A Deportation Order Stopped

Many people do not realise how quickly a work-based residence permit case can turn into something far more serious. In our client’s case, what began as a renewal application ended with a rejection, a deportation decision, and an instruction to leave Finland. The Finnish Immigration Service refused the client’s extended permit application and decided to remove him to Vietnam. The authority relied heavily on partial decisions issued by the TE-Office, which concluded that the conditions for a worker’s residence permit had not been met.

The first problem was procedural. One of the client’s employers had not submitted the requested “Työehdot” form by the deadline, and the TE-Office therefore issued a negative partial decision. The second problem was substantive. The TE-Office also concluded that the client’s income would remain far below the required threshold, estimating regular earnings to be only between 256 and 400 euros per month, which the authority treated as proof that the client could not support himself through work. Both conclusions were decisive in the negative decision issued by the Finnish Immigration Service, despite the fact that they did not reflect the client’s actual working life and financial reality.

Our client came to us after receiving the negative decision. We appealed the case to the Helsinki Administrative Court and focused on correcting what the file had failed to show at the time the authority made its assessment.

The case then reached a critical point when the Finnish Immigration Service argued during the appeal that the income requirement should be assessed against the new minimum gross salary threshold that came into force on 1 January 2025, requiring at least 1,600 euros per month. The Finnish Immigration Service claimed that the income reflected in the file still fell below this threshold. The matter could have ended there, if the client had not acted quickly and if the legal strategy had not been precise.

We responded with a final set of clarifications and updated agreements showing that the client’s working hours had been increased by contract with both employers.

The Helsinki Administrative Court accepted the significance of this new evidence and reached the correct procedural outcome. The court overturned Migri’s decision and annulled the TE-Office partial decisions, returning the matter to the Finnish Immigration Service for a new examination. Most importantly, the deportation decision was neutralised, and the client’s case was restored to a position where it must now be assessed on accurate facts rather than incomplete or outdated information.

This decision proves that a negative decision is not always the end of the story. When the facts are corrected, when the evidence is properly presented, and when the case is argued with discipline, it is possible to overturn even a deportation decision and force the system to reassess the case in line with reality.