.5 from year two, and 3 from 15+ years of service, calculated against an April to March earnings year
• The Saturday rule (lauantaisääntö) means one week of vacation uses 6 days of entitlement; a team on 30-day entitlement gets exactly 5 weeks off
• The summer holiday (at least 24 working days) must be taken between May 2 and September 30. Missing this window creates employer liability
• Employers pay sick leave for approximately 9 working days; Kela covers the rest for up to 300 days
• Work hour tracking is mandatory for all employees under the Working Time Act. Daily records required, retained for 2 years
• The Co-operation Act applies at 20+ employees; an equality plan is required from 30+

What is the statutory annual leave entitlement in Finland?

The Annual Holidays Act (Vuosilomalaki) sets the minimum entitlement based on length of service:

• Under 1 year of service by March 31: 2 working days per month (24 days per year)
• 1 year or more of service by March 31: 2.5 working days per month (30 days per year)
• 15 years or more of service: 3 working days per month (36 days per year)

These thresholds are measured against the end of the earnings year (March 31), not the employee’s start date. An employee who joins in June and has been employed for less than one full year by the following March 31 accrues at the lower rate for that cycle.

To accrue leave in any given month, an employee must work at least 14 days, or 35 hours for employees with variable or part-time hours. Months where this threshold is not met do not generate an entitlement.

Holiday pay during leave is normal salary. Employees are not paid a separate supplement on top of their salary during vacation, unlike in Sweden where a semestertillägg applies.

How does leave accrue in Finland, and what is the holiday year?

The earnings year runs from April 1 to March 31. Leave accrued in that period is taken in the following holiday year, which runs the same cycle.

Within the holiday year, leave is split into two parts:

• Kesäloma (summer holiday): At least 24 working days must be given between May 2 and September 30. The employer schedules the specific dates, but the window is fixed by law.
• Talviloma (winter holiday): Any remaining days must be granted before the next holiday season begins (before April 30 of the following year).

If an employer fails to schedule the summer holiday within the May to September window — unless the employee has explicitly requested otherwise — the employer is liable. Employees who are prevented from taking their summer holiday due to illness can carry those days forward or receive compensation.

The Saturday rule. This is the single most misunderstood element of Finnish leave law. Saturdays count as working days for leave calculation purposes, regardless of whether the employee actually works Saturdays. One week of vacation uses 6 days of entitlement (Monday through Saturday). An employee with 30 days of entitlement gets exactly 5 weeks of time off. An employee who tells you they “want to take two weeks off” will use 12 days from their balance, not 10.

For multi-country teams with employees in Finland and elsewhere, this creates a silent discrepancy. Other Nordic countries do not apply this rule, so a shared spreadsheet tracking leave across borders will miscalculate Finnish balances every time.

What do collective agreements add?

Finland operates an extensive system of generally applicable collective agreements (työehtosopimukset). Even employers who are not members of the relevant industry association may be legally required to apply the minimum terms of the agreement covering their sector. This is known as the normaalisitovuus (general applicability) principle.

For most tech startups and software companies, the relevant agreement is the Technology Industry CBA (Teknologiateollisuus), currently in force from February 2025 through November 2027. The IT Service Sector CBA (Tietoala) covers software and IT service companies specifically.

In practice, the most significant CBA additions for leave are:

• Extended sick pay periods (often 1 to 3 months of employer-paid leave depending on tenure, compared to the statutory ~9 working days)
• Clarification on how flexible working time systems are calculated
• Working week standards (typically 37.5 hours, not the statutory 40)

Assuming your company is exempt from CBAs without checking is a common early-stage compliance mistake in Finland.

How does sick leave work for employers in Finland?

When an employee falls ill, the employer is responsible for paying salary for the day illness begins and the following 9 working days. After that, the employee applies to Kela (Kansaneläkelaitos, the Social Insurance Institution), which pays a sickness allowance for up to 300 working days (approximately one year from the start of sick leave).

Key points for employers:

• The employer’s obligation begins on the first day of absence. There is no unpaid waiting day (karensdag) as in Sweden
• A medical certificate is typically required from the start, though CBAs often allow self-certification for the first few days
• Many tech sector CBAs extend the employer’s obligation significantly, often 1 month for employees with under 1 year of service, rising to 2 to 3 months for longer-tenured employees
• Kela reimburses the employer for part of the salary paid during the employer’s obligation period

An employee returning from illness and falling ill again within 30 days is generally treated as a continuation of the same sick leave period for entitlement calculation purposes.

What are the work hour tracking requirements in Finland?

Finland’s Working Time Act (Työaikalaki) requires employers to record working hours for all employees, including salaried professionals. There is no exemption for white-collar or knowledge workers.

What must be recorded:

• Daily working hours (start and end times)
• Break durations
• Overtime hours (and whether compensated as pay or time off)
• Night work hours
• Sunday work hours

Records must be made available to employees upon request and must be retained for a minimum of two years after the end of the calendar year they cover.

The standard working week under Finnish law is 8 hours per day and 40 hours per week, though most tech sector CBAs set the standard at 37.5 hours. Flexible working time systems (liukuva työaika), which allow employees to bank hours within a defined band, are common in the sector and permitted under the Act, but they still require tracking.

Employers who rely on Slack message timestamps or employee self-reporting without a formal system are not compliant. In a wage dispute or labour inspection, the absence of records is treated as the employer’s failure.

What are the parental leave obligations in Finland?

Finland overhauled its parental leave system in 2022, replacing the old maternity/paternity/parental leave structure with a single unified system based on equal allocation between parents.

The basics:

• Total allowance: 320 working days per child
• Per parent: 160 days each (regardless of gender)
• Transferable days: Each parent can transfer up to 63 days to the other parent
• Pregnancy leave: The birthing parent is entitled to 40 weekdays of leave before birth

Leave can be taken flexibly in multiple periods, used part-time, or taken simultaneously by both parents (with some restrictions). Kela pays the parental allowance directly. There is no statutory obligation for the employer to continue paying salary during parental leave, though many Finnish CBAs (including the Technology Industry agreement) include provisions for employer top-up.

Practical employer obligations:

• Employees must notify the employer of parental leave plans with at least two months’ notice for leave of one month or more
• Part-time parental leave requests must be accommodated unless there is a justified operational reason to refuse
• The employee’s position must be held for them during leave, and return-to-work rights are protected

What compliance thresholds should Finnish employers know?

Finland’s employment law obligations scale with headcount:

The Co-operation Act is often overlooked by fast-growing startups. It does not require employee approval for decisions, but it does require formal consultation. Skipping the process, even for decisions you are certain about, creates procedural risk.

What are the most common employer mistakes in Finland?

1. Ignoring the Saturday rule. Tracking leave in full working weeks (5 days) rather than calendar working days (6 days including Saturday) leads to systematic undercounting. An employee who takes 10 days of leave has had less than two weeks off, not the full two.

2. Assuming a flat entitlement. Once a team reaches 10+ people with varying start dates, tenure tiers diverge. Running everyone on 25 or 30 days without tracking individual accrual dates is inaccurate from year one.

3. Missing the holiday window. The summer holiday (24 working days) must be scheduled between May 2 and September 30. Employers who allow employees to take leave throughout the year without enforcing this window face retroactive liability if an employee claims they were never given the opportunity.

4. Inadequate work hour records. Recording only overtime, or relying on flexible-system check-ins without structured daily logs, does not satisfy the Working Time Act. In a dispute, the absence of records is treated as the employer’s failure.

5. Assuming the CBA does not apply. Finnish generally applicable agreements mean that industry-standard terms bind you whether or not you have signed them. For tech companies, this means the Technology Industry or IT Service Sector terms apply by default.

6. Handling the earnings year wrong for new hires. An employee who joins in November will accrue leave against the April to March cycle. Their entitlement in the first holiday year is prorated, but many systems default to a full annual entitlement on hire date.

Finnish leave law is hard to get right in a spreadsheet.

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