What a year in Finland costs

The money you must prove

Before Migri grants a student residence permit it wants evidence you can support yourself. For studies lasting a year or more that is €800 a month, €9,600 for the year, available to you and evidenced — a bank statement in your name, a scholarship award letter, or a combination.

Two things trip people up. First, this is living money and it sits on top of any tuition you still owe. Second, a scholarship reduces the figure by its own value, but only once it has actually been granted.

What you will actually spend

Item	Typical	Source
Student housing	€450–€800 / month	University of Helsinki
Total living costs	€1,000–€1,300 / month	University of Helsinki
Subsidised student meal	max €3.10	Kela, from 1 Jan 2026
Special student meals	€4.50–€5.90	Kela, 2026
Student healthcare fee	€70.70 / year	FSHS, 2026
Student union membership	€40–€90 / year	Union-dependent
Public transport	40% student discount	HSL, season tickets only
Tuition, non-EU/EEA	€8,000–€20,000 / year	Varies by university
Tuition, EU/EEA	None	Statutory

Costs outside the capital region are meaningfully lower — Tampere, Kuopio and Oulu are different housing markets from Helsinki. All four of our current programmes sit in or near the capital region, so budget on the higher end of these ranges rather than the lower.

Working while you study

A student residence permit allows work averaging 30 hours a week. That is the part people get wrong: it is an average across the year, which comes to 120 hours a month and 1,560 hours a year — not a hard weekly ceiling. A full-time summer and a quiet exam term are both fine as long as the annual total holds.

Work that carries credits — a clinical placement, an assessed internship, thesis work — is exempt when it is agreed in advance as part of your degree.

What we will not tell you is that part-time work covers your costs. For most students it covers some of them. Budget as if it covers none, and treat what you earn as the margin.

Insurance

You need private cover in place from the day the permit starts: €120,000 for medical care if your studies run under two years, or €40,000 for pharmaceutical expenses if they run two years or more. Once you are registered as a resident, public healthcare and FSHS student health services carry most of the day-to-day load.

After you graduate

You can apply for a residence permit to look for work or start a business for up to two years, at any point within five years of your study permit expiring. You do not have to use it immediately, and you do not have to use all of it.

Permanent residence is a separate, conditional process that depends on continuous residence and on the rules in force at the time you apply. Anyone quoting you a fixed number of years to PR as a promise is describing a rule that can change, as though it cannot.

Bringing your family

On the two Metropolia diplomas your spouse and child can travel with you at the same time, on a one-year extendable visa. Each person has their own funds requirement, and they stack:

Who	Funds to show
Student	€9,600
Spouse	€8,400
Child	€7,320
Second child	€5,760

A student bringing a spouse and one child is therefore showing €25,320, not €9,600. That is the number people are most often surprised by, so plan from it rather than towards it. These amounts are proof of support only — the money is yours and you spend it living.

Insurance

You need private cover in place from the day the permit starts: €120,000 for medical care if your studies run under two years, or €40,000 for pharmaceutical expenses if they run two years or more. We arrange this through Swiss Care and handle the process with you.

Once you are registered as a resident, public healthcare and FSHS student health services carry most of the day-to-day load.

The fees you will actually be invoiced

Programme	Tuition	Application fee
Nursing Top-Up · Metropolia	€12,500 / year · estimated	—
Education Management · HUMAK	€13,500 once · estimated	—
Software Engineering · Metropolia	€12,500 once	€100
Industrial Management · Metropolia	€12,500 once	€100

Three of these are one-time fees for the whole programme rather than annual charges — worth checking carefully when you compare Finland against a country quoting per-year figures. EU/EEA citizens pay no tuition at all.