A nonresident spouse alone does not qualify a second home for deductions

Taxpayers cannot rely on marriage alone to meet the family condition for Finland’s work-apartment deduction or the special-sector deduction for weekend travel from a second home when their spouse is not generally liable to Finnish tax.Vero Vero’s guidance now makes that restriction explicit and describes an exception where the couple has a common minor child.Vero This is a clarification of the eligibility test, rather than a new deduction or a change to its monetary limits.

The statutory child test matters. Tuloverolaki §95a refers to a permanent home where the taxpayer lives with a spouse or minor childFinlex; it does not require that child to be common to both partners.Finlex Vero’s detailed special-sector guidance similarly allows weekend-trip costs where the taxpayer normally lives abroad with minor children, irrespective of whether there is a spouse or that spouse is a Finnish nonresident taxpayer.Vero Advisers should therefore apply the fuller child-based test when the short guidance’s common-child wording does not describe the household.Vero For income-tax purposes, a minor child is one who had not turned 17 before the tax year began.Finlex

The work-apartment deduction requires accommodation obtained because of the location of the taxpayer’s regular workplace, alongside a permanent home. Both the workplace and the work apartment must be more than 100 kilometres from that permanent home. The deduction is at most €450 for each full calendar month in which the conditions are met, capped at the rent paid. Employer-provided accommodation can qualify, with its taxable benefit value setting the corresponding cap; right-of-occupancy and part-ownership rental housing can also qualify. An owner-occupied work apartment cannot.

A person without a qualifying family can still obtain the work-apartment deduction if two regular workplaces require two homes at the same time. Accommodation acquired for study, leisure or exclusively remote work does not qualify. Tax-free compensation or benefits for living in another locality prevent the deduction, and housing-use costs cannot be deducted twice; the household-expense tax credit does not itself prevent it. Spouses cannot both claim for the same month; if both claim, the deduction goes to the spouse with higher net earned income.

For construction, earthworks and forestry workers covered by the special-sector rules, staying in the same apartment or the same area for more than three years generally creates a second home. This is the setting for the weekend-trip family condition. A qualifying worker’s trips home are deducted using the cheapest means of transport under the commuting-expense rules, with the applicable excess and maximum. The restriction should not be extended to all temporary assignments: Vero’s detailed guidance says family circumstances do not determine deductibility of weekend trips made during an ongoing temporary assignment before the accommodation becomes a second home.

The legal basis is Tuloverolaki (1535/1992), particularly §§7, 8, 93 and 95a.