Grants and unemployment benefits

Becoming unemployed after the start of a grant period

Working with the help of a grant awarded to cover living expenses for more than four months is comparable to working as an entrepreneur, and once an artist no longer works under such a grant, he or she may be entitled to employment benefits.

If you become unemployed after the end of your grant period, you must register as an unemployed jobseeker with the TE Services. To be entitled to unemployment benefits, you must be willing to accept a full-time position.

You can work in a secondary capacity after the grant period, in which case you may be entitled to adjusted unemployment benefit. After the grant period, you are considered to work as an artist in a primary capacity if the amount of work you do prevents you from accepting a full-time position. For more information in Finnish about working in a primary and secondary capacity, please see the instructions on the website of the Artists’ Association of Finland.

Receiving a grant while you are unemployed

You can receive a grant for different purposes while you are unemployed. If you receive a working grant, which is intended to help you make art in a primary capacity, you are not entitled to unemployment benefits. In terms of other grants, your entitlement to unemployment benefits is assessed on a case-by-case basis. You must report all grants that you receive to the TE Services.

If you are an unemployed jobseeker and you are awarded a grant while you are unemployed, you are considered to have started work on the date on which you could first withdraw the grant, unless you can show that you could not start working under the grant due to a reason beyond your control.

Other ways to prove the start date of a grant period include:

• the start date of the grant stated by the awarding organisation,
• inability to work,
• proof submitted by the person/organisation in charge of the project showing that the original start date had to be postponed,
• the host’s proof of the date of the visit or
• a certain period spent working abroad.

Work under a grant is considered to start on the date on which you announce that you have started work under the grant.

However, if you have been awarded a grant for an extended period of time (for over four months), the grant period is determined based on the date on which you were required to take out a MYEL pension insurance.

In terms of the start date and duration of a grant period, the information provided by the grant-awarding organisation takes precedence. If the duration of the grant period is given in months in the grant decision, the duration is calculated as full months from the start of the work under the grant.

The applicant can also prove the duration of the grant period by presenting a document detailing the duration of the grant period obtained from the pension institute. If the grant period has not been determined with the help of a financing or insurance decision, the grant period is estimated by dividing the grant received by the monthly amount of the state artist grant. 

The Arts Promotion Centre Finland confirms the amount of the state artist grant annually. You can check the monthly amount of the state artist grant from the Arts Promotion Centre website. The monthly amount of a grant can, in practice, be higher than the amount of a tax-free grant, but the duration is only taken into consideration based on the information provided by the organisation awarding the grant.