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Sick pay in Finland: what employers must pay, and for how long

Q: How many days of sick pay must a Finnish employer pay?

The day the employee falls ill plus the following nine weekdays, ten weekdays in total. If the employment relationship has continued for at least a month when the incapacity begins, they receive full pay for that period. If it has lasted less than a month, the entitlement is 50 percent of pay for the same window. After that the responsibility shifts to Kela, whose waiting period is deliberately the same length, so there is neither a gap nor an overlap between the two. The threshold is the duration of the employment relationship rather than the end of any probationary period. Probation has no bearing on the entitlement at all. Note that the window is measured in weekdays but the obligation to pay attaches to the days that would actually have been the employee's working days, which is a distinction payroll systems frequently get wrong in both directions.

Q: Does Saturday count towards the nine weekdays of sick pay in Finland?

Yes. The Employment Contracts Act contains no definition of a statutory weekday, so the operative definition comes from the Health Insurance Act: weekdays are days other than Sundays, church holidays and midweek public holidays. Saturday therefore qualifies and consumes one of the days. Work it through and the effect is concrete. An incapacity beginning on a Monday produces a ten-weekday window ending on the Thursday of the following week: Monday to Saturday gives six weekdays, and the following Monday to Thursday gives four. It is neither ten calendar days nor two working weeks. A midweek public holiday falling inside the window does not consume a day, so the window stretches further out in the calendar. A payroll system treating a weekday as Monday to Friday ends the period a day early and underpays. The Annual Holidays Act uses a different, narrower weekday definition, so do not carry this count across to annual leave calculations.

Q: Can an employer require a doctor's certificate for sick leave in Finland?

Yes, and the law says surprisingly little beyond that. The Employment Contracts Act requires only that the employee present, on request, a reliable account of their incapacity for work. There is no statutory rule on the type of document, on a number of days, or on a doctor being required from the fourth day onwards. Two things follow. Self-certification is not a statutory right. Where it exists, it exists because the employer granted it in a policy, a local workplace agreement or a collective agreement, and the Act sets no upper limit on how generous that can be. And the employer may always require a reliable account: a doctor's certificate is the safe default, while a public health nurse's certificate suffices only if the employer's own instruction or the collective agreement permits it. A Kela application always requires medical certificate A or statement B.

Q: Does the collective agreement change the sick pay period in Finland?

Almost always, and almost always in the employee's favor. Sick pay is expressly on the list of provisions that nationwide employers' and employees' associations may agree otherwise about in a collective agreement, so the statutory ten weekdays is a floor rather than a budget. The occupational safety and health administration confirms that collective agreements typically contain sick pay terms better than the Act. The usual structure grades the full-pay period the employer carries into levels tied to the duration of the employment relationship, and those gradings change with every bargaining round. The practical rule is to establish which agreement applies to the work first, then calculate the periods. Never copy a day count from a source that does not name the agreement and its period of validity. So a flat ten-weekday rule applied to everyone will underpay the longest-serving employees.

The day of illness plus nine weekdays, at full or half pay depending on tenure. Why Saturday consumes one of them, and why the applicable collective agreement probably makes the period longer.

by Mikko Kivelä·July 16, 2026·

Sick pay in Finland: what employers must pay, and for how long

Someone calls in sick on a Monday. Payroll needs two numbers: how long the employer pays, and at what rate.

The employer pays full salary for the day the employee falls ill plus the next nine weekdays, ten weekdays in total, if the employee has worked there a month or more.
If the employee has worked there less than a month, the employer pays 50% of salary for that same ten-weekday window.
Saturday counts as a weekday, so an illness starting on a Monday can run the paid window through the Thursday of the following week, not just the Friday before it.
Kela, Finland’s social insurance institution, takes over once the employer’s ten weekdays end, and its waiting period starts exactly there, so there is neither a gap nor an overlap in pay.
The law requires only “a reliable account” of illness on request, not a doctor’s certificate, but the collective agreement almost always extends the paid period beyond ten weekdays, graded by tenure.

The complications are all in the word weekday.

Who pays, and for how long?

The employer does, for ten weekdays, and then Kela’s own waiting period ends and its sickness allowance begins. The two periods are deliberately written to match, so there is neither a gap nor an overlap.

Situation	Period	Who pays
Employment has continued ≥ 1 month	Day of illness + following 9 weekdays	Employer, full pay
Employment has lasted < 1 month	Day of illness + following 9 weekdays	Employer, 50% of pay
After that	—	Kela

The threshold is the duration of the employment relationship, not the end of probation. What matters is whether they had been employed a month when the incapacity began. A probationary period has no bearing on this entitlement at all: a common and expensive assumption.

One more distinction that payroll systems get wrong in both directions: the window is measured in weekdays, but the obligation to pay attaches to the days that would actually have been the employee’s working days. Those are not the same set.

Next: check whether your payroll rule keys off the hire date or the end of probation. If it is the latter, it is wrong.

Why does Saturday count?

Weekdays here means any day other than a Sunday, a church holiday, or a midweek public holiday. That definition comes from the Health Insurance Act. There is no separate definition in the Employment Contracts Act itself. Saturday is not excluded, so it counts.

Work it through and the effect is concrete:

An incapacity beginning on a Monday produces a ten-weekday window ending on the Thursday of the following week. Monday to Saturday is six weekdays; the following Monday to Thursday is four.

That is neither ten calendar days nor two working weeks. And a midweek public holiday falling inside the window does not consume a day, so the window stretches further out in the calendar when one lands there.

The two failure modes are symmetrical:

A system treating a weekday as Monday-to-Friday ends the period a day early and underpays.
A system counting calendar days ends it too late.

Kela counts the same way, Saturdays included. But do not carry the number across from annual leave: the Annual Holidays Act has its own, different weekday definition that also excludes Christmas Eve, Midsummer Eve, Easter Saturday and May Day. Two acts, two definitions, one word.

Next: take a real absence that started on a Monday and hand-count the window. If the system’s end date differs, that is a payroll bug affecting every sick leave processed.

Can an employer ask for a doctor’s certificate?

Yes, and there is remarkably little written into law beyond that. All the employer can require, on request, is a reliable account that the employee is off sick. No document type. No day count. No “doctor from day four”.

Two consequences follow.

Self-certification is not a right. Where it exists, it exists because the employer granted it in a policy, a local workplace agreement or a collective agreement. There is no upper limit on how generous that self-certification practice can be, either: a three-day or even a five-day policy is the employer’s choice, not a statutory ceiling.

The employer can always ask for a reliable account. A doctor’s certificate is the safe default. A public health nurse’s certificate suffices only if the employer’s own instruction or the collective agreement permits it. A Kela application always requires medical certificate A or statement B.

The employer may only withhold sick pay where the employee caused the incapacity willfully or through gross negligence. Ordinary carelessness, or a hobby injury, is not enough.

What the employer may do with the health information it receives is a separate question, and a tightly regulated one: see Background checks and candidate privacy in Finland. Next: put your certificate policy (doctor’s note, public health nurse, or self-certification up to a stated number of days) in writing so payroll has one rule to apply, not a judgment call per absence.

Does the collective agreement make sick pay last longer?

Sick pay is expressly on the list of provisions that nationwide associations may agree otherwise about, so the statutory ten weekdays is a floor, not a budget.

The occupational safety and health administration confirms the practical picture: collective agreements typically contain sick pay terms better than the Act. The usual structure grades the employer-paid full-pay period into levels tied to how long the employment has lasted. Those gradings change with every bargaining round.

Which is why the order of operations matters. Establish which agreement applies to the work, then calculate the period. Never copy a day count from a source that does not name the agreement and its validity period, this page included. Which agreement binds the employer is settled in Does a collective bargaining agreement bind the employer?

Next: open your collective agreement’s sick pay clause and check whether the graded period is keyed to tenure. If payroll applies a flat ten weekdays to everyone, it is underpaying the longest-serving employees.

What about variable hours?

Someone on variable working hours earns sick pay only for a shift that was rostered, otherwise agreed, or clearly one they would have worked had they been well.

The same method applies to fixed hours in one situation: where additional work has averaged at least four times the agreed working time over the preceding six months.

Next: check the shift roster or the working-time agreement before approving sick pay for a variable-hours absence. If the shift was not scheduled, agreed, or clearly expected, there is no automatic entitlement to pay for it.

How does Taito.ai help with this?

Taito.ai sets up the sick pay record for each employee (employment start date, absence days and the applicable collective agreement) and keeps it maintained automatically as those facts change.

Sources

Finlex (2001) Employment Contracts Act, 55/2001, Chapter 2, section 11 (sick pay).
Finlex (2004) Health Insurance Act, 1224/2004, Chapter 8, section 7 (the waiting period).
Finlex (2005) Annual Holidays Act, 162/2005, Chapter 1, section 4 (definitions).
Kela (n.d.) Sickness allowance.
Työsuojeluhallinto (n.d.) Sick pay.

Finlex publishes these acts in Finnish and Swedish only. There is no citable official English translation, so every rule here is paraphrased rather than quoted. Where the exact wording matters, follow the link and read the Finnish or Swedish text.

Disclaimer

Taito.ai does not provide legal, tax or accounting advice. This article is general information about the law as it stood on the date above, not advice on your situation, and it is not a substitute for it. Rates and thresholds change. Check with a qualified adviser before acting on anything here.

Frequently asked questions

How many days of sick pay must a Finnish employer pay?

The day the employee falls ill plus the following nine weekdays, ten weekdays in total. If the employment relationship has continued for at least a month when the incapacity begins, they receive full pay for that period. If it has lasted less than a month, the entitlement is 50 percent of pay for the same window. After that the responsibility shifts to Kela, whose waiting period is deliberately the same length, so there is neither a gap nor an overlap between the two. The threshold is the duration of the employment relationship rather than the end of any probationary period. Probation has no bearing on the entitlement at all. Note that the window is measured in weekdays but the obligation to pay attaches to the days that would actually have been the employee's working days, which is a distinction payroll systems frequently get wrong in both directions.

Does Saturday count towards the nine weekdays of sick pay in Finland?

Yes. The Employment Contracts Act contains no definition of a statutory weekday, so the operative definition comes from the Health Insurance Act: weekdays are days other than Sundays, church holidays and midweek public holidays. Saturday therefore qualifies and consumes one of the days. Work it through and the effect is concrete. An incapacity beginning on a Monday produces a ten-weekday window ending on the Thursday of the following week: Monday to Saturday gives six weekdays, and the following Monday to Thursday gives four. It is neither ten calendar days nor two working weeks. A midweek public holiday falling inside the window does not consume a day, so the window stretches further out in the calendar. A payroll system treating a weekday as Monday to Friday ends the period a day early and underpays. The Annual Holidays Act uses a different, narrower weekday definition, so do not carry this count across to annual leave calculations.

Can an employer require a doctor's certificate for sick leave in Finland?

Yes, and the law says surprisingly little beyond that. The Employment Contracts Act requires only that the employee present, on request, a reliable account of their incapacity for work. There is no statutory rule on the type of document, on a number of days, or on a doctor being required from the fourth day onwards. Two things follow. Self-certification is not a statutory right. Where it exists, it exists because the employer granted it in a policy, a local workplace agreement or a collective agreement, and the Act sets no upper limit on how generous that can be. And the employer may always require a reliable account: a doctor's certificate is the safe default, while a public health nurse's certificate suffices only if the employer's own instruction or the collective agreement permits it. A Kela application always requires medical certificate A or statement B.

Does the collective agreement change the sick pay period in Finland?

Almost always, and almost always in the employee's favor. Sick pay is expressly on the list of provisions that nationwide employers' and employees' associations may agree otherwise about in a collective agreement, so the statutory ten weekdays is a floor rather than a budget. The occupational safety and health administration confirms that collective agreements typically contain sick pay terms better than the Act. The usual structure grades the full-pay period the employer carries into levels tied to the duration of the employment relationship, and those gradings change with every bargaining round. The practical rule is to establish which agreement applies to the work first, then calculate the periods. Never copy a day count from a source that does not name the agreement and its period of validity. So a flat ten-weekday rule applied to everyone will underpay the longest-serving employees.