Filipino nurses have been in Finnish hospitals and care homes for fifteen years, and the pathway is well trodden — but it is a pathway, not a door: a licensed nurse trained outside the EU needs document verification, usually supplementary studies, and Finnish at YKI intermediate level before the right to practise is granted. This guide sets out the steps, the costs and the roles a candidate can fill while getting there.
A Filipino nurse in Finland passes through two unrelated systems. Layer one is professional recognition: the right to practise as a registered nurse or practical nurse, granted by the Finnish Supervisory Agency under the Health Care Professionals Act — it decides what title she may use and what she may do. Layer two is immigration: the residence permit for an employed person (TTOL), decided by Migri on the income rule and the labour-market assessment — it decides whether she may live and work in Finland at all. The permit does not grant a title and the title does not grant a permit; the permit is normally obtained first, for a non-regulated role, and recognition follows in Finland.
The realistic timeline from arrival to the right to practise as a registered nurse is a year or more, driven by the language and the studies rather than by the agency.
Care assistant (hoiva-avustaja) is not a regulated title and is how most Filipino nurses enter Finnish care: employed by you under the private social-services or wellbeing-services collective agreement, working alongside practical nurses while studying Finnish and completing the supplementary studies. Practical nurse (lähihoitaja) is itself a protected title — a Philippine nursing degree is not automatically a practical-nurse qualification, and the route to that title also runs through the agency or a Finnish vocational qualification. We set this out in writing to every candidate before selection; a nurse who arrives believing she will be licensed in three months leaves in six.
Finnish is the timeline. We start candidates in Manila before departure to A1–A2 with structured courses, and the employer continues to YKI intermediate in Finland — typically twelve to eighteen months of study alongside work. Swedish-speaking employers on the coast can plan the same path in Swedish. Candidates who already hold Finnish or Swedish are rare and we say so rather than promise them.
The residence permit for an employed person; the income requirement is EUR 1,600 gross a month in 2026 and the collective agreement — the wellbeing-services agreement for public employers, the private social-services agreement for most care companies — sets the actual wage line by task and qualification. Nurses and practical nurses are named among the national labour-shortage sectors in the June 2025 decree.
Recruitment runs through our own DMW-licensed agency, Prime Search Manpower Agency Inc. in Makati (licence DMW-027-LB-11182024): your company is accredited at the Migrant Workers Office in London, which has jurisdiction for the Nordic countries, the job order is registered with the DMW, and every worker leaves Manila with a verified contract, medical clearance, pre-departure orientation and an Overseas Employment Certificate. Recruitment follows the employer-pays principle: no applicant pays for an interview, a trade test or a place on a shortlist. Your company is the employer from day one; we never employ or lease the workers.
Everything here is subject to the Aliens Act as amended, Migri's income requirement and practice in force, the universally binding collective agreement for the sector and Philippine DMW rules.
Valvira's professional-licensing tasks moved to the new Finnish Supervisory Agency (Lupa- ja valvontavirasto), which started operating at the beginning of 2026. Applications, fees and language rules are published on lvv.fi.
No. Until the right to practise is granted she works in a non-regulated role — typically care assistant — under your supervision structure, while completing the language and supplementary studies.
YKI intermediate level, i.e. levels 3–4, in speaking, writing, listening and reading, in Finnish or Swedish. There is no exemption for English-language units.
That is for the employment contract; many Finnish employers fund the pathway against a retention agreement. Recruitment itself follows the employer-pays principle — no candidate pays for a place on a shortlist.
We present nursing graduates and experienced caregivers for care-assistant roles with a path to the practical-nurse or registered-nurse title; we do not present candidates as practical nurses unless the agency has granted the title.
General information for employers, not legal or migration advice. Rules change; we re-verify before each hire.