One way to demonstrate your language skills for the Finnish citizenship application is to take the language test for the National Certificate of Language Proficiency (YKI) in Finnish or Swedish at the intermediate level (3) or higher.

On this page, you can read more about using the YKI-test for your Finnish citizenship application. The Finnish National Agency for Education organises the YKI tests, but the Finnish Immigration Service is responsible for the citizenship applications.

How to use YKI test to prove your language skills

According to the guidelines of the Finnish Immigration Service, applicants for the Finnish citizenship need to prove their language skills in Finnish or Swedish by attaching a language proficiency certificate with their citizenship application. You can get a language proficiency certificate by passing the oral and written parts of the National Certificate of Language Proficiency test (YKI test) at the intermediate (3) skill level or higher.

YKI-test has four components (also known as subtests): speaking, writing, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension. All four components will be taken during the same test day and on the same skill level that you chose in the registration phase for the YKI test.

To meet the requirements for spoken and written language skills, only the following combinations of test components are accepted:

1) speaking and writing

OR

2) listening comprehension and writing

OR

3) reading comprehension and speaking.

Please note that you will only be given the certificate when you take the whole test, including all the four components. However, you can demonstrate the required component combinations for the citizenship application by combining several certificates (Certificates received from 1 January 2012 onwards).

 

Additional Resources

Please see below additional information on the YKI test, requirements on the Finnish citizenship application and the legistation regarding the topic.