In Finland, a permanent address refers to the permanent home address where you live. This address determines your municipality of residence. A permanent address in Finland enables you to, for example, use public health care services. Your municipality of residence also has an impact on your right to vote in municipal elections. Estonia also offers different rights and benefits to people who live permanently in Estonia. The country in which your permanent address is registered may affect your rights, benefits and obligations. For this reason, your permanent place of residence, i.e. permanent address, can only be registered in one place at a time.

If you move from Finland to Estonia for a period shorter than one year, for example because of work or studies, you can submit a notification of temporary move to the Digital and Population Data Services Agency. In this case, your municipality of departure in Finland will remain your municipality of residence, and the rights and obligations associated with it will apply to you. You must also inform the Estonian local authorities that you are not moving to Estonia on a permanent basis. However, you may obtain an Estonian per-sonal identity code and have your contact details registered in the Estonian population register.

In a special situation, we can also mark your address in Estonia as temporary for a pe-riod longer than one year. Such a special situation requires that you have a closer con-nection to Finland than Estonia based on your living conditions. In this situation, living abroad can last for a maximum of three years.

The Finnish or Estonian authorities will contact you if your permanent address is still registered in both countries at the beginning of 2026. The purpose of the contact is to determine which of the addresses in the registers should be marked as your permanent address. If the authorities are unable to reach you, the address you last moved to according to the register data will be confirmed as your permanent address.

The registered address must correspond to your actual residence, i.e. you must register an address in the country where you live.

EU citizens have the right to stay in another EU country for three months without registering. This also applies to staying in Estonia. If a Finnish citizen stays in Estonia for no more than three months at a time, the address does not need to be reported to the Estonian authorities. In that case, the permanent address in the Finnish register remains the permanent residence. The three-month period will start again at the beginning, for example if you make a weekend trip from Estonia to Finland.

Moving to Estonia is not a condition for obtaining a study place. To be accepted for a study place, students only need to have an Estonian personal identity code. However, it does not entitle you to free services in Estonia, such as public transport.
 

In 2024, Finland receives information only on Finnish citizens living in Estonia for comparison in the registers. 

At a later stage, the exchange of information will apply to three different categories of people:

1. People moving permanently from Finland to Estonia or from Estonia to Finland regardless of their nationality
2. Estonian citizens living in Finland
3. Finnish citizens living in Estonia

Both countries comply with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation, and the treaty contains provisions that the exchanged personal information may only be used for the purpose of updating the population register. Once the information has been stored, population register data may only be disclosed to other authorities, for example, under the conditions allowed by the Population Information Act. Data subject to a non-disclosure order are not disclosed to Estonia.

The disclosure of information is based on legislation and a treaty concluded between the states of Finland and Estonia. However, if you have a non-disclosure for personal safety reasons, your address information will not be forwarded to Estonia, only the information that you live in Finland. The agreement can be found in the Finlex service (in Finnish).

According to the law, everyone is obliged to submit a notification of move whenever they move to a new address. A notification of move must be made when moving within Finland, to Finland from a foreign country or away from Finland.  

In addition, a Finnish citizen living abroad is obliged to notify the Digital and Population Data Services Agency if they move from one address to another abroad.

We process notifications in their order of arrival. Our processing times may temporarily increase in early 2026. There may also be differences in the processing times between Finland and Estonia. 

You can find our average processing times on the Processing times page. 

If you live in both apartments yourself, you can choose which address will be your permanent address going forward. 

• If you choose the address in Estonia as your permanent address, submit an emigration notification (i.e. notification that your Finnish address is no longer valid) to the Digital and Population Data Services Agency at muuttoilmoitus.fi. 
• If you choose the address in Finland as your permanent address, submit an emigration notification (i.e. notification that your Estonian address is no longer valid) to the Estonian registration authority.   

If you have a permanent address registered in both countries at the beginning of 2026, the Finnish or Estonian authorities will contact you. The purpose is to determine which of the addresses will be marked as your permanent address. If the authorities are unable to reach you, the permanent address will be the address you last moved to. The dates of move are checked from the national population registers.