Termination of membership
Membership of an unemployment fund is an important support in the face of the ups and downs of working life. There may be times in your life when you consider giving us up. Fortunately, in most situations, giving up is not necessary. See the list below to find out what to do with your membership in different situations.
Choose a reason for terminating your membership:
It is important that you have an uninterrupted membership in an unemployment fund. As a member of YTK, you do not need to change your fund even if you move to work in a different field. All you need to so is pay the membership fee once a year, and you are all sorted! At YTK, you can choose only the easy earnings-related security service or include a super-affordable package of useful working life services, from Legal Buddy to continuing professional development services and member discounts. Have you already familiarized yourself with your benefits?
If you are thinking of joining a trade union, remember that membership in the YTK does not prevent you from doing so. This means that you can be a member of us and a trade union in your field at the same time. Typically, the union membership fee also includes the membership fee at an unemployment fund. If you choose to stay with us, make sure that you do not pay the membership fee to another fund unnecessarily.
If you decide to leave us, we thank you for your membership. You are always welcome back!
When you change unemployment funds, remember to join another unemployment fund within one month of terminating your membership with us. This is the only way of transferring your membership and employment history you have accrued with us to another unemployment fund. This ensures that your income security will not be interrupted.
When you retire on an old-age pension, you no longer need the services of an unemployment fund. However, retirement does not automatically end your membership with us. Therefore, remember to send us a written notice of termination online.
With notices of termination, we often receive friendly thank you messages. We truly appreciate all your kind messages!
Your pension insurance company needs payment information from us to calculate your pension. We provide payment information electronically to the Finnish Centre for Pensions upon its request. The Finnish Centre for Pensions forwards the information to your pension insurance company.
Retirement is one of the few situations where membership can be terminated retroactively.
We thank you for your membership and wish you all the best and good health for your retirement!
The YTK membership fee can be too high in some situations. We regret that there is currently no possibility to apply for a membership fee waiver. However, you can ask our customer service for more time to pay or for the possibility to pay in instalments. Please feel free to contact us, we will certainly be able to find a solution.
We recommend joining the entrepreneur fund as soon as you start working combined-time as an entrepreneur. Only as a member of an entrepreneur’s fund do you accrue the employment history for an entrepreneur. Remember to join the entrepreneur fund no later than one month after leaving us. §This will protect you in a situation where you become unemployed before the employment condition for an entrepreneur is met.
If you are employed as a combined-time entrepreneur, you can, if you wish, retain your membership in YTK Unemployment Fund for a maximum of 18 months. After this, your membership will be terminated. If you do not switch to an entrepreneur’s fund, remember to inform us of the start date of your business operations. This option may be appropriate if the business operations lasts only a short time. Keep in mind, however, that as a self-employed person you are not accruing employment history in an employee fund, and after 18 months you lose any employment history you may have previously accrued. Read more about the transition to self-employment.
If you work simultaneously as an entrepreneur and an employee, you can choose whether to insure your earnings with us or with an entrepreneur’s fund. If you need help deciding, contact us, and we’ll find out the best solution for you, or find out more here.
It always pays to study. And there are now many ways to combine studying with unemployment benefits. Remember that you can also build up your working time during your studies. This will give you security after graduation.
Under the Unemployment Insurance Act, you will not lose the working time credit you have already accumulated if you are absent from the labour market for an acceptable reason. Studying is such a valid reason. Therefore, if you have been working before you started studying, you will keep the working time credits you have accumulated when you pay the contribution for the period of study. An acceptable reason extends the period of examination of the employment condition by up to seven years. However, your membership of the unemployment fund must be maintained and you only keep it by paying the contribution.
As a rule, you are insured against unemployment in the country where you work. An exception to this is work performed as a posted employee for a Finnish employer. In this case, the employee fund you are with must be in Finland. Read more.
According to the Unemployment Security Act, you will not lose the employment history you have already accrued if you are absent from the labour market for an acceptable reason. Maternity leave, parental leave and child home care allowance for children up to 3 years of age are such acceptable reasons. Therefore, if you have been working before the start of the leave, you will retain the accrued employment history you have accrued, as long as you pay the membership fee normally. With an acceptable reason, you may extend the review period of the employment condition by up to seven years. However, you must remain a member in an unemployment fund, and you can do so only by keeping up with the membership fees.
We are sorry for your bad experience.
Our goal is to provide the best customer service in Finland. We have defined good customer service through the customer experience. When you are not satisfied, something has gone wrong.
You are important to us and if you haven’t already given us feedback, we’d love to hear about your experience. You can send us a message via OmaYTK or contact our customer service team by phone. We can learn from everything and continue to improve our service.
According to the Unemployment Security Act, you will not lose the employment history you have already accrued if you are absent from the labour market for an acceptable reason. Sick leave is considered an acceptable reason. Therefore, if you have been working before the start of the sick leave, you will retain the accrued employment history you have accrued, as long as you pay the membership fee normally. With an acceptable reason, you may extend the review period of the employment condition by up to seven years. However, you must remain a member in an unemployment fund, and you can do so only by keeping up with the membership fees.
According to the Unemployment Security Act, you will not lose the employment history you have already accrued if you are absent from the labour market for an acceptable reason. National military or civilian service is such an acceptable reason. Therefore, if you have been working before the start of your service, you will retain the accrued employment history you have accrued, as long as you pay the membership fee normally. With an acceptable reason, you may extend the review period of the employment condition by up to seven years. However, you must remain a member in an unemployment fund, and you can do so only by keeping up with the membership fees.
The relatives of a deceased person often have many mundane things to deal with, in addition to their grief. Here, we’ve put together some advice on how to complete your unemployment benefit affairs.
Termination practices
You can resign from the unemployment fund at any time by filling in an electronic resignation form.
The date of resignation is the date of receipt of the resignation form. You can only resign retroactively if you change fund or retire. When you change fund, the date of resignation is the day before the date you join the other fund. Similarly, when you retire, the cut-off date is the day before your pension starts.
Please note! If you are not paying the membership fee for 2025, please enter 1.1.2025 as the end date of your membership. Don’t forget to join us or another unemployment fund within one month of the date you ended your membership with us. This way you can ensure that there will be no interruptions in your unemployment insurance.
If you have paid a full year’s membership fee and leave in the middle of the year, please use the resignation form to indicate your account number for a refund of your membership fee. If there is more than 10 € left over from your membership fee, we can refund it at your request.
Other points to note
Only as a member of an unemployment fund can you collect a working condition. If you leave the fund and do not rejoin us or another unemployment fund within one month, you will lose the working conditions you have accumulated.
If you are joining an unemployment fund for entrepreneurs, you will be entitled to an employee’s daily allowance if you become unemployed before you meet the self-employment condition. This is subject to you joining the entrepreneurs fund within one month of leaving us.
The YTK is an unemployment fund. Membership with us does not prevent you from joining a trade union. So if you are about to join a trade union, you do not have to leave the YTK to join a trade union.