Kela restates occupational-health reimbursement rates, caps and deadlines

Every employer must arrange preventive occupational health care for employees working in FinlandKela at its own costFinlex, and may additionally offer general-practitioner-level sickness careKela. Kela reimburses necessary and reasonable costsFinlex in two classesKela: preventive statutory care (korvausluokka I) at 60 percentKela, and sickness and other health care (korvausluokka II) at 50 percentFinlex, for one financial year at a time.

Payment depends on paperwork being in order. The employer must hold, in written form, an occupational-health agreement with the providerKela, a current workplace surveyKela (perusselvitys)Kela and an action plan covering the claimed yearKela; a plan cannot be drawn up retroactively for a year already endedKela. Services must follow good occupational-health practice, be free to employees, and come from a Soteri-registered producer using qualified professionals and experts. Claimed costs must reconcile to the year's bookkeeping net of VAT, the safety committee or representative must have had a chance to comment, and costs compensated under other provisions do not qualify.

Reimbursable costs are capped.Kela The latest confirmed maxima, for 2025Kela, are EUR 4,925 per employer per year at headcounts of nine or fewerKela, and EUR 492.50 per employee at ten or moreKela. Preventive costs are reimbursed firstKela and may fill the whole capKela; sickness-care costs may use only the remainderKela, at most 40 percent of the cap (EUR 1,970 flat, or EUR 197 per employee). Anything above the cap is not reimbursed.Kela

What counts is now catalogued separately: professional and expert services assessed as necessary, laboratory and imaging examinations, first-aid readiness where the survey identifies a risk and the plan records it, work-necessary vaccinations, remote services, GP-level care from the same provider as the preventive services, and an own clinic's setup and reasonable running costs excluding buildings. Support services bought directly from a private producer qualify with a referral from the employer's own provider. Outside the boundary are dental care, glasses, protective equipment, medicines except for foreign travel, drug tests, specialist care, therapy, leisure and management coaching, student care and separately invoiced administrative fees; other fringe health benefits may instead qualify for reimbursement of medical expenses, claimed by the employer on form SV131 with an employee mandate on form SV127.

Claims go in within six months of the financial year's endKela. Private individuals and households claim by calendar yearKela, no later than 30 JuneKela. Online filing with the provider's pre-data and a Suomi.fi mandate is fastest; paper form SV98a TTH remains the fallback. Municipal and wellbeing-services employers must deduct the 5 percent computational VAT refundKela, each claim covers one employer and business ID, and processing can take six months.

The same duties reach foreign employers having work done in Finland, employers hiring from abroad, and households employing assistants or domestic help, with reimbursement conditioned on Finnish employer sickness-insurance contributions on the wages. A worker dismissed on financial or production grounds keeps coverage for six months after the work obligation ends where the employer regularly employs at least 30 people and the employment lasted at least five yearsKela; the duty ends if the worker moves to a permanent or at least six-month post with another employer's care.

The legal basis is Sairausvakuutuslaki chapter 13 on occupational-health reimbursement with Työterveyshuoltolaki on the employer's duties, applied within the annual calculatory maxima Kela confirms, most recently for 2025.