A non-EU citizen is legally residing in Finland in, for example, the following situations:

• They have a valid or pending Finnish residence permit.
• They stay for a maximum of 90 days with a visa, exempted from the visa requirement or with a residence permit of another Schengen state. 

Check the website of the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs to see whether you need a visa.  

If you already have a Finnish personal identity code, you can register a temporary address in Finland by submitting a notification of temporary move to Finland to the post office. Select the section “temporary change of address” in the form. 

You can apply for a municipality of residence when the conditions for receiving a municipality of residence listed at the beginning of the page are met.

A municipality of residence may be granted from the date on which the conditions for receiving a municipality of residence are met. However, the date on which the municipality of residence is granted cannot go back more than one month of the date on which you submitted the notification.

If information about your family relations has not yet been stored and you want to report them at the same time, please, bring with you a legalised original or certified copy of the original family relationship certificate, a translation of the certificate, if necessary, and a completed family relationship form. Please, find the correct form and more detailed instructions in "Life changes while living abroad".

If you have been issued a residence permit based on international protection (refugee status or subsidiary protection), you do not usually need to present certificates of family relationships. If you want your marital status to be recorded, please, take the completed form with you. If your marital status is unmarried, fill in the form for changing registered data (in Finnish) or, if your marital status is something else, select the correct notification form on our page "Life changes while living abroad".