This is how to apply for adult education allowance if you have started your studies on 1.8.2020 or earlier
Are you going back to school after a break? The instructions on this page will help you proceed if you have received full or adjusted adult education allowance for the same studies for the first time before August 2020.
Start applying for further allowance by finding out if you have any remaining allowance period left, and which form of allowance would be best for you: full or adjusted adult education allowance.
Make sure that you have a valid right to study. If you are employed in the private or public sector, remember to agree on the study leave with your employer before applying for allowance.
The pay on which the adult education allowance is based will not be recalculated when you submit your further application, even if you are working between study leave periods. The amount of allowance has been calculated at the time of the initial application for studies and will remain the same every calendar month throughout the studies. The amount of the allowance is recalculated only when you begin entirely new studies. You can check the amount of allowance from your previous decision.
The easiest way to fill in a further application is in our online service, where you can also follow its processing.
Read more below!
How much of my allowance period do I have left?
The maximum duration of the adult education allowance is 15 months (322.5 days of allowance). A full month of allowance is considered to include 21.5 days of allowance.
Periods of adult education allowance that were previously granted will be deducted from the maximum duration of the allowance. When you have used all 15 allowance months, you cannot receive an adult education allowance again. After this, you can apply for subsidies from Kela or other bodies.
You can see the remaining allowance days in your latest adult education allowance decision, which you can find in our online service.
Which allowance is right for me?
If you are on unpaid study leave for at least two consecutive months and receive other income of up to EUR 250 gross per month, you can apply for full adult education allowance with a further application.
If, on the other hand, you are on partial study leave or work alongside your studies and earn an income of more than EUR 250 gross per month, you can apply for an adjusted adult education allowance with a further application.
See more detailed conditions below.
Full adult education allowance
You can apply for the full amount of adult education allowance if:
- you have been granted the allowance for the same studies before 1 August 2020
- you have a valid right to study in the programme for which you are applying for the allowance
- you have agreed with your employer on an unpaid study leave for a duration of at least two months without interruption
- you do not have more than EUR 250 per month in additional income. Learn more about exceeding the additional income limit and cancelling allowance below on this page.
You can submit a further application for full allowance in advance as soon as you have agreed with your employer on unpaid study leave. The application for full allowance also includes the employer's form, so at the same time make sure to find out who fills it out.
You can apply for full allowance retrospectively for a period of six months.
With the employer's form the employer's representative (e.g. HR or payroll manager) confirms the study leave period agreed with you. When you fill out your application, you will be asked for the email address to which the employer form will be sent.
We must ask your employer about your study leave in all cases when processing further applications. If the information for the period in question has been reported in a previous application, we may use the information already available to us.
Adjusted adult education allowance
You can apply for adjusted adult education allowance if:
- you have been granted the allowance for the same studies before 1 August 2020
- you have a valid right to study in the program for which you are applying for the allowance
- you have agreed with your employer on a study leave of less than two months
- you are on partial study leave or receive more than EUR 250 per month in additional income from your work.
Apply for adjusted allowance retrospectively on month-by-month basis. In other words, you can send an application after the month that your application concerns. For example, for September, you can submit a further application for adjusted allowance no earlier than the first day of October.
You can apply for an adjusted allowance retrospectively for a period of up to six months.
You can use the adult education allowance calculator to see an estimate of the amount of full or adjusted allowance you can receive.
How is additional income defined and calculated?
Taxable earned income paid during the allowance month and certain statutory benefits affect the amount of adult education allowance. They are calculated as additional income for the month in which they are paid. For example, if you are paid in August, it affects the adult education allowance for August.
Some benefits affect adult education allowance so that the allowance cannot be received at all at the same time.
Statutory benefits, wages or other employment income paid to you during the allowance month is taken into account as additional income.
Earnings that are counted as addtitional income are for example:
- Wage and its supplements and earnings equivalent to wage
- Bonus holiday pay and holiday compensation
- Taxable fringe benefits and staff benefits
- Performance-based pay, such as commission, performance bonus and bonus
- Paid days of vacation compensating for longer work days and reduced working time compensation
- Compensation transferred to or withdrawn from the working time bank
- Salary received for internship
- Earned income from business activities
- Copyright fees
- Wage and business income received from abroad.
In principle, we take into account the income from business and agricultural activities in accordance with the most recently completed tax decision. You can find your tax decision in the Tax Administration's MyTax service.
If your business has started so recently that your business income is not reflected in the last confirmed taxation, or if there has been relevant changes in your business earnings, please submit a statement of income as an attachment to your application.
Other benefits can affect your adult education allowance in three different ways. The benefit may prevent you from receiving adult education allowance, it may reduce the amount of your allowance, or it may not affect your allowance in any way.
Benefits that affect the amount of adult education allowance include, for example:
- Support for children's home care, i.e. care allowance and care supplement (without municipal supplement)
- Flexible care allowance and partial care allowance
- Partial invalidity pension
- Part-time pension
- Rehabilitation allowance not granted for the same training
The following benefits do not affect adult education allowance:
- Child benefit
- Survivors' pensions
- Income support
- School transport subsidy
- Family caregiver support
- Family care fee
- Compensation for functional limitation
- Disability allowance
- General or pensioner's housing allowance
- Care allowance for a pensioner
- Military assistance
- Partial early retirement pension
Benefits that prevent the granting of adult education allowance are, for example:
- A study grant or housing supplement in accordance with the Student Aid Act
- Daily allowance under the Health Insurance Act
- Maternity, paternity or parental allowance or partial parental allowance
- Special care allowance or special maternity allowance
- Unemployment benefit or labor market support
- Alternation allowance
- Full invalidity pension or rehabilitation allowance
- Unemployment pension
- Old age pension
- Waiver aid
- Rehabilitation allowance for the same training in accordance with the Act on Rehabilitation Benefits and Rehabilitation Allowances of the Social Insurance Institution or the Employment Pensions Act
- Full rehabilitation allowance under the Accidents at Work and Occupational Diseases Act or the Agricultural Entrepreneur's Accidents at Work and Occupational Diseases Act
- Full compensation for loss of earnings under the provisions of the Act on Rehabilitation Compensable under the Motor Insurance Act or the Military Injury Rehabilitation Act
- Years-of-service pension
- Guarantee pension
You also cannot receive allowance for periods of military service or civil service or imprisonment and study in a penitentiary institution.
Before applying
If your information has changed, please report it before filling in the application. The easiest way to update your information is on our online service.
Before applying, provide an updated tax card if you want to reduce or increase the withheld tax. 20 per cent of the adult education allowance is automatically withheld, but you can change the percentage with the updated tax card. The benefit requires an updated tax card, i.e. the tax card issued for salary or the multi-page decision on the tax card cannot be used for adult education allowance.
Order an updated tax card conveniently on the Tax Administration's MyTax service:
- When ordering an updated tax card, select another Finnish payer under “Payer of benefit”.
- In the section “Information on the benefit”, also select another Finnish payer from the drop-down menu.
- Type the payer's name as Employment Fund.
- Download the updated tax card for yourself.
- Send the tax card to our online service [linkki asiointipalvelun kirjautumissivulle] via the message function or via a secure email [linkki yhteystiedot-sivulle]. Mark as recipient koulutusetuudet@tyollisyysrahasto.fi.
For the updated tax card, you will need information about the income paid to you during the current year and the amount withheld. Also estimate how much adult education allowance and other income you will receive during the rest of the year. You can estimate the amount of adult education allowance in advance on our calculator. If you are applying for an adjusted allowance, please note that the amount of the allowance may vary from month to month.
If you submit your tax card to us electronically, please do not choose to deliver the same change tax card by mail when ordering, as a tax card sent twice may slow down the process.
How to apply for allowance
The best way to fill the further application is to do it in our online service. You can find a further application by clicking the “apply for employee adult education allowance” button.
Alternatively, you can apply for an allowance by using a printable form. See mailing address to submit the form.
We receive payroll data from the Incomes Register, so you do not, in principle, need to send pay slips as an attachment to the application. If we require a separate pay slip, we will ask for it from you.
When you fill out a further application in the online service, you will see the pay information reported by your employer in the Incomes Register for the allowance month you have applied for. Your employer has the duty to report income paid to you in the Incomes Register within five days of the date of payment (date of payment + 5 days).
Read more about the salaries and wages that affect the amount of allowance on the page Amount of adult education allowance and allowance period.
Processing applications
Our service experts process all applications for full and adjusted allowances. If additional information is needed to process your application, you will receive a request for further information in the email address you have provided in the application. After this, you will get a decision.
We aim to process adult education allowance applications as soon as possible. The target processing times of benefit applications are as follows:
- adjusted adult education allowance, 15 days
- adjusted adult education allowance, 25 days
Times are averages, and in individual cases and congestion situations, the processing time may be longer.
Your employer is required to report your income to the Incomes Register within five days of payment (five days in addition to the payment date). Therefore, applications for the agreed allowance may be processed no earlier than five days after the end of the month. For example, applications submitted on 1 May can be processed no earlier than 6 May.
If your data changes after the application has been submitted, please remember to report the new information to us via the online service.
Decision on adult education allowance
If you have submitted your application to our online service, you will be notified by e-mail as soon as the application has been processed and a decision has been made. You can see the decision by logging in to the online service. You will also be receiving it in the mail.
The decision contains the following information:
- The months for which the allowance was granted and when the payments will be made
- Your additional income limit for each month. Note that the additional income limit will be lower in incomplete allowance months than in complete allowance months, but it only applies to the days for which the allowance was granted.
- The changes that affect the allowance and that you are obliged to report to us
- The time periods for which no allowance was granted.
The final page of the decision is a certificate of your income, and you may need this if you apply for other benefits, such as general housing allowance or day care for your children. Therefore, keep the decision on adult education allowance safe.
We handle all applications as carefully as possible and make sure everything in your decision is in order. We also constantly monitor the quality of decisions.
Sometimes, however, mistakes can happen. If you are not happy with the decision, you can appeal it. Make an appeal in writing and be sure to state the following things:
- which decision you are appealing against,
- how do you request the decision to be changed and on what basis,
- your name, telephone number and the address to which you wish to be contacted in connection with your appeal,
- if the complaint was made by someone else on your behalf, please also state the name and postal address of the author.
Submit the appeal to the Employment Fund, but refer it to the Social Security Appeals Board. The appeal must be received by the Employment Fund no later than 30 days after receiving the decision. You will be deemed to have been notified of the decision on the seventh (7) day after the date of posting of the decision. Instructions on how to appeal are also attached to the decision you have received.
Payment dates
- Allowances granted in advance are paid on the last weekday of each month.
- If you are applying for the full allowance retrospectively, the allowance is paid on the next possible payment date after the payment decision has been given. The allowance is paid weekly.
- Adjusted adult education allowance is also paid on the next possible payment date after the payment decision has been given. The allowance is paid weekly.
How to cancel allowance
If you wish to cancel your adult education allowance, please contact our customer service. In principle, allowance is always cancelled for the entire allowance month.
Please note that cancelled allowance months will not be automatically available for use later. Therefore, if you cancel the support, you will need to reapply for the month with a further application for full or adjusted adult education allowance.
If you report a cancellation of allowance by email, be sure to use a secure connection and clearly indicate in the message the following:
- month(s) for which you wish to cancel allowance(s)
- why you want to cancel the allowance
- your application number or social security number.
Cancelled allowance months are released back to use and you can apply for them for use at another period of time.
Example: You have been granted full adult education allowance for the period between 1 January and 31 December 2020, but you are working from 1 June to 31 August 2020 and taking a break from your studies. They send the following notification of the cancellation of the allowance by e-mail: “I want to cancel the allowance from 1 June to 31 August 2020 because I am working and not studying in the summer. My application number is 12345-02.”