Pauliina Helminen is the new Director of the Permit and Nationality Unit

Helminen has accumulated versatile experience of working in the immigration administration. She is currently Head of Branch in the Permit and Nationality Unit. Helminen has been engaged in different tasks in the Finnish Immigration Service since 2000.

“I am very excited about my new role and its complex challenges. Tough targets have been set for the unit for the next few years, and it is important for me that we will strive to achieve them together with the entire personnel. I would like to contribute to making sure that our activities are of a high quality and as streamlined and customer-centric as possible”, Helminen says.

Among other things, the Permit and Nationality Unit processes the residence permit applications of those moving to Finland for work, studies or family reasons as well as citizenship applications. Additionally, it is responsible for registering the residence of EU citizens and their family members. Nine service points around Finland are also part of the unit, which has approximately 390 employees in 2021.

In developing the work of the Permit and Nationality Unit, the significance of automation and implementing reforms associated with it are particularly important. Achieving the capability to process residence permits for employed persons within one month by 2023, and permits for specialists, start-up entrepreneurs and their family members within two weeks before the end of 2021, is a key target of the Finnish Immigration Service.