Blog/Guides
Sick pay in Finland: what employers must pay, and for how long
The day of illness plus nine weekdays, at full or half pay depending on tenure. Why Saturday consumes one of them, and why your collective agreement probably makes the period longer.
Someone calls in sick on a Monday. Payroll needs two numbers: how long you pay, and at what rate.
- You pay full salary for the day they fall ill plus the next nine weekdays — ten weekdays in total — if they’ve worked for you a month or more.
- If they’ve worked for you less than a month, you pay 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 your 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 your 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?
You do, 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 | You, full pay |
| Employment has lasted < 1 month | Day of illness + following 9 weekdays | You, 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 your system’s end date differs, you have found a payroll bug affecting every sick leave you process.
Can you ask for a doctor’s certificate?
Yes — and there is remarkably little written into law beyond that. All you can require, on request, is a reliable account that they’re 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 you 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 a choice you made, not a statutory ceiling.
A reliable account is always available to you. A doctor’s certificate is the safe default. A public health nurse’s certificate suffices only if your own instruction or the collective agreement permits it. A Kela application always requires medical certificate A or statement B.
You may only withhold sick pay where the employee caused the incapacity wilfully or through gross negligence. Ordinary carelessness, or a hobby injury, is not enough.
What you may do with the health information you receive 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 your 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 you is settled in Which collective agreement binds you?
Next: open your collective agreement’s sick pay clause and check whether the graded period is keyed to tenure. If your payroll applies a flat ten weekdays to everyone, it is underpaying your longest-serving people.
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
- Employment Contracts Act 55/2001, Chapter 2, section 11 — sick pay
- Health Insurance Act 1224/2004, Chapter 8, section 7 — the waiting period
- Annual Holidays Act 162/2005, Chapter 1, section 4 — definitions
- Occupational Safety and Health Administration — sick pay
- Kela — sickness allowance
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.
