Frequently asked questions

You will not be entitled to an earnings-related daily allowance for the period for which we periodise the sales profit on the sale of your business assets related to the closure of your business.

Sales profit may arise for example, from the sale of shares, a partnership interest, a business or corporate assets. Sales profits may also arise from unsold business assets or those taken into your own use

The periodisation of sales profit is accounted for and any capital gain is amortised when you cease trading. The periodisation of sales profit is based on the income used as the basis for your earnings-related daily allowance. The periodisation of sales profit postpones the start of the maximum period of earnings-related daily allowance by the length of the period to which the periodisation of sales profit corresponds. The periodisation of sales profit from the sale of your business assets will be spread over a period of up to 24 months.

However, the periodisation of sales profit is not applied if your business has been in operation for less than 18 months, or if the balance sheet total of your business for the last financial year, after the deduction of business liabilities, does not exceed €20 000.

If you have not been obliged to draw up a balance sheet, please send us an inventory of assets.

Social benefits can have an impact on the earnings-related daily allowance. Some benefits prevent you from receiving the earnings-related allowance, some fully reduce the amount of the allowance and some have no effect on the benefits paid by the cashier.

Benefits that have no impact

These benefits do not usually reduce or prevent the payment of the daily allowance

• Voluntary pension insurance taken out by the person himself or herself, or by his or her company
• Housing allowance or pensioner’s housing allowance
• Child benefit
• Municipal allowance for home care support for children
• Partial care allowance (partial care leave)
• Flexible care allowance for a spouse
• Partial old-age pension
• Social assistance (unemployment allowance may, however, affect social assistance)
• Informal Care allowance
• Care allowance for a pensioner
• Compensation for functional limitation Workers Compensation Act
• Conscripts allowance and housing assistance under conscripts allowance
• Disability allowance (disability allowance under the Disability Benefits Act)
• Annuity and supplementary interest under the Military Injuries Act
• Compensation for special costs pursuant to the Employment Accident Insurance Act and the Military Injuries Act
• Compensation paid under a non-statutory insurance scheme, such as personal accident insurance or medical expenses insurance
• Privileged income paid pursuant to the legislation of another country
• Family pensions, including care and supplementary care pensions

Benefits that reduce the daily allowance

• Guaranteed pension, if it is granted in addition to one of the above benefits
• Childcare allowance (care allowance and care supplement)
• Flexible care allowance (spouse’s benefit is not affected)
• Partial disability pension and partial rehabilitation allowance under the Earnings-related Pension Acts
• Part-time pension under the Earnings-related Pension Acts
• Closure pension
• National pension paid pursuant to section 12(4) of the National Pension Act because of blindness, immobility or incapacity
• Daily allowance paid pursuant to the Military Injuries Act and not granted on the basis of full disability
• Compensation for loss of earnings under the Motor Insurance Act
• Workers’ compensation pension not granted on the basis of full disability
• Voluntary pension or supplementary pension provided by your employer
• Pension or other benefit from another country for total or partial invalidity
• Loss of income compensation pursuant to the Act on Compensation for Criminal Damages
• Loss of earnings compensation (pension) pursuant to the Patient Injuries Act
• Student allowance (if Kela has not recovered the benefit) and housing allowance
• Old-age pension not awarded on the basis of full years of service
• Daily allowance and workers’ compensation pension (supplementary annuity) paid pursuant to the Employment Accidents Insurance Act and not granted on the basis of full disability

Benefits that prevent the payment of the daily allowance

• Sickness allowance or partial sickness allowance granted under the Sickness Insurance Act
• Compensation for loss of earnings during rehabilitation measures
• Compensation for loss of earnings under the Employment Accidents Insurance Act  or the Military Injuries Act
• Old-age pension and early retirement pension
• Retirement pension based on full years of service
• Individual early retirement pension
• Disability pension or other benefit based on full disability
• Rehabilitation subsidy
• Unemployment pension
• Guarantee pension granted to supplement an old-age pension or early retirement pension
• An old-age pension granted in an EU/EEA country, comparable to a pension granted in Finland
• Maternity, special maternity, paternity or parental allowance (including child care leave)
• Special care allowance
• Adult education support
• A period of notice for which in accordance with the law or collective agreement salary should be paid

If a member receives a national pension under Article 22(2) of the National Pensions Act, or any other statutory benefit not mentioned above, his or her daily allowance is reduced by the amount of the benefit.

We pay an earnings-related daily allowance to members of the Entrepreneur Fund who are unemployed.

According to the Unemployment Security Act, an entrepreneur is unemployed if he or she closes down their business or when he or she is no longer employed in the business as outlined by the Unemployment Security Act.

In unemployment security, the concept of closing down a business depends on the type of company and your overall situation. A member of the fund may become entitled to earnings-related unemployment allowance after 15 months of membership and entrepreneurship.

Graduated reduction of daily allowance

Due to an amendment in legislation that came to effect on 2.9.2024 unemployment benefits will be reduced in tow steps:

• to 80% of the initial level after 40 days of unemployment benefit, and then
• to 75% of the initial level after 170 days of unemployment benefit.

The earnings-related unemployment allowance is paid for a maximum of five days per week, so 40 days of benefit means about two months and 170 days of benefit means about eight months.

The minimum rule
The earnings-related daily allowance has a minimum amount. The rule on the minimum amount means that the earnings-related daily allowance is always paid at least at the level of the basic daily allowance. The basic daily allowance is not graduated.

If the amount of the daily allowance before the differentiation is equal to the basic daily allowance, the differentiation does not affect the daily allowance.

The earnings-related daily allowance is also staggered during part-time work. However, the 40-day and 170-day time limits are met more slowly during part-time work.

Example:
Your full daily allowance is €70 per day. You work part-time and receive a daily allowance of €35 per day for the time you work. It takes 80 days to meet the 40-day time limit for staggering.

Where a deduction is made from the daily allowance on the basis of the earnings from part-time work and staggering of allowances at the same time, the deduction to the staggering is made before the deduction on earnings from work. You can estimate the amount of your daily allowance after deductions from the staggering of your allowance and your salary using this daily allowance calculator on the website of the federation on unemployment funds in Finland.

Example:
Your full daily allowance is €70 per day. You have been receiving your daily allowance for so long that the level is reduced due to staggering. You have been receiving a daily subsistence allowance of € 56 per day for a period of 70 days. You receive an income of €430 per month. The daily reduction in earned income is €10. The level of the daily allowance will be €46.

Your earnings-related daily allowance will be staggered, i.e. it will be reduced in two steps if you have ceased your business activity and your unemployment started on or after 2 September 2024.

If you receive daily allowance on the grounds that you are a part-time entrepreneur or have ceased to work in a business, your daily allowance will start to be staggered after 40 paid days following the cessation of your business activity, if your business activity subsequently ceases.

If you have been an employee and your unemployment started on or after 2 September 2024, the staggering will apply to you if you have been receiving wages that qualify you for the work requirement in or after September 2024.

The earnings-related daily allowance is graduated. This means that the level of the daily allowance decreases in two stages after allowance has been paid for a certain period of time.

Daily allowance decreases:

• 80% of the initial level after 40 days of daily allowance (approx. two months) and
• 75% of the initial level after 170 days of daily allowance (approx. 8 months).

According to the Unemployment Security Act, an entrepreneur is a person who is

1. YEL- and MYEL-insured (excluding the grant recipient),
   or
2. a TyEL-insured part-owner of a business and a member of the entrepreneur’s family, if he or she
   • owns, alone or jointly with family members, at least 15% or 30% of the company in which he/she works in a managerial position (director, member of the board of directors)
   • owns, alone or jointly with family members, at least 50% of the company in which he or she works without holding a managerial position (as an employee)

In addition, the income on which the pension insurance for self-employed workers is based must be at least €15 128 per year. Simply owning a business or part of a business does not make you an entrepreneur

Please contact our customer service, if you are unsure of your status as in unemployment security.

We ask about your YEL insurance level, as you can join the Entrepreneur’s Fund if the annual income based on your pension insurance (YEL/MYEL/TyEL) is at least €15 128 in 2025.

We will determine your daily allowance based on the level of insurance you had with the Entrepreneurs’ Fund for 15 months before you became unemployed. The insurance level you choose for the fund must not exceed the annual income of your statutory pension insurance (YEL, MYEL annual income or TyEL annual salary of a co-owner/entrepreneur family member).

We do not check the level of annual income on which your YEL insurance is based, and we do not receive direct information about changes to your YEL insurance annual income from your insurance company. As a member, you are therefore responsible for ensuring that your insurance level is correct.

You can join the Entrepreneurs’ Fund if you take out a self-employed persons’ pension insurance (YEL). Your YEL insurance must have an annual income of at least €15 128 in 2025.

You must insure yourself according to your primary job. If you are both an employee and an entrepreneur, you can choose whether you belong to the Entrepreneur Fund or an employee fund. You can join the Entrepreneur Fund if your annual pension insurance income is at least €15 128 in 2025.

You cannot belong to two different unemployment funds at the same time. On the membership application form, please authorize the new fund to send a notice of resignation to the previous fund. If you transfer from an employee fund to the Entrepreneur Fund within a month of starting your business, your unemployment security may continue uninterrupted.

To join, you must be an entrepreneur under the Unemployment Security Act and your pension insurance (YEL, MYEL or TyEL) must have an annual income of at least €15 128 in 2025.

According to the Unemployment Security Act, an entrepreneur is

1. A person liable for YEL and MYEL insurance (excluding grant recipients)

2. A TyEL-insured co-owner of a business and a member of the entrepreneur’s family, if he or she.

• owns, alone or jointly with family members, at least 15% or 30% of the company in which he/she works in a managerial position (managing director, member of the board)
• owns, alone or jointly with family members, at least 50% of the company in which he or she works without holding a managerial position (as an employee)

In addition, the income from work on which the pension insurance for self-employed persons is based must be €15 128/year. Simply owning a business or part of a business does not make you an entrepreneur.

Who is in a managerial position
A person is considered to have a managerial position in a company if he or she is the managing director or a member of the board of directors of a limited company or if he or she holds a similar position in a limited company or other company or entity.

Who is considered a family member
A family member is defined as the spouse and unmarried partner of a person working in the enterprise and a person directly related to the person working in the enterprise in the ascending or descending line (parents and children) and living in the same household as the person.

Indirect ownership
Indirect ownership through other companies and entities is also taken into account when calculating the ownership interest if the person or a member of his/her family or a person together with members of his/her family owns at least 50% of the intermediate entity or has equivalent control.

Short-term illness does not affect your right to unemployment benefit. However, please indicate on your daily allowance application if you are ill. Also find out your entitlement to sickness benefit. You can apply for this from Kela or, in some cases, from your insurance company.

Unemployment allowance is not paid for longer periods of illness or more permanent incapacity for work. The unemployment allowance can be paid by the Entrepreneur Fund for the days that are part of the Kela sickness allowance waiting period. If the illness continues after this period, the member of the Entrepreneur Fund will only receive Kela’s sickness allowance, not unemployment security. Notify the employment authority of your illness.

If your illness is serious enough to require hospital or other institutional care, please also mention this in your application. When you are in institutional care, you are legally unavailable for work. During this period, you are not entitled to income-related daily allowance.

Send a daily allowance application to the fund for the waiting period of sickness allowance paid by Kela. The fund receives the sickness allowance data directly from Kela. If an insurance company pays compensation for disability or accident, the fund needs a copy of the insurance company’s decisions.

The Entrepreneur Fund does not pay sickness allowances. If you fall ill as an entrepreneur, please apply for sickness allowance from Kela. Kela pays sickness allowance up to a maximum of 300 working days.

Apply to us for a reduced membership fee (€ 3 per month) for periods of sick leave of more than one month. Entitlement to a reduced membership fee starts from the next full calendar month. The period during which you are entitled to a reduced membership fee does not count towards the entrepreneur’s work requirement.

When you start receiving old-age pension, we cannot pay you any earnings-related daily allowance. As a rule, we can pay daily allowance until the end of the calendar month in which you turn 65. You can terminate your membership of the Entrepreneur Fund by sending us a message on your Member Pages or by filling in the resignation form. If you do not cancel your membership now, we will continue to charge you the reduced membership fee (€3/month).

Although you may not be entitled to an earnings-related daily allowance, as a member you can take advantage of the other services offered by the fund.

Our other services
We offer other services to our members in addition to the earnings-related daily allowance. If you want, we can call you about these services. To contact us, you can leave a message on the Member Pages.

KoulutusOnline
We offer our members the Helsinki Region Chamber of Commerce’s training platform KoulutusOnline. KoulutusOnline offers webinars on topics such as financial management, taxation, internationalisation, employment, management, sales, IT and digital skills. You can choose AI subtitles for all trainings. The subtitles are available in Finnish, Swedish and English.

Webinars
We offer you webinars as members. In our webinars, top lecturers in their fields will guide you through fascinating topics. You will receive an invitation and registration instructions for the webinars by email.

Database
In addition to the training platform, we created a database to guide entrepreneurs at different stages of entrepreneurship. Check out the database on our website here.

If you receive a partial disability pension or partial old-age pension, you should remain a member of the Entrepreneur Fund. If you become unemployed, any unemployment benefit will be determined primarily on the basis of the level of insurance before the pension and the annual income from the pension insurance.

The partial disability pension is deducted from any unemployment allowance. If you start receiving a partial disability pension, let us know by sending us a message on the Member Pages.

A partial old-age pension does not prevent or reduce the amount of the daily allowance.

As a rule, unemployment allowance can be paid up to the end of the calendar month in which you turn 65.

In most cases, you should keep your membership of the fund active to keep any months you have accumulated toward the work requirement. If your YEL-income or MYEL-income or TyEL salary is less than €15,128 (at 2025 levels) or if your pension insurance is not valid, you will not be able to accumulate a new work requirement. However, by maintaining the membership of the fund, you can keep the work requirement you have previously accumulated. As a general rule, the months of work requirement accumulated before the reduced fee will remain valid as long as they fit into the last 48 months.

If any of the above apply to you, you can apply for a reduced membership fee on your membership page. Please attach to your application a certificate from your insurance company confirming your annual income from YEL-/MYEL insurance or (the employer’s) certificate of salary (TyEL insured). It is not sufficient to submit your own declaration alone and you should not submit any medical certificates, for example.

Please send us a message on your Member pages. In 2025, the work requirement will only accrue when the insurance level in the fund and the annual income from YEL/MYEL/TyEL insurance are at least €15,128. You cannot declare a higher level of insurance than the annual income from your YEL/MYEL/TyEL insurance.

The Entrepreneur Fund will be paid an amount equal to the basic daily allowance (EUR 37.21 in 2025) for each daily allowance, and the rest of the funding will be covered by the Entrepreneur Fund itself. The Employees’ Fund will be paid a state contribution and a contribution from the Employment Fund. The Employees’ Fund will be responsible for 5.5% of the earnings-related daily allowance, while the Entrepreneur Fund will be responsible for around 40%.

In addition, the equalisation fund of the Entrepreneur Fund must be significantly larger than that of the Employees’ Fund. In order to ensure the funding and liquidity of the Entrepreneur Fund, the equalisation fund must have a minimum amount (250%) set by the Financial Supervisory Authority, which means that the Entrepreneur Fund will be able to cover its administrative costs and its out-of-pocket benefit costs for two and a half years without any income from membership fees. For the Employees’ Fund, the equalisation fund must be at least 100%.

Due to the different funding base, the membership fee of the Entrepreneur Fund is higher than that of the Employees’ Fund.

In 2025, the membership feen for the Entrepreneur Fund will be 1.7% of the part of the insured annual income exceeding EUR 9 600.

You can choose up to the level of pension insurance (YEL, MYEL, TyEL) corresponding to your annual income. The sum can therefore be any amount you choose that exceeds €15 128. You can use the member fee calculator to calculate the amount of your membership fee.

The Financial Supervisory Authority confirms the membership fee of the Entrepreneur Fund on the basis of the Fund’s proposal. The unemployment fund membership fee must be set at a level that, together with the contributions, is sufficient to meet the unemployment fund’s commitments, i.e. to pay benefits. In addition, when the membership fee is fixed, account must be taken of the fact that the unemployment fund must have a smoothing fund to which the annual surplus of the unemployment fund is transferred in order to ensure its financing and liquidity.

The Entrepreneur Fund will be paid an amount equal to the basic daily allowance (EUR 37.21 in 2025) for each earnings-related daily allowance, and the rest of the funding will be covered by the Entrepreneur Fund itself. The Employees’ Fund will be paid a state contribution and a contribution from the Employment Fund. The Employees’ Fund will be responsible for 5.5% of the earnings-related daily allowance, while the Entrepreneur Fund will be responsible for around 40%. Due to the different funding base, the Entrepreneur Fund has a higher membership fee than the Employees’ Fund.

Paper invoices
We will send you paper invoices by post once a year as a reference list between Christmas and February. The invoice will include all instalments in either 1, 4 or 12 instalments of your choice.

If you want to get rid of paper invoices, you can switch to e-invoicing. Here’s how to get started with e-invoicing:

1. Sign in to your personal online bank.
2. Select the Entrepreneur’s Unemployment Fund as the biller, and enter your personal identification number as the unique identifier.
3. In future, you will receive your invoices in your online bank.

e-invoices
Electronic e-invoices are always sent to your online bank well in advance of your due date, one item at a time.

On the Member Pages, you can follow the processing of your application, fill in your daily allowance application and send attachments and messages. You can also make changes to your membership by sending us a message. Log in to the Member Pages with your personal bank details.

You can find your invoice on the Statements tab of the Member Pages. You can find a copy of your mailed reference list on the Messages tab of your member pages under Other Communications.

As a member of the Entrepreneur Fund, you can contact the fund on your Member Pages or by phone on 09 622 4830. You can also send mail to Entrepreneur Fund, P.O. Box 86, 00251 Helsinki.

If you do not belong to the fund, you can call us on 09 622 4830 or email neuvonta@yrittajakassa.fi.

You can change your membership details by posting a message on your membership page.